On Martin's Four Discourse Semantic Systems

Bateman (1998: 6-7):

The four regions of discourse semantics addressed in depth are NEGOTIATION, IDENTIFICATION, CONJUNCTION and IDEATION. NEGOTIATION concerns those resources of discourse semantics that are responsible for the construction of dialogue and interaction. IDENTIFICATION captures the semantic resources for referring to and tracking discourse participants. CONJUNCTION develops the ‘logic’ of English text in terms of those resources by which semantic messages are combined into larger complex messages, and through which messages are related to previously expressed messages as a text or dialogue unfolds. And IDEATION attempts to motivate those systematic selections from groups of ‘related’ lexical items that bring about a text’s ‘lexical’ cohesion. Each of these therefore illustrates a distinct general kind of meaning carried in discourse and can be broadly allocated to a particular metafunction: NEGOTIATION is broadly interpersonal, IDENTIFICATION textual, CONJUNCTION logical, and IDEATION experiential. Consequently, as with grammar, it appears the case that diverse kinds of discourse structure may be usefully posited for each area.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, in theoretical terms, these four are proposed systems of a proposed discourse semantic stratum.

[2] To be clear, this is the apt subtitle of the chapter on CONJUNCTION. For some of the violations of logic in this chapter, see the 103 critiques here.  Martin abandons the most general categories of expansion — elaboration, extension and enhancement — and because Martin's CONJUNCTION is a largely a rebranding, relocating and misunderstanding of Halliday's system of grammatical cohesion, it doesn't include the other major logico-semantic system, projection, at all. This undermines any systematic account of grammatical metaphor, even if it redefined less precisely as 'interstratal tension'.

[3] The use of 'broadly' here is an unjustified hedge.  Metafunctions are distinct perspectives on meaning, and Martin specifically assigns each of his systems to each of the metafunctions.

[4] The proposed unit of Martin's textual system of IDENTIFICATION is the experiential category 'participant'.  Martin's system is a rebranding, relocating and misunderstanding of Halliday's grammatical system of cohesive reference, as demonstrated here.

[5] Martin's logical system of CONJUNCTION is a confusion of the structural relations between clauses in complexes (logical metafunction) and non-structural cohesive conjunctive relations (textual metafuction).

[6] Martin's experiential system of IDEATION is a confusion of lexical cohesion (textual metafunction), and misunderstandings of 'lexis as most delicate grammar', inter alia, as demonstrated here.

[7] This is misleading.  As Martin (1992: 331) points out after describing all four of his discourse semantic systems:

All the discourse structures introduced to this point have been covariate ones, with the exception of the multivariate interpretation of the exchange introduced in Chapter 2. But even there the multivariate approach presented only a partial picture; covariate tracking and challenging structures had to be developed to fill out the picture. Lexical relations are also covariate structures — message parts depend semantically on each other, and depending message parts are themselves depended on.

That is, for the most part, the "diverse kinds of discourse structure…posited for each area" is the one kind, covariate — which was later repudiated as a structure type by its originator, Lemke, several years before Martin's publication, as previously shown.  For a critique of the above extract, see here.