On Martin's Controversial Move To Explicitly Consider Semantics

Bateman (1998: 23):

It is also certainly not the case that Martin’s approach is uncontroversial, even within his own functional tradition. The need for a move to explicitly consider semantics has sometimes been downplayed, aided in part by the rich functional semantic flavour that permeates grammatical descriptions such as that found in Halliday’s IFG; here “the grammar is infused with meaning, and a stratal distinction between grammar and semantics systematically blurred.’’[p33]. 

Blogger Comments:

[1] Here Bateman again frames the matter in terms of agreement among linguists instead of in terms of theoretical validity.  The distinction between agreement and validity is encapsulated in the following cartoon of B. Kliban:

[2] This is potentially misleading, since Martin does not "explicitly consider semantics", because his discourse semantics, as previously explained, is merely a combination of Halliday's textual lexicogrammar (rebranded cohesion systems) and Halliday's previously theorised semantic system (rebranded speech function).

[3] To be clear, as Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 49) explain:

Being a ‘functional grammar’ means that priority is given to the view ‘from above’; that is, grammar is seen as a resource for making meaning — it is a ‘semanticky’ kind of grammar. But the focus of attention is still on the grammar itself.

[4] This quote from Martin demonstrates his misunderstanding of stratification, which is also encompassed in his mantra 'all strata make meaning', which confuses stratification ('all strata') with semogenesis ('make meaning'), and leads him to interpret every stratum as a stratum of meaning.  See, for example, Misrepresenting Stratification.

To be clear, SFL theory distinguishes between meaning (semantics) and wording (lexicogrammar), principally because the distinction is essential for the systematic understanding of grammatical metaphor.

On The Substantive Content Of Martin's English Text

Bateman (1998: 23):

Concerning the substantive content of the book, it is not possible that one would agree with all of the claims and analyses that Martin makes, nor with all aspects of the methodology, and some unclarities are introduced by the very position developed. For example, since now so much work is being done in the discourse semantics, there are probably ramifications for how a lexicogrammar should be organised: in Chapter 3, Martin notes his earlier critique of Halliday’s DEIXIS network in lexicogrammar, and in Chapter 5 the restriction of lexis as most delicate grammar to field-neutral oppositions is clearly a strong constraint. But there is little discussion of this in the book; it is generally stated that the account is compatible with Halliday and Matthiessen’s descriptions, which may be broadly the case. But particular differences in description may well be necessary. However, given that the focus of English Text is primarily on the discourse semantic stratum, this omission is probably quite justified.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, it is not a matter whether linguists agree about Martin's theorising, but whether Martin's theorising agrees with data and with the rest of the theory in which it is situated.

[2] To be clear, Martin's discourse semantics, apart from his rebranding of speech function, is rebranded lexicogrammar (textual cohesion):

• IDENTIFICATION is rebranded cohesive reference and ellipsis-&substitution, misunderstood, and confused with ideational denotation and with interpersonal deixis of the nominal group, inter alia (evidence here);
• IDEATION is rebranded lexical cohesion, misunderstood as experiential in metafunction, and confused with lexis as most delicate grammar and with misunderstood logical relations between ergative functions of the clause, inter alia (evidence here); and
• CONJUNCTION is rebranded cohesive conjunction, misunderstood as logical in metafunction, and confused with misunderstood logical relations between clauses in clause complexes (evidence here).

[3] To be clear, Martin confuses the interpersonal deictic function of determiners in the nominal group with the textual reference function of determiners in non-structural cohesion (evidence here).

[4] To be clear, Martin's proposal (pp289-90) is to locate "field-neutral" lexical taxonomies in lexicogrammar and "field-specific" lexical taxonomies outside language at the level of context (misunderstood as register) — with lexical relations at the level between them, discourse semantics.  

In terms of stratification, the proposal locates lexicogrammatical phenomena at three levels of symbolic abstraction, one of them outside language.  In terms of realisation, the proposals are that:

• field-specific lexical taxonomies are realised in lexical relations, and
• lexical relations are realised in field-neutral taxonomies

Or, taking metaredundancy into account, field-specific lexical taxonomies are realised in the realisation of lexical relations in field-neutral taxonomies.

[5] To be clear, Martin's account is not even broadly "compatible with Halliday & Matthiessen's descriptions"; it violates the theoretical architecture and misunderstands its basic concepts (evidence here).

[6] To be clear, the difference between modelling semantics and lexicogrammar is the level of symbolic abstraction, meaning or wording, that the theorising is concerned with.  A model of semantics specifies the systems of meaning that are realised in wording; a model of lexicogrammar specifies the systems of wording that realise meaning.

On Martin's System Of Nuclear Relations

Bateman (1998: 22-3):

Even I am not quite sure about Figure 5.23, which sets out the subtypes of nuclear lexical relations in IDEATION: It could be a summary overview of the material or a very interesting hypothesis about the relationship between the semantic region of IDEATION and its lexicogrammatical realisation. I suspect the latter, but this interpretation is certainly missed in, for example, Tucker’s (1998) review of approaches to lexis, Martin’s included. Tucker criticises Martin for not giving details of lexicogrammatical realisation, whereas the details of Figure 5.23 are very precise in the particular grammatical environments called for. Martin may well have intended these possible alternative interpretations; they certainly invite close consideration of the nature and form of a linguistic description!

These superficial difficulties can all, by and large, be unravelled or contextualised by close reading, but for the student who is perhaps still struggling with the overall map of the system, the difficulty is an unnecessary overhead.

Blogger Comments:

[1] As this blog demonstrates, Bateman's "modest" use of even I (thematised counter-expectancy: exceeding) is entirely unwarranted.

[2] To be clear, Martin's Figure 5.23, Nuclear Relations In English, is the system network for nuclear relations, one of the more delicate systems of Lexical Relations In English (Figure 5.10), and so, in that sense, it is a "summary overview of the material".

The reason why Figure 5.23 is not "a very interesting hypothesis about the relationship between the semantic region of IDEATION and its lexicogrammatical realisation" is that it does not specify how any of its features are realised grammatically.

One reason why Bateman was fooled, in this respect, is that Martin falsely presents examples — chase + cat, her + cat, etc — in the form of realisation statements.

Another reason why Bateman was fooled, in this respect, is that the network presents a view of what is purported to be a semantic system from the perspective of the view from below, lexicogrammar, as demonstrated by the "discourse semantic" features [clausal], [verbal], [nominal].  The view from below is the opposite perspective of that taken in theorising in SFL.

In this regard, Bateman has mistaken a network of grammatical features for the grammatical realisations of a discourse semantic system.

The irony, of course, is that, in modelling lexical relations, Martin's system is a proposal for a lexicogrammatical system.  It's just that neither Martin nor Bateman realises it.

[3] As the argument in [2] demonstrates, Tucker was entirely justified in criticising "Martin for not giving details of lexicogrammatical realisation".

[4] Strictly speaking, these are not alternative interpretations, since the system in Figure 5.23 is presented by Martin as both, "a summary overview of the material" and as a discourse semantic system realised in lexicogrammar.

[5] This is true.

[6] To be clear, "superficial difficulties" such as those identified in [2] are more accurately described as serious theoretical inconsistencies, which even Bateman's close reading failed to identify.

On Martin's Use Of System Networks

Bateman (1998: 22):

An example of one of the more superficial presentational problems is the ready use made of system networks for a number of different purposes as well as for linguistic descriptions at all of the strata treated in the book — i.e., lexicogrammar, discourse semantic, register, and genre. It is as a consequence not always immediately clear at what level of description a particular system network is being presented—thus Figure 2.2 is for MOOD (i.e., from the lexicogrammar) while the figure following, Figure 2.3, is speech function (i.e., from the discourse semantics); similarly, Figure 5.10 is a discourse semantic network, whereas Figures 5.11 and 5.12 are drawn from the field component of register and Figures 5.3–5.9 from the lexicogrammar. Sometimes, it is not even clear if a network is part of the intended linguistic description at all; some networks are simply presenting overviews of the material introduced in the book: e.g., Figure 1.16’s overview of types of linguistic structure, or Figure 3.10’s summary of types of phoricity (although these latter can then always, of course, be considered as field-specific taxonomies defining the technical terms involved as set out in the chapter on IDEATION: they are not earmarked as such in the text however).

Blogger Comments:

[1] Bateman's confusion in this regard stems from the fact that Martin uses the system network schema both for genuine system networks and for simple classifying taxonomies (e.g. Figures 1.16, 3.10, 5.11, 5.12).  

[2] To be clear, Halliday's speech function is a genuine semantic system — one that can be realised congruently or metaphorically in a grammatical system of the same metafunction (mood) — rather than Martin's rebranding of textual grammatical systems (cohesion) as discourse semantic systems of various metafunctions.

[3] To be clear, Martin's Figure 5.10 presents relations between lexical items (lexicogrammar) as a discourse semantic system.

[4] To be clear, the fact that these latter taxonomies are not identified in the text by Martin as taxonomies specific to the field of discourse semantics demonstrates that Martin did not realise that they could be interpreted as such in terms of his own model.

On Subsequent Works Relating Genre To Grammar

Bateman (1998: 22):

Fortunately, some of the discussions of English Text and the work out of which English Text has grown have already started making their way into introductory text books in systemic functional linguistics, of which there have recently been a number of important publications. Eggins (1994), for example, assumes the English Text model as the basic starting point for her introduction, while notions of genre and its relation to grammar are explicitly introduced and summarised in both Gerot and Wignall (1994) and, in more detail, Butt, Fahey Spinks and Yallop (1995). This orientation gives students a clear additional reason and motivation for learning the intricacies of grammatical description, for only then is one in a good position to search out genre. They will also help substantially when beginning to comes to terms with English Text itself.

Blogger Comments:

This is potentially misleading.  Unlike Martin's students Eggins and Wignell, Butt et al. (1995) do not build on Martin's model of genre, but on that of Martin's source, Hasan, distinguishing, for example, between context (4, 7) on the one hand, and genre as text type on the other (8-14).

On Martin's Model And Critical Discourse Analysis

Bateman (1998: 21):

And, even if the reader is not yet ready to follow Martin’s proposal that English Text is to be read “(in part) in the context of projects oriented to de-naturalising hegemonic discourses and, ..., facilitating intervention in the political process’’[p2], one essential lesson that remains is that socially, culturally, and ideologically informed discussions should, and now can, be linguistically responsible. No critical discourse can really stand without such a model in place. It should in fact no longer be acceptable for such discussions to omit linguistic detail; any such omission compromises the exactitude of the discussion and raises the likelihood that what is being discussed is more opinion than empirical result. This should also have substantial pedagogical implications within discourse theory and critical discourse. Without proficiency in the tools necessary to become linguistically responsible, an analysis cannot aim at being so. Blunt tools yield rough analyses.

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, as demonstrated in great detail here, Martin's discourse semantics is largely Halliday & Hasan's lexicogrammatical cohesion, misunderstood, rebranded and relocated to his module of discourse semantics.  Martin's context consists of language varieties, register and genre — misunderstood as different levels of symbolic abstraction — and ideology misunderstood as Bernstein's coding orientations.  For these reasons, and more, the tools Martin provides for discourse analysis are  demonstrably "without proficiency" and "blunt".

To be clear, it is the source of Martin's discourse semantics, Halliday's model of lexicogrammar, that provides the tools of "linguistically responsible" text analysis.  As Halliday (1985: xvi-xvii) argues:

The current preoccupation is with discourse analysis, or 'text linguistics'; and it has sometimes been assumed that this can be carried on without grammar — or even that it is somehow an alternative to grammar.  But this is an illusion.  A discourse analysis that is not based on grammar is not an analysis at all, but simply a running commentary on a text … the exercise remains a private one in which one explanation is as good or as bad as another.

A text is a semantic unit, not a grammatical one.  But meanings are realised through wordings; and without a theory of wordings — that is, a grammar — there is no way of making explicit one's interpretation of the meaning of a text.

On Required Extensions Of Genre Theory

Bateman (1998: 21):

Martin himself draws attention to some of the ways in which the theory will have to be extended, including the move from genre ‘agnation’ (i.e., organisation into system networks) to genre topology, and the tension between synoptic (language as product) and dynamic accounts.

Blogger Comments:

[1] On the one hand, this misunderstands genre agnation, since genre agnation is concerned with systemic relations between genres in a genre taxonomy, not with agnation in system networks that model genre as potential.  On the other hand, this is misleading, since Martin provides neither a taxonomy of genres nor a system network of genre potential to "move from" in extending the theory.

[2] To be clear, a genre topology would represent the degrees of relatedness between different genres.  In SFL theory, where genre means text type — that is: register viewed from the instance pole of the cline of instantiation — the degree of relatedness between text types is measured by the relative frequencies of shared semantic and lexicogrammatical features.

[3] As previously demonstrated, Martin misunderstands the synoptic vs dynamic distinction, with  his 'synoptic' corresponding to syntagmatic structure and his 'dynamic' to instantiation in logogenesis.  In relation to genre, this distinction arises in his application of metafunctional structure types — particle, prosody and wave — to genre (pp548-60), despite the fact that his genre, contrary to SFL theory, is not theorised on the basis of the three metafunctions.

Endorsing Martin's Model Of Context By Means Of A Logical Fallacy

Bateman (1998: 21):

The stratified model of context argued for by Martin in this chapter has now been extensively applied in a range of social contexts, ranging across the original areas of application in education to various institutionalised discourse situations. Some of the more recent work building on the approach is given in Christie and Martin (1997). This work shows that, although the formulation of accounts of genre may have now moved on in various directions, and the original model may have been subject to criticism from several perspectives, this does little to detract from the scope and perspective found in Chapter 7. It is only with the kind of explicit modelling and interrelationships posited in the chapter—no matter how the phenomena addressed come eventually to be modelled—that any attempt to understand the social functions of language can really be made.

Blogger Comments:

[1] As an argument for the validity of Martin's misunderstanding of context as varieties of language (register/genre) and coding orientations ("ideology"), Bateman here deploys the logical fallacy known as argumentum ad populum, which concludes that a proposition must be true because many or most people believe it.

[2] To be clear, these "social contexts" in which Martin's model has been used are, on Martin's model, those of ideology, genre and register.

[3] To be clear, criticisms from perspectives such as theoretical consistency and internal consistency do much "to detract from the scope and perspective found in Chapter 7".

[4] To be clear, in terms of explicitness, Martin provides no system networks for either genre or ideology, and none of his networks include realisation statements that specify structure at their own level, or preselected features at the stratum below.

In terms of interrelatedness, Martin misunderstands the principle of stratification (evidence here), and misunderstands the realisational relation between strata (evidence here).

On Bakhtin, Genre And Stratified Context

Bateman (1998: 21):

Explicit reference is made at the outset of the chapter [p494] to the very compatible work of Bakhtin (e.g,. 1986). However, combined with the previous chapters on discourse semantics and the presumption of an explicit and extensive lexicogrammar, the model of genre presented in this chapter certainly goes beyond any other account proposed previously in terms of its linguistic basis and ability both to draw linguistic consequences from the abstract descriptions of register, genre and ideology and, conversely, to use linguistic data to motivate such abstract descriptions.

Blogger Comments:

[1] What Bateman neglects to tell the reader here is that Martin misunderstands the work of Bakhtin; see, for example:

• Misunderstanding Bakhtin's 'Dialogic' And 'Heteroglossic'
• Misconstruing Heteroglossia And Dialogism As System And Process
• Misunderstanding Semantic Variation And Bakhtin

[2] To be clear, the significant previous work on genre is Martin's source, Hasan, who models genre in terms consistent with SFL theory.  Moreover, Martin misunderstands Hasan's (1989: 64) Generic Structure Potential, which models semantic structure of specific genres, as the structure realising a system of genre (misunderstood as culture instead of language).

[3] As previously explained, Martin's context — stratified as register, genre and ideology — is theorised on the basis of fundamental misunderstandings of SFL theory, and, as such, is riddled with internal inconsistencies.  See also, for example:

• Why The Argument For Register And Genre As Context Strata Is Invalid
• Why The Argument For A Stratum Of Ideology Is Invalid

On Martin's Register And Ideology

Bateman (1998: 21):

Networks are set out for each of the three main metafunctional regions of register — ‘mode’, ‘tenor’ and ‘field’ — and collections of lexicogrammatical realisations for these alternatives are also proposed. This provides a ‘semiotic’ view on context and context’s construction of many aspects of our reality and provides the ground for the book’s concluding sections on the stratum of ideology, again construed semiotically as a means of relating distinct genres and their use across a culture.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, in SFL theory, mode, tenor and field are the metafunctional dimensions of the culture as semiotic system.  These systems of culture are realised in the systems of language.  Different registers of language realise different configurations of features of these systems of culture.  As previously explained, Martin confuses these systems of culture (context) with the sub-systems of the language that realise them (registers).

[2] This is misleading.  On the one hand, even on Martin's model, systems of mode, tenor and field should specify realisations in discourse semantics, not lexicogrammar, and on the other hand, not one of Martin's "register" networks features any realisation statements, discourse semantic or otherwise.

[3] Here Bateman is accepting Martin's claim without question.  Context was conceived by Halliday as a semiotic system.  Martin, however, repeatedly misinterprets Halliday's context as material; see, for example:

• Confusing Context With Co-Text And Material Setting
• Confusing Material Setting And Context Of Situation
• Misunderstanding Orders Of Experience
• Misconstruing Context As Language And Material Setting Instead Of Culture
• Blurring Context And Material Setting
• Blurring Distinctions
• Self-Contradiction
• Confusing Orders Of Experience

[4] Here Bateman confuses the construal of experience as ideational meaning ("reality") with the culture construed by the linguistic system (context).

[5] Here Bateman fails to notice that Martin misinterprets Bernstein's coding orientation as ideology.  See, for example:

• Preparing To Misconstrue Bernstein's Codes As Ideology
• Misconstruing Bernstein's Coding Orientation As Ideology
• Discursive Power And The Evolutionarily Necessary Resolution Of Semiotic Tension Through Dynamic Openness
• Addressing "The Central Problem In Marxist Theory" By Adding A More Abstract Level
• Why The Argument For A Stratum Of Ideology Is Invalid

On Modelling Context As Register And Genre

Bateman (1998: 20-1):

Finally, in Chapter 7 [pp493-590], Martin presents in detail the motivations for the proposal set out in, for example, Martin (1985) and Ventola (1988) that ‘context’ best be modelled as consisting of two distinct strata: register and genre. Both of these are then realised in the less abstract ‘plane’ of language consisting, as we have seen, of three strata: discourse semantics, lexicogrammar, and phonology. The chapter thus draws together results from many years of inquiry into the social situatedness of the linguistic system and the detail and examples given serve as a very useful introduction to the area and its points of debate.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, not just in SFL theory, 'register' refers to a functional variety of language, and 'genre' refers to a type of text.  In SFL, these are theorised as two views on the same phenomenon:

• language as register is language as genre (text type) viewed from the system pole of the cline of instantiation, whereas
• language as genre (text type) is language as register viewed from the instance pole of the cline of instantiation.

The place of register/genre (text type) in the architecture of SFL theory is identified in the following matrix:

Martin's proposal is to relocate register/genre (text type) from the content plane of language to cultural context and from subsystem/instance type to system.  In terms of SFL theory, this creates inconsistencies in terms of both stratification and instantiation.

In simple terms, Martin's proposal is that varieties/types of language are not language, but the culture that language realises.  This is analogous to proposing that varieties/types of birds are not birds, but something more abstract than birds.

To be clear, in Martin's model, texts cannot be instances of register or genre, since texts are instances of language, not context.

For some of the misunderstandings and inconsistencies in Martin's notion of register, see the 82 clarifying critiques here.
For some of the misunderstandings and inconsistencies in Martin's notion of genre, see the 67 clarifying critiques here.
For some of the misunderstandings and inconsistencies in Martin's notion of context, see the 172 clarifying critiques here.

The absurdities entailed by Martin's stratified context demonstrate that neither Martin nor Bateman  — nor anyone else who uses Martin's model — understands either stratification or instantiation.

[2] To be clear, as previously demonstrated, Martin's model misunderstands and rebrands Halliday & Hasan's non-structural textual lexicogrammar, the systems of cohesion, as structural discourse semantics:

• reference and ellipsis–&–substitution as IDENTIFICATION (textual),
• cohesive conjunction as CONJUNCTION (logical), and
• lexical cohesion as IDEATION (experiential).

[3] To be clear, Martin proposes that the linguistic system is socially situated in (varieties of) the linguistic system (register and genre).

On Macro-Theme, Hyper-Theme, Hyper-New And Macro-New

Bateman (1998: 20):

Martin also proposes here some valuable additions: particularly in the area of text structure, with the text-scale structurings of hyper- and macro-themes and their complementary elements: hyper- and macro-new [see Figure 6.12, p456], and in contrasts between static and process views of texts.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, Martin's terms are rebrandings of terms from writing pedagogy:

• macro-Theme is a rebranding of introductory paragraph,
• hyper-Theme (a term taken from Daneš and misunderstood) is a rebranding of topic sentence,
• hyper-New is a rebranding of paragraph summary, and
• macro-New is a rebranding of text summary.

This is why writing pedagogues believe "Martin's" ideas are a valuable resource.  However, advising people how to write is not modelling language, and spoken language is not planned and organised on the basis of effective writing strategies.  But these are, by no means, the only problems.

For some of the misunderstandings and inconsistencies in the notion of macro-Theme see the 16 clarifying critiques here.
For some of the misunderstandings and inconsistencies in the notion of hyper-Theme see the 16 clarifying critiques here.
For some of the misunderstandings and inconsistencies in the notion of hyper-New see the 8 clarifying critiques here.
For some of the misunderstandings and inconsistencies in the notion of macro-New see the 11 clarifying critiques here.

[2] To be clear, Martin's "contrasts between static and process views of texts" essentially confuse syntagmatic realisation ("static") with the process of instantiation in logogenesis ("dynamic").  This misunderstanding pervades Martin's text; see, for example:

• Confusing Instantiation With The Syntagmatic Axis
• Confusing Instantiation With Axial And Stratal Realisation
• Confusing Semantic Relations With Logogenesis
• A False Conclusion Invalidly Argued From False Premises
• Misrepresenting Martin (1992)

On Modal Responsibility

Bateman (1998: 20):

The selection of Subjects in a text, however, is also not devoid of textual consequences. Those message parts selected as Subjects serve to construct the ‘modal responsibility’ attributed by a text, and both of these interact with particular patterns of conjunctive relations, of lexical chains, and of modalities and appraisals. Working through the examples given in this chapter is a very good way of getting a clearer sense of the work done by the descriptions presented in the previous chapters.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, it is the selection of Theme — conflated with Subject or another function — that has textual "consequences".

[2] To be clear, Martin's 'message part' is an experiential unit, whereas Subject is an interpersonal function.

[3] To be clear, modal responsibility is the function of the Subject of a clause as theorised by Halliday (1985: 76).  For some of Martin's misunderstandings of Halliday's concept of modal responsibility, see the 19 clarifying critiques here.  For some of Martin's misunderstandings of Subject, see the 13 clarifying critiques here.

[4] To be clear, there is nothing on appraisal in Martin (1992) — which is hardly surprising, given that Appraisal Theory only emerged as an integrated theory later in the PhD research of Peter White.  For some of Martin's misunderstandings of Appraisal Theory, see the 52 clarifying critiques here.

[5] Working through the examples in this chapter should have alerted Bateman to the problems in this chapter (as well as those of previous chapters).  For some of the misunderstandings that undermine the theoretical validity of this chapter, see the 121 clarifying critiques here.

Misrepresenting Fries On Method Of Development

Bateman (1998: 20):

Several examples of this kind of integration and its contribution to textuality are given. In general, the resource of grammatical metaphor is used to ensure that textually appropriate meanings are placed in lexicogrammatically supportive positions. Thus, in order to obtain desired unmarked Theme selections, it may be necessary to select grammatically incongruent realisations for the messages to be expressed so that the participant to become Theme may also legitimately be Subject [p435]. And, in turn, the requirement that particular Themes be selected as marked or unmarked comes from the discourse semantic motivation of achieving a particular method of development as investigated predominantly by Fries (e.g., 1983).

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is misleading. To be clear, all of this is Martin reporting Fries (1981), not Martin, and it only applies to method of development — not to cohesive harmony, modal responsibility or point.

[2] This is misleading. Fries' work (1981) on method of development, is couched theoretically consistently, that is: in terms of lexicogrammar, not in terms of Martin's discourse semantics, and "motivations" for Theme selection are textual, not discourse semantic.  This latter misunderstanding confuses metafunction with stratum.

On "Martin's" Cohesive Harmony, Method Of Development, Modal Responsibility, And Point

Bateman (1998: 20):

Martin explores four particular interaction patterns in depth in this chapter: cohesive harmony, method of development, modal responsibility, and point. For each he shows how the kinds of integration of meanings from different metafunctions is not a task that can be left to the lexicogrammar alone; it is also essential for discourse semantics to provide an organising framework.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the notion of cohesive harmony derives from Hasan (1989/1985: 94).  For some of Martin's misunderstandings (and misrepresentations) of Hasan's cohesive harmony, see the clarifying critiques here.

[2] To be clear, the notion of method of development derives from Fries (1981).  For some of Martin's misunderstandings in using Fries' method of development, see the clarifying critiques here.

[3] To be clear, the notion of modal responsibility derives from Halliday (1985: 76).  For some Martin's misunderstandings of Halliday's modal responsibility, see the clarifying critiques here.

[4] To be clear, the notion of point derives from Fries (1981).  For some of Martin's misunderstandings in using Fries' point, see the clarifying critiques here and here.

[5] To be clear, it is language that integrates meaning.  The architecture of SFL theory specifies the precise ways in which meanings are related to each other in this integration.

[6] To be clear, discourse semantics cannot "provide an organising framework" if it is theorised on the basis of multiple misunderstandings and riddled with internal inconsistencies, as demonstrated in great detail here.

On CONJUNCTION And IDEATION Interactions As Definitive For The Notion Of Texture

Bateman (1998: 20):

And, in chapter 6, Martin sets out a preliminary attempt to explore the interaction and co-operation between different strata and regions in the construction of meaning. Martin gives examples of interdependencies and some of the very few attempts to explore these— for example, Hoey’s (1983) investigation of the relationship between phenomena assigned by English Text to the CONJUNCTION and IDEATION regions. These patterns of interaction Martin suggests are definitive for the notion of texture — that distinguishing property of any text that differentiates it from a set of unrelated sentences and which derives from “the fact that it functions as a unity with respect to its environment’’ (Halliday and Hasan, 1976:2).

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, the sources of Martin's CONJUNCTION and IDEATION, Halliday & Hasan's (1976) cohesive conjunction and lexical cohesion, do contribute to texture, because texture is created by the textual metafunction, and systems of cohesion are systems of the textual metafunction (op. cit.: 27).

However, Martin misinterprets these textual systems as systems of the ideational metafunction — logical (CONJUNCTION) and experiential (IDEATION) — and ideational systems are not concerned with texture, but with construing experience.

This fundamental misunderstanding further undermines Martin's chapter on texture.

On Martin's Assumption Of Modularity

Bateman (1998: 19-20):

4. Inter-relationships between modules of the account 

Having set out a substantial areas of discourse semantics, Martin turns in the final part of the book to one of the automatic consequences of a ‘modular’ approach to description and explanation: that is, it is necessary to suggest the ways in which the distinct modules cooperate in order to together produce the properties of texts that are to be accounted for. Chapter 6 [pp381-492] therefore explores an area that is even newer and more experimental than those of the previous chapters, although fore-shadowed there by virtue of the assumption of modularity. As Martin writes:

“within discourse semantics, the ways in which systems co-operate in the process of making text [are] much less well understood.... A more explicit account of this co-operation is clearly an urgent research goal.’’ [p391]

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, SFL theory is not a modular theory; its architecture is dimensional, not modular. Halliday & Webster (2009: 231):

In SFL language is described, or “modelled”, in terms of several dimensions, or parameters, which taken together define the “architecture” of language. These are 

• (i) the hierarchy of strata (context, semantics, lexicogrammar, phonology, phonetics; related by realisation); 
• (ii) the hierarchy of rank (e.g. clause, phrase/group, word, morpheme; related by composition); 
• (iii) the cline of instantiation (system to instance); 
• (iv) the cline of delicacy (least delicate to most delicate, or grossest to finest); 
• (v) the opposition of axis (paradigmatic and syntagmatic); 
• (vi) the organisation by metafunction (ideational (experiential, logical), interpersonal, textual).

To take one example, to conceive of strata of symbolic abstraction as interacting modules is analogous to conceiving of a word and its definition as interacting modules, or of conceiving of a green traffic light and its meaning 'go' as interacting modules.

Martin's misunderstanding of SFL theory as modular undermines the foundation of his Chapter 6, though this is by no means the only problem, as will be seen, and as already demonstrated here.

On Martin's Notion Of Congruent And Incongruent Lexical Items

Bateman (1998: 19):

Also considered in this chapter are how particular message parts, although they serve as the semantic expression of particular field-stratum ‘participants’, may or may not be realised by single lexical items (congruent and noncongruent realisations): e.g. ‘champion’ and ‘tournament winner’ — again suggesting some of the value of maintaining stratification and providing one important difference with Hasan’s own extension of the position in Halliday and Hasan (1976): cohesive harmony [p372].

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, 'message part' is Martin's unit of IDEATION, described (p293) as 'the discourse semantic unit underlying lexical item'.  Martin's claim is that it is congruently realised as one lexical item and incongruently realised as more than one lexical item.  This means, in terms of SFL theory, champion would be a non-metaphorical realisation, whereas tournament winner would be a metaphorical realisation.  (A genuine example of lexical metaphor would be construing the champion as a 'dynamo'.)  For further evidence that Martin does not understand (in)congruence, see here; for further evidence that Martin does not understand lexicogrammatical metaphor, see here.

[2] To be clear, the semantic expression of a "field stratum participant" is meaning that realises one of the speakers producing a text — but this is not what Martin means.  As previously explained, Martin confuses field (context) with the ideational meaning that realises it (semantics), and confuses context (the culture as semiotic system) with register (a sub-potential of language).  The theoretical inconsistencies are thus in terms of stratification and instantiation.

[3] To be clear, it wasn't Martin who stratified the content plane, but Halliday, though the naïve reader could be forgiven for thinking it was Martin's idea, given his presentation (e.g. pp14-21).  As demonstrated by the misunderstandings identified above in [1], the "in/congruent" realisations of Martin's 'message part' do not demonstrate "the value of maintaining stratification".

[4] Here Bateman is merely parroting Martin's claims (p372) without question.  To be clear, Hasan's (1985: 94) cohesive harmony is concerned with the harmony between the 'outputs' of two metafunctions, the textual and the experiential, at the level of lexicogrammar:

The output of the textual function are the chains and the interactions; the outputs of the experiential function at the rank of clause and group is what the interaction is built upon. Thus cohesive harmony is an account of how the two functions find their expression in one significant whole.

That is, where Hasan's model is concerned with harmony between the textual and experiential metafunctions, Martin's model, in rebranding lexical cohesion as an experiential system, is concerned with confusing the textual and experiential metafunctions.

For more details on Martin's misunderstandings of cohesive harmony, see the clarifying critiques here.

On Nuclearity And Expansion Relations

Bateman (1998: 19):

To unpack the relations underlying such cohesive ties, Martin uses the complexing relations set out by Halliday in IFG — elaboration, extension and enhancement — in order to provide an abstract classification. This then provides another perspective on notions of ‘peripherality’, and extends to net in participants and circumstances. A network of available options is given in Figure 5.23 with a substantial set of examples.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the expansion relations between lexical items (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 644) and the expansion relations between grammatical functions of the clause are distinct metafunctional manifestations of the 'fractal type' expansion, the former textual, the latter ideational.  Moreover, lexical items and grammatical functions are lexicogrammatical, not discourse semantic.

[2] To be clear, Martin's discourse semantic network is concerned with grammatical units (clause, verbal group, nominal group) and falsely presents the exemplifying instances as realisation statements.  More importantly, the network is based on multiple misapplications of expansion categories and grammatical structure.  This can be demonstrated by considering the table presented by Bateman:

• Process and Medium form the clause nucleus, and it is this that is related to other functions; i.e. the Medium does not extend the Process.
• The relation between frying and pan is enhancement (purpose), not elaboration.
• The nominal group frying fish is Classifier^Thing, not Epithet^Thing; Epithets can accept degrees of comparison or intensity (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 377), whereas Classifiers, like frying, cannot.
• The relation between frying and fish is elaboration, not extension, since Martin (p312) glosses it as 'a fish that is frying'.
• The relation between the Epithet difficult and Thing group is elaboration, not extension; the Epithet further specifies the Thing.
• The particle of a 'phrasal verb' is not a constituent of the verbal group, and so does not elaborate the Event of a verbal group.  The 'particle', is either a preposition group or adverbial group that realises a clause Adjunct.
• The wording try (to) shoot is a verbal group complex, not a verbal group.

This small sample gives some indication of the extent of misunderstandings of expansion and grammatical structure in Martin's model of "discourse semantic" nuclear relations.

On Process^Medium Motivating Collocation

Bateman (1998: 18-9):

The lexicogrammatical realisation of nuclear relations has previously been the concern of treatments of transitivity and, as far as their discourse function has been concerned, has been treated under collocation. In English Text, however,

“[a]n attempt will be made to unpack these relations ... in order to identify more precisely the semantic relations involved. What this amounts to is a foray into the discourse semantics of experiential grammar, which is in itself a daunting task. It is however an essential one, since the lexical relations under consideration here cannot be explained simply by appealing to grammatical structure.’’ [p309] 

Martin shows this by examples such as the following:

Ben serves. That’s his fifth ace of the match. 

where the particular collocation is not within a single grammatical unit, but is nevertheless strongly motivated by the nuclear configuration of ‘serving aces’ available for tennis.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the source of Martin's nuclear relations is Halliday's (1985: 149) ergative model of clause transitivity.

[2] This is misleading, because it is untrue.  Here Bateman is accepting without question Martin's  unsourced claim (p309):

In previous approaches to lexical cohesion, nuclear relations have been handled under the heading collocation.

Given that lexical cohesion is a non-structural system of the textual metafunction, and that the ergative model within transitivity is a structural system of the experiential metafunction, any treatment of clause ergativity under collocation would be a serious misunderstanding of both systems.

What is true is that transitivity structures can be used to identify the type of expansion relation between lexical items related cohesively by collocation (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 649).

[3] This is hardly surprising, given that collocation, like all types of lexical cohesion, is not a system of the clause.

[4] To be clear, Martin's example (p309) is:

Ben serves. That’s his fifth ace of the match.

The claim here is that lexical collocation of serves and ace is motivated by the clause nucleus (Process/Medium) of grammatical structure ('serving aces').   The immediate problem with this explanation is that 'serving aces' is Process^Range: process, not Process^Medium.

Moreover, since an 'ace' is a type of 'serve', the lexically cohesive relation between them is hyponymy, and it is this that actually accounts for the tendency of the lexical items 'serves' and 'ace' to co-occur.

On Martin's Taxonomic Relations Systems

Bateman (1998: 18):

Taxonomic relations are better understood than both configuration-based, or nuclear, relations and activity-sequence relations. They include traditional lexical relationships such as hyponymy, hyperonymy, cohyponomy, etc. Martin suggests that the taxonomic relations appear to be used to generate/define particular field-specific taxonomies [e.g., p295--6]. They also each have typical structural realisations in the lexicogrammar, involving Classifiers, Pre-Classifiers (that kind of, this sort of), ... as well as structures such as ‘class of noun’, ‘brand of car’, ‘genre of text’, etc. The sequence of networks given in Figures 5.10, 5.16--5.18, 5.20 and 5.21 provides a detailed network for taxonomic lexical relations, with several examples of the distinct kind of lexicogrammatical patterns that they employ for their realisation. For English Text, these also set out a detailed classification system for kinds of cohesive ties that may be found in text analysis.

Blogger Comments:

[1] Here Martin confuses the non-structural use of lexical relations to create textual cohesion with structural grammatical relations in the construal of experience, and relocates his confusion from lexicogrammar to discourse semantics.  The primary theoretical inconsistencies created are thus metafunctional and stratal.

[2] Martin's Figure 5.10, on lexical relations, a system proposed for the discourse semantic stratum, is actually concerned with the stratum below (lexicogrammar) and composed of features purported to be of the stratum above (contextual field: activity sequences).  As might be expected, given these confusions, the network features neither an entry condition nor any realisation statements.

[3] These are more delicate elaborations of the system presented in Figure 5.10, and so embody the same theoretical confusions and inconsistencies.

[4] This is misleading.  The networks do not provide "examples of the distinct kind of lexicogrammatical patterns that they employ for their realisation", they merely provide instances that exemplify relation types, such as tenor-sax for the feature hyponymy.  Moreover, the examples are misleadingly presented by Martin as if they were realisation statements — which accounts for Bateman's misleading interpretation.

[5] To be clear, cohesive ties are non-structural textual relations at the level of lexicogrammar.  Martin, in contrast, rebrands lexical cohesion as a structural experiential system, IDEATION, at the level of discourse semantics.

On Field Consisting Of Activity Sequences

Bateman (1998: 18):

Field consists of sequences of activities and their participants as these contribute to particular socially recognisable endeavours. The lexical relations in English are then presented as they relate to the three ‘ranks’ of the contextual structure of activity sequences, giving three primary delicacy distinctions: taxonomy, nuclear and activity. These Martin illustrates with respect to the field of tennis as follows [p293].

• TAXONOMY: part/whole relations among game-set-match 
• CONFIGURATION: (‘nuclear’) Agent-Process-Medium structures, e.g., player-serve-ball 
• ACTIVITY SEQUENCE: [player serve]--[opponent return]--[player volley]

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, Martin's (1992) notion of activity sequence confuses what is going on in terms of culture (context) with what is going on in a text (language).  For some of the many problems with the notion of activity sequence, see the 48 clarifying critiques here.

In contrast, in Working With Discourse (Martin & Rose 2007), activity sequence is relocated to discourse semantics as an experiential system, despite being concerned with expansion relations, like the "logical" discourse semantic system, conjunction.  For the problems that arise through this later relocation, see some of the clarifying critiques here.

[2] This misrepresents Martin (p292) who only regards activity sequences as contextual:

A given institution comprises a large number of different activity sequences, where these are realised linguistically through temporally ordered chains of Process and Medium and their attendant participant and circumstantial roles.

Bateman's confusion is understandable, however, since Martin here not only violates the SFL notion of strata as different levels of symbolic abstraction, he also violates his own misunderstanding of strata as different modules.

[3] This example of an activity sequence nicely illustrates the tangle of confusions in Martin's model.  To explain:

• if [player serve]--[opponent return]--[player volley] appears in a text, then it is not context (field), but linguistic content (semantics or lexicogrammar); but, on the other hand,

• if [player serve]--[opponent return]--[player volley] is what is going on in the cultural context, then it is realised by the language spoken by the tennis players while playing tennis — texts which Martin nowhere addresses.

On Determining The Unit Of Ideation

Bateman (1998: 18):

Martin then turns to the motivation and elaboration of these discourse semantic aspects of lexical relations, and again needs to address the question of units within IDEATION at the discourse semantic stratum. Here it is quickly made clear that collocation is not a sufficient motivation for defining units, since there is a gradient between idioms and non-idioms and Sinclair has gone so far as to maintain that mutual expectancy can be extended up to include entire texts. So, to counter this, Martin takes the constructs of field from register (discussed in more detail in Chapter 7: p497) as the basis of the units that are subject to lexical semantic relations [p297].

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, Martin is concerned with determining the unit of IDEATION, a structural system of experiential discourse semantics, which is his rebranding of his misunderstanding of lexical cohesion, a non-structural system of textual lexicogrammar.

Because the original system is non-structural, he is unable to identify a structural unit — i.e. a unit with internal function structure, such as all the units of lexicogrammar and phonology.  Moreover, because the original system is concerned with relating lexical items to each other, Martin's unit is essentially a rebranding of his misunderstanding of a lexical item, which he terms a 'message part'.

Adding further to the above confusions and theoretical inconsistencies, this unit of lexical relations is grammatical, not lexical, as demonstrated (pp292-3) by the types of message part: actions, people, places, things and qualities.

[2] To be clear, in order to identify his discourse semantic unit, Martin looks to field, the ideational dimension of cultural context, which he misunderstands as register.  This is further complicated by Martin confusing contextual field with the ideational semantics that realises it.

The number of theoretical confusions, and the confused relations between them, in this section of Martin's chapter, are difficult to untangle, but an attempt has been to do so in the following clarifying critiques:

• Inconsistencies Of Structure And Metafunction 
• Misconstruing The Difference Between Lexical Item And Grammatical Word 
• Confusing Register (Language) With Context (Culture)
• Confusing Context With Semantics 
• Misconstruing First Order Field As Its Semantic Description [1]
• Misconstruing First Order Field As Its Semantic Description [2]
• Misconstruing Experiential As A Constituent Of Logical 
• Misconstruing Stratification: Semantics Realising Semantics 
• Misrepresenting Congruent Vs Incongruent 
• Confusing Context, Semantics And Lexicogrammar