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.