Up until this point, it is not immediately obvious perhaps that the networks he presents are in fact discourse semantic and not grammatical: they certainly look rather similar to grammar systems for the nominal group that have been presented elsewhere. The example realisations given are also often single lexicalisations of structural elements of the nominal group, which reinforces the appearance of a grammatical statement rather than a discourse semantic one. But Martin takes up this question explicitly and considers in closer detail a number of phenomena that favour the stratification that he claims holds between the discourse semantic networks and the networks of the nominal group within the lexicogrammar proper.
Blogger Comments:
[1] On the one hand, Martin's identification networks (Figures 3.2, 3.3, 3.4, 3.5, 3.6, 3.7, 3.8 and 3.9) bear no resemblance to nominal group systems, as a comparison with the following network (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 366) demonstrates:
On the other hand, nominal group systems are irrelevant to the semantics of grammatical reference since reference is not a system of the nominal group. As previously explained, Martin's focus on the nominal group derives, in part, from his confusion of the interpersonal deixis of the nominal group with the cohesive system of textual reference and, in part, from his confusion of ideational denotation with textual reference.
[2] To be clear, Martin's argument is concerned with "stratifying" IDENTIFICATION 'with respect to nominal group structure'. That is, Martin "stratifies" a discourse semantic system with respect to a grammatical structure, instead of a grammatical system, where the grammatical structure does not realise the semantic counterpart of grammatical reference.
For the arguments on which these criticisms are made, see the detailed examination of Martin's chapter on IDENTIFICATION here.
No comments:
Post a Comment