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 Martin's "Convincing" Use Of Ideation

Bateman (1998: 17):

He then turns to Sinclair’s (e.g, 1987) counter-position that collocation is in fact the better model to start from:

“collocation patterns may map more closely onto contextual ones than caution may have first led linguists to expect: ‘there is a great deal of overlap with semantics, and very little reason to posit an independent semantics for the purpose of text description’ (Sinclair, 1987:331).’’ [p277] 

Since the entire point of English Text is to provide an independent linguistic semantics that is primarily for the purposes of text description, Sinclair’s claim can be seen as something of a challenge — at least in the area of lexis and IDEATION. But, in direct answer to the challenge, Martin not only proposes a model of an independent discourse semantics for lexical relations but then provides several convincing examples of its use in text analysis, both alone in this chapter and, in the chapter following, in coordination with the other discourse semantic regions discussed.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the source of "Martin's" model is Halliday & Hasan's (1976) lexical cohesion, a non-structural resource of the textual metafunction at the level of lexicogrammar.  Martin relocates this model to his own discourse semantic stratum, misunderstands it as experiential rather than textual, confuses it with 'lexis as most delicate grammar' (and with clause nuclearity), and rebrands the confusion as his own system of IDEATION, all of which is demonstrated in great detail here.

[2] For some of the problems with Martin's text analyses, unnoticed by the 'convinced' Bateman, see:

• Misconstruing Extension As Elaboration
• Misconstruing General Lexical Cohesion As Instantial
• Misconstruing Mode As Genre (1)
• Misrepresenting Processes As Subclasses Of Clause
• Misconstruing Enhancement (And Complementarity) As Extension
• Misconstruing Mode As Genre (2)

[3] For the cornucopia of theoretical misunderstandings in Martin's Chapter 6, see the evidence here.

On "Martin's" Instantial Reference

Bateman (1998: 12):

Two interesting further features of the analyses supported are the recognition of instantial reference [p144], where distinct reference chains may be brought together: ‘but he did not realise that it was his frog’, and some special properties of generic chains where the referring expressions refer to generic rather than specific entities [p103 and p145].

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, unknown to Bateman, Martin's 'instantial reference' is his misunderstanding of Hasan's (1984, 1985) 'instantial semblance', which is a type of lexical cohesion, not grammatical reference.  See A Misleading Analysis Of "Instantial Reference".

[2] To be clear, there is no conjoining of reference chains in the sample text ([3:84]).  Martin's false claim, accepted without question by Bateman, derives from confusing grammatical reference with lexical cohesion.  See A Misleading Analysis Of "Instantial Reference".

[3]  To be clear, Martin (1992: 103) defines the distinction between generic and specific reference distinction as: 

Generic reference is selected when the whole of some experiential class of participants is at stake rather than a specific manifestation of that class …

That is, though Martin labels the distinction as the elaborating relation of delicacy (generic vs specific), the definition confuses part-whole relations ('whole') with token-type relations ('manifestation of a class'), the former, the extending relation of composition, the latter, an elaborating relation of instantiation.  See The Re-Initiation Of Generic Reference Chains.