Conference Calls

Collegial Collaboration

Evoked Attitude

"Well Within Registerial Norms"

Choosing A Mentor

What's Wrong With The Design Of This Diagram?

Martin, 1997 (p.7) , Analysing Genre: Functional Parameters, in Christie and Martin, Genre and Institutions - Social Processes in the Workplace and School, Continuum.

Answer:

Martin uses two spatial dimensions, vertical and horizontal, to represent one theoretical dimension, stratification.  This leads to the absurdity of presenting the realisation relation between levels — represented by the double-headed arrow — as a level in itself (expression form of the "connotative semiotic").  The representation of levels of lower and higher abstraction, strata, along the horizontal dimension only adds to the confusion.

Note also that Martin thinks that a connotative semiotic consists only of its content plane, and that varieties of a denotative semiotic, genre and register, constitute (the content of) a connotative semiotic.

Mentoring

The Bullying Of PhD Students By Their Supervisors

Teaching

From Earned Privilege To Costly Entitlement

Buyer Beware!

Scholars who are new to SFL Theory should note that this new publication mainly features papers by Jim Martin and his former students.

Evidence of Jim Martin's serious misunderstandings of SFL Theory is available here (English Text 1992) and here (Working With Discourse 2007).

The only way to get a solid grounding in Halliday's theory is to read Halliday (± Matthiessen).

Intracultural Communication

Intercultural Communication

Collegiality

External vs Internal Cohesive Conjunction

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 611):

Relations between representations of segments of experience are called external relations, and conjunctions marking such relations are called external conjunctions. … 

Relations linking text segments in their interpersonal guise are called internal relations – internal to the text as a speech event, and conjunctions marking such relations are called internal conjunctions.

The Interpersonal Is Realised By Parodic Structure

This Could Never Happen In The SFL Community

Sharing The Dream

Collaboration

How To Be An Innovator In The SFL Community

When Is Emotion Not Affect?

When it is not used to enact the self or intersubjective relations through an interpersonal assessment. For example, the clause

She was surprised that the answer was thirteen

construes a process of emotion, but on its own, does not enact an appraisal, since nothing is assessed positively or negatively.

On the other hand, the clause

She was pleasantly surprised that the answer was thirteen

both

1. construes a process of emotion (was surprised), and 
2. enacts a positive appraisal of that emotion by reference to a Quality of emotion (pleasantly), and so constitutes an instance of affect.

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 7):

The ideational metafunction is concerned with construing experience — it is language as a theory of reality, as a resource for reflecting on the world. The interpersonal metafunction is concerned with enacting interpersonal relations through language, with the adoption and assignment of speech roles, with the negotiation of attitudes, and so on — it is language in the praxis of intersubjectivity, as a resource for interacting with others.

What Is A Connotative Semiotic?

For Hjelmslev, connotation is a second-order of signification which uses the denotative sign (signifier and signified) as its signifier and attaches to it an additional signified.

Applied to SFL theory, the expression plane (signifier) of language and the content plane (signified) of language together constitute a denotative semiotic.  And language as a denotative semiotic is the expression plane (signifier) of the culture as semiotic system (signified).  It is this relation between language and culture that constitutes a connotative semiotic.

connotative semiotic (culture ↘ language)

signified	culture as content
signifier	language as expression

denotative semiotic (language)

signified	content plane of language
signifier	expression plane of language

Note that Martin, while claiming to be 'following Hjelmslev' (1992: 493), misinterprets varieties of the content of a denotative semiotic — genre, register — as (the content of) a connotative semiotic.

Supervision

The Undoubted Importance Of Jim Martin's Opinion

Jim Martin wrote to Sysfling on 31 Aug 2019 at 11:10:

For my part, after thinking about several exchanges on the list and off, it seems to me that having plenary talks in languages other than English matters far more for people for whom it matters than not being able to follow such talks matters for people who wouldn’t be able to follow them… and so we should defer to the people for whom this matters most.

 

Predictive Text

Jim Martin Was Also Working On The Project

From the Penman website:

Penman is the result of work by many people. Important contributions were made by Drs. Christian Matthiessen and William Mann (the two principal architects of the system), Drs. John Bateman, Robert Kasper, Cécile Paris, Peter Fries, Michael Halliday, Norman Sondheimer, Susanna Cumming, Cecilia Ford, William Swartout, Ms. Lynn Poulton, Messrs. Robert Albano and Mick O'Donnell, and by the current Penman staff. In addition, for many years the Penman project has benefitted from the work of visitors too numerous to list.

Making Meaning: Verbal Writing vs Mental Reading

Subjunctive 'Mood' In SFL Theory And Description

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 143n):

Note that the system of MOOD is a system of the clause, not of the verbal group or of the verb. Many languages also have an interpersonal system of the verb(al group) that has been referred to as ‘mood’: it involves interpersonal contrasts such as indicative/subjunctive, indicative/subjunctive/optative. To distinguish these verbal contrasts from the clausal system of MOOD, we can refer to them as contrasts in mode. The subjunctive mode tends to be restricted to the environment of bound clauses – in particular, reported clauses and conditional clauses having the sense of irrealis. In Modern English, the subjunctive mode of the verb is marginal, although there is some dialectal variation.

The Minor Speech Function Of 'Well-Wishing'

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 196):

Greetings include salutations, e.g. Hullo!, Good morning!, Welcome!, Hi!, and valedictions, such as Goodbye!, See you!; together with their responses, largely the same set of forms. Under this heading we could include well-wishings, like Your very good health!, Cheers!, Good shot!, Congratulations!. Both calls and greetings include some that are structured as clauses or nominal groups.

Cf. The Lord be with you, God forgive you your sins and God bless you.

Decolonising Vs Hegemonic

David Rose wrote to SYSFLING on 13 Aug 2019 at 09:12:

May I add that adopting SFL as a metalanguage is already a decolonising act, against the hegemonic universalist metalanguage of north American formal linguistics?

at the end of a conversation on SYSFLING begun by Jim Martin on 28 Jul 2019, 22:47:

… I would encourage the ISFLA executive to develop guidelines to the effect that in the absence of simultaneous interpreting English be used as a lingua franca for plenary addresses, that programs are clear about which language will be used for parallel presentations, and that where possible an English alternative be made available.

The People's Front Of Systemics

The Chomskyan People's Front (The Enemy Movement)

International Conferences

International Conferences are institutional devices whereby
those with the greatest capacity to pay (savvy senior academics with expense accounts)
have their international (business class) air travel and accommodation paid for (as plenary speakers)
by those with the least capacity to pay (naïve students and junior academics).

Leaders

Why It Is Important To Understand Theory

Just as a language adapts to the inabilities of those who use the language,
so too does a theory adapt to the inabilities of those who use the theory,
thereby gradually losing contact with the phenomenon being modelled.

Fawcett's 'Cardiff Grammar' And Martin's 'Sydney School' Factions Of The SFL Community

Predictive Attributes

The hosts were most welcoming.
The food was delicious.
The papers were stimulating.

A Semiotic Principle

The Presumption Of Immanence

All meaning is presumed to be immanent unless proven otherwise.

The Economic Value Of Meaning

Explaining Something In SFL

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 49):

Giving priority to the view ‘from above’ means that the organising principle adopted is that of system: the grammar is seen as a network of interrelated meaningful choices. In other words, the dominant axis is the paradigmatic one: the fundamental components of the grammar are sets of mutually defining contrastive features. Explaining something consists not in stating how it is structured but in showing how it is related to other things: its pattern of systemic relationships, or agnateness (agnation).

Registering A Complaint

Our Centres Of Excellence

Criteria For Distinguishing Process Types

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 354):

Leading SFL Toward Failure

Supervision

Compromise(d) Theorising

Material Setting Vs Semiotic Context

Using the theory of language to interpret the language of theory:

1. The material setting is what is mentally perceived by people when they speak, sign or write.
2. The semiotic context is what is verbally construed by people when they speak, sign or write.

That is:

1. The material setting is a first-order phenomenon of a mental process of perception.
2. The semiotic context is a second-order phenomenon (metaphenomenon) realised by a projection of a verbal process.

Social Parameters Vs Semiotic Context

IF

context is construed by / realised in language

THEN

the social parameters that can be used to characterise the interactants (gender, class, ethnicity, etc.) are not context

UNLESS

they are construed by / realised in the language of the interactants.

Solving Grammatical Problems On Email Lists

What Does The Theoretical Term 'Realisation' Actually Mean Precisely?

Linguistic theory is 'language turned back on itself'. This just means that linguistic theory is the use of language to model language.

As a consequence, the language of theory can be analysed in terms of the theory of language.

For example, the theoretical relation of 'realisation' can be understood in terms of grammatical theory.

In transitivity theory, 'realise' is an intensive identifying Process — subtype 'symbol'.

It construes an identity between two levels of symbolic abstraction: a lower Token and a higher Value.

In an identity relation, either level can be used to identify the other.

If the lower Token is used to identify the higher Value, the relation is encoding:

the identity encodes the Value by reference to the Token.

If the higher Value is used to identify the lower Token, the relation is decoding:

the identity decodes the Token by reference to the Value.

So when the language of theory says that the stratum of wording (lexicogrammar) realises the stratum of meaning (semantics), the theory of language says that this construes an identity between two levels of symbolic abstraction, a lower Token (wording) and a higher Value (meaning).

If the lower Token (wording) is used to identify the higher Value (meaning), then the identity encodes the meaning by reference to the wording.

If the higher Value (meaning) is used to identify the lower Token (wording), then the identity decodes the wording by reference to the meaning.

(In this regard, Halliday's argument in On the ineffability of grammatical categories was that a theory of meaning can only be encoded by reference to a theory of wording.  That is, a theory of wording cannot be decoded by reference to a theory of meaning.)

Similarly, when the language of theory says that form (e.g. verbal group) realises function (e.g. Process), the theory of language says that this construes an identity between two levels of symbolic abstraction, a lower Token (form) and a higher Value (function).

If the lower Token (form) is used to identify the higher Value (function), then the identity encodes the function by reference to the form.

If the higher Value (function) is used to identify the lower Token (form), then the identity decodes the form by reference to the function.

Finally, when the language of theory says that structure (syntagmatic axis) realises system (paradigmatic axis), the theory of language says that this construes an identity between two levels of symbolic abstraction, a lower Token (structure) and a higher Value (system).

If the lower Token (structure) is used to identify the higher Value (system), then the identity encodes the system by reference to the structure.

If the higher Value (system) is used to identify the lower Token (structure), then the identity decodes the structure by reference to the system.

Research Misconduct

Make research misconduct public

Even when investigations are exemplary and findings clear, universities rarely report them publicly, says research ethicist C. K. Gunsalus — and that perpetuates misbehaviour and breeds mistrust. Gunsalus argues that open misconduct reports would create a virtuous circle of mutual learning and trust among institutions, leaders and researchers.

Joint Authorship

Spelling B…

How To Get Credited With Other People's Ideas Without Being Accused Of Plagiarism

Step 1: Acknowledge your source at least once.

Step 2: Change the name of their model.

Result: All future references by you and your students can be made to your name of the model, and to your publications, instead of the original work.

The genius of this approach is that it converts an inability to understand the original model into a positive advantage, because every misunderstanding differentiates your relabelled model from the source model, giving the impression that your model is genuinely novel theorising.

For example, suppose some genuine theorists came up with a model of lexicogrammatical cohesion, you could relabel it as your model of discourse semantics.  Then you could relabel all its original systems as your systems.  For example:

• if there is an original system called reference, you could relabel it as your system of identification;
• if there is an original system called lexical cohesion, you could relabel it as your system of ideation;
• if there is an original system called conjunction, you could relabel it as your system of connexion.

Having set this up, you could relabel other original work and add it to your model.  For example, if a genuine theorist came up with a semantic system of speech function, you could relabel it as your discourse semantic system of negotiation.

You could also consolidate your achievement by falsely accusing one of the theorists whose work you have relabelled as your own of plagiarism, and by urging colleagues to use your model instead of hers.  For maximum effect, you could do this after she has died, at a memorial symposium convened to honour her achievements.

But why stop there?  If your research assistant came up with a model of body language, you could relabel it as your model of paralanguage.  Then you could relabel its original systems as your systems.  For example:

• if there is an original system called linguistic body language, you could relabel it as your system of sonovergent paralanguage;
• if there is an original system called epilinguistic body language, you could relabel it as your system of semovergent paralanguage.

This approach can, of course, be applied to pedagogical fields as well.  For example, suppose you had just finished a PhD describing an indigenous language, and had just begun working in an unfamiliar field, say, for a more experienced colleague who had painstakingly developed a teaching model called Accelerated Literacy.  All you need to do, in this case, is relabel it as, say, Reading To Learn, and if you add more of other people's work, such as a model of genre pedagogy, it would further differentiate your relabelled programme from the source of your ideas.

Not only will you not be found out, but you'll be actively promoted and defended by those you have duped.

Extensions Of 'Sensing' In Folk And Scientific Models

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 601):

Ethnographic Commentary

(Cognitive) Scientific Reconstrual Of The Mental Domain

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 597):

Ideational Construal Metaphorically Realising Interpersonal Enactment

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 584):

Blogger Comments:

Cf the 'uncertainty' argued by Hume and demonstrated by Quantum Physics.

The Grammar's Construal Of Consciousness As Meaning

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 580):

Blogger Comments:

 Omitted from this diagram, for simplicity, is Phenomenon as Agent or Range.