The Thought Occurs

Wednesday 22 May 2019

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.

Saturday 18 May 2019

Ideational Construal Metaphorically Realising Interpersonal Enactment

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 584):


Blogger Comments:

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

Friday 17 May 2019

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.

Thursday 16 May 2019

Sunday 12 May 2019

Martin's 'Move' & 'Field' And Hao's 'Figure'

Exploring field in 'social science' (?): Oral examinations in a tertiary Spanish Law course
The presentation starts by setting the general context of the project, followed by a general description of the key analytical tools for this examination – in interpersonal terms, the notion of move from the NEGOTIATION system (Martin, 1992), and in ideational terms, the concept of figure as proposed by Hao (2015). Discourse semantic patterns of ideational and interpersonal meaning are described and then examined in the light of recent theoretical developments in relation to field (Doran & Martin, forthcoming).
Doran, Y.J. & J.R. Martin to appear Field relations: understanding scientific explanations. In K. Maton, J.R. Martin & Y.J. Doran (eds.), Studying science: Knowledge, language, pedagogy. London: Routledge. 
Hao, J. (2015). Construing biology: An Ideational perspective. (Doctor of Philosophy), University of Sydney, Sydney. 
Martin, J.R. (1992). English text. System and structure. Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the SFL notion of a 'move' in an exchange derives from Halliday's semantic system of SPEECH FUNCTION, which Martin (1992) relabels as his own discourse semantic system of NEGOTIATION.

[2] To be clear, the SFL notion of 'figure' derives from Halliday's ideational semantics, as set out in Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 128-76).

[3] To be clear, Martin misunderstands the SFL notion of 'field', as demonstrated  in great detail here.  Essentially,
  • In SFL theory, 'field' refers to the ideational dimension of context (the instantiation cline from culture to subculture/situation type to situation);
  • Martin misconstrues context as register, which in SFL theory is language, not context, and subpotential, not potential, and thus misunderstands field as the ideational dimension of register;
  • In terms of SFL theory, in confusing context potential (culture) with language subpotential (register), Martin's discussions of field confuse field (context) with the ideational meaning (semantics) of a text (of a register).  For example, in terms of SFL theory, Martin's notion of 'building a field' corresponds to the instantiation of ideational semantics during the unfolding of a text (logogenesis).

Example Of Delicacy In Field (i.e. Cultural Context, Not Register Of Language)

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 322):

Thursday 2 May 2019

The SFL Perspective On Nominal Group Complexity

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 726, 728-9):
Typically, written language becomes complex by being lexically dense: it packs a large number of lexical items into each clause; whereas spoken language becomes complex by being grammatically intricate: it builds up elaborate clause complexes out of parataxis and hypotaxis. … 
The nominal group is the primary resource used by the grammar for packing in lexical items at high density. … In written language, the clausal patterns are typically rather simple; but the ideational content is densely packed in nominal constructions … And it is the written kind of complexity that involves grammatical metaphor.

The Intermediate Status Of Qualities

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 208):