Mapping Feeling: Attitudinal Relations
In this presentation I will review issues arising from the description of attitudinal relations proposed in Martin & White's The Language of Evaluation (2005). This will include issues having to do with
- stratification (developing discourse semantic systems),
- instantiation (multiple coding, the inscribe/invoke continuum, technicalisation and iconisation) and
- individuation (bonds and bondicons).
In doing so I will stress the importance of interpreting appraisal systems in relation to the Systemic Functional Linguistics theory that underpins the description and the challenge of dealing with applications and critiques of the framework which in effect disembody the description from this theoretical ground.
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[1] To be clear, in SFL Theory, stratification is the construal of language as different levels ('strata') of symbolic abstraction. Strata are thus different perspectives on the same phenomenon, like thespians and the roles they play are different perspectives on the same phenomenon. The relation between any two adjacent strata is one of (intensive) identity: a relation of realisation between a lower level Token and a higher level Value. As such, each level can be used to identify the other. For example, for the two strata of the content plane, the higher stratum, semantics, can be used to identify the lower stratum, lexicogrammar (decoding); and the lower stratum, lexicogrammar, can be used to identify the higher stratum, semantics (encoding).
In SFL Theory, the stratum of lexicogrammar (wording) is lexicogrammatical form (modelled as a rank scale) interpreted in terms of its function: its function in realising meaning. For example, a verbal group is interpreted in terms of its function of realising the meaning 'process'. Because of this functional interpretation, lexicogrammar (wording) and semantics (meaning) are in agreement ('congruent') in the absence of grammatical metaphor. It is the disagreement ('incongruence') between wording and meaning in grammatical metaphor that motivates modelling the content plane as two strata, rather than as function and form.
[2] When Martin developed his discourse semantic systems (Martin 1992), he gave the false impression (Chapter 1 Discourse semantics: A proposal for triple articulation) that stratifying the content plane was his own initiative, despite the fact that such a stratification was explicitly identified in the main source of his work, Halliday & Hasan (1976: 5).
Importantly, Martin's development of his discourse semantic systems (ibid.) was based on serious misunderstandings of stratification. Specifically, he misunderstood strata as interacting modules (pp 55, 77-8, 90, 268-9, 390, 488) rather than different levels of symbolic abstraction, and he misunderstood all strata as levels of meaning — even phonology! This latter misunderstanding derived from his confusion of 'realising meaning' (stratification) with 'making meaning' (semogenesis).
Martin (1992) presented 3 motivations for setting up a stratum of discourse semantics: semantic motifs, grammatical metaphor and cohesion. By 'semantic motifs' (1992: 16), Martin meant commonalities shared by partially agnate clauses: behavioural, mental and relational. Having been set up as a justification for a discourse semantic stratum, this was not addressed in the remainder of the book, and Martin's discourse semantics provides no means of modelling the agnation.
Martin's second motivation for setting up a discourse semantics stratum, grammatical metaphor (1992: 16-7), was merely Halliday's motivation for setting up a semantic stratum. Importantly, however, Martin's discourse semantic stratum undermines the systematic description of grammatical metaphor because it does not set up congruent relations between strata by which to contrast the incongruent relations of grammatical metaphor, and it sets up incongruent relations in the absence of metaphor.
Martin's third motivation for setting up a discourse semantics stratum was cohesion (1992: 17-9). Ignoring lexical cohesion, ellipsis-&-substitution and reference, Martin's argument was that agnate manifestations of expansion relations, logically in clause complexing and textually in cohesive conjunction motivate a discourse semantic stratum. However, as with grammatical metaphor, this only motivates Halliday's original semantic stratum, not a new and distinct discourse semantic stratum.
The original four discourse semantic systems set up by Martin (1992) were NEGOTIATION, IDENTIFICATION, CONJUNCTION & CONTINUITY and IDEATION. (CONJUNCTION & CONTINUITY was later renamed CONNEXION). All of these are rebrandings of systems originally set up by Halliday ± Hasan. While NEGOTIATION is a rebranding of a previous semantic system, Halliday's SPEECH FUNCTION, and its development by other scholars, the remaining three are rebrandings of previous lexicogrammatical systems, the systems of cohesion in Halliday & Hasan (1976). Specifically:
- IDENTIFICATION is Martin's rebranding of Halliday & Hasan's REFERENCE (and ELLIPSIS-&-SUBSTITUTION),
- CONJUNCTION & CONTINUITY, now CONNEXION, is Martin's rebranding of Halliday & Hasan's CONJUNCTION, and
- IDEATION is Martin's rebranding of Halliday & Hasan's LEXICAL COHESION.
In terms of metafunction, all the original systems of Halliday & Hasan are systems of the
textual metafunction, but Martin distributes his discourse semantic rebrandings across the metafunctions, without providing supporting argument, thereby creating theoretical inconsistencies. While
IDENTIFICATION, like
REFERENCE (and
ELLIPSIS-&-SUBSTITUTION), is presented as textual,
CONJUNCTION & CONTINUITY, now
CONNEXION, is presented as
logical, and
IDEATION is presented as
experiential.
Further theoretical misunderstandings in each of these discourse semantic systems serve to disguise the fact that they are indeed rebrandings of Halliday & Hasan's systems. For example, in setting up his textual IDENTIFICATION, Martin confuses REFERENCE with the interpersonal DEIXIS of nominal groups and confuses reference items with the nominal groups in which they occur, while also confusing REFERENCE with LEXICAL COHESION ('bridging').
In setting up his logical CONJUNCTION & CONTINUITY, now CONNEXION, Martin confuses cohesive CONJUNCTION (textual metafunction) with CLAUSE COMPLEXING (logical metafunction), and misinterprets and misapplies many of Halliday & Hasan's logical types. Moreover, because PROJECTION does not feature in Halliday & Hasan's model, since it does not function cohesively, Martin's logical discourse semantic system lacks a system of PROJECTION. This creates the theoretical inconsistency of a lexicogrammatical system with no meaning to realise, which has the further consequence that any grammatical metaphor involving projection cannot be accounted for.
In setting up his experiential IDEATION, Martin confuses (textual) lexical cohesion with lexis as most delicate grammar (lexical sets), and misapplies logical relations to grammatical structures.
In later publications, Martin added two more systems to his discourse semantic stratum: PERIODICITY (textual) and APPRAISAL (interpersonal). In Martin (1992), what later became known as PERIODICITY was modelled as an interstratal interaction pattern, with strata misunderstood as modules, but in Martin & Rose (2007), for example, PERIODICITY is remodelled as a discourse semantic system. However, the theoretical validity of PERIODICITY is undermined by the fact that it is a rebranding of writing pedagogy, not linguistic theory:
- 'macro-Theme' is Martin's rebranding of the 'introductory paragraph' of traditional writing pedagogy,
- 'hyper-Theme' (a term taken from Daneš and misunderstood) is Martin's rebranding of the 'topic sentence' of traditional writing pedagogy,
- 'hyper-New' is Martin's rebranding of the 'paragraph summary' of traditional writing pedagogy,
- 'macro-New' is Martin's rebranding of the 'text summary' of traditional writing pedagogy.
Moreover, there are no macro- or hyper- Rhemes or Givens to contrast with these proposed elements and complete the proposed structures.
The systems of APPRAISAL, however, differ from all the other discourse semantic systems in that they were developed through the collective efforts of Martin's colleagues and PhD students, with a first, early version of the key subsystem of ATTITUDE set out in 1994 by Iedema, Feez and White in their monograph, Media Literacy. Martin is possibly often regarded as the founder of the theory on the basis of references he made to APPRAISAL in a 1997 paper ("Analysing Genre: Functional Parameters") and/or his fuller treatment in his 2000 paper ""Beyond Exchange: Appraisal Systems in English". (The 1997 chapter presented an account of the sub-system of APPRECIATION, which was also developed through collaboration, most notably through Rothery's work on visual arts education.) However, key elements of what is now the widely referenced version of the framework were first presented in White's 1998 PhD thesis and then in White's 2002 paper, "The Language of Evaluation and Stance" (Handbook of Pragmatics.)". The version of the framework now most widely deployed in textual analysis was outlined in Martin and White's 2005 The Language of Evaluation: Appraisal in English. It includes accounts of the following sub-systems: AFFECT (drawing on earlier work by Martin), JUDGEMENT (collaboration by Martin, Iedema, Feez and White), APPRECIATION (collaboration by Martin and Rothery), ENGAGEMENT (from White's 1998 PhD thesis), GRADUATION (White and Martin collaboration).
Because of its distinct provenance, APPRAISAL, unlike other discourse semantic systems, is not merely Martin's rebranding of other people's work on semantics (NEGOTIATION), lexicogrammatical cohesion (IDENTIFICATION, CONNEXION and IDEATION) or writing pedagogy (PERIODICITY). In fact, Halliday (2008: 49) locates APPRAISAL within lexicogrammar, as representing more delicate options within the general region of evaluation, and characterises the system of ATTITUDE as 'a grammatical system that is realised by a selection of lexical items' where 'each such item is uniquely identified as a set of intersecting grammatical features' (ibid.: 179). Like all grammatical systems in SFL Theory, APPRAISAL realises the meaning of semantic systems, and in the absence of metaphor, is congruent with its semantics.
[3] To be clear, the process of instantiation is the selection of features and the activation of realisation statements in logogenesis, the unfolding of text. The cline of instantiation is the scale from potential to instance; that is, from system to register/text type to text.
Multiple coding, on the other hand, can refer either to indeterminacy in the instantiation of features in a text, or to accounting for indeterminacy in the analysis of instances. Indeterminacies include ambiguities, blends, overlaps, neutralisations, and complementarities.
To be clear, the 'inscribe/invoke' contrast is the distinction between explicit and implicit realisations of APPRAISAL system features, and to place these on a continuum is to model degrees of indeterminacy between the two options.
[4] To be clear, Martin has presented two models of a 'cline of individuation': one derived from the work of Bernstein and the other from the work of his PhD student, Knight. The Bernstein-derived model is a cline from 'reservoir' to 'repertoire', where 'reservoir' refers to the potential of the community and 'repertoire' refers to the potential of the individual. Bernstein (2000: 157):
I shall use the term repertoire to refer to the set of strategies and their analogic potential possessed by any one individual and the term reservoir to refer to the total of sets and its potential of the community as a whole.
Applied to language, this is a model of the meaning potential of meaners (language users). The organising principle of the cline is elaboration and ascription (intensive attribution), since 'repertoire' is both a subtype of 'reservoir' (elaboration), and a member of the class 'reservoir' (ascription); cf. Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 145).
However, it is the Knight-derived model that is relevant to a discussion of 'bonds' and 'bondicons'. Martin et al (2013):
A second, complementary perspective on individuation looks at how personæ mobilise social semiotic resources to affiliate with one another — how users attitude and ideation couplings, in Knight's (2010) terms, to form bonds, and how these bonds then cluster as belongings of different orders (including relatively "local" familial, collegial, professional, and leisure/recreational affiliations and more "general" fellowships reflecting "master identities" including social class, gender, generation, ethnicity, and dis/ability).
Like the Bernstein-derived model, the organising principle is again elaborating ascription, since each point on the cline is a subtype and member of the points above as types, but unlike the Bernstein-derived model, the individuation here is not of the meaning potential of meaners but of the meaners themselves. This inconsistency leads to a more serious inconsistency: the conflation of two different types of hierarchy.
Affiliation differs from individuation in that its organising principle is extension, not elaboration, since it is concerned with composition and association (Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 146). That is, where individuation is a hyponymic taxonomy (an elaboration of types), affiliation is a meronymic taxonomy (a composition of parts).
Because of this difference, affiliation can not be mapped onto the cline of individuation. For example, the bonding of meaners through shared evaluations does not affiliate them as a master identity such as gender or ethnicity. Gender and ethnicity are not created by people making the same interpersonal assessments, and the meaners (personæ) of the same gender or ethnicity can differ markedly in their interpersonal assessments.
[5] To be clear, Martin's concern here is to consolidate Appraisal as his discourse semantic system within SFL Theory. To the same end, he has previously claimed that Appraisal is not a theory, on the grounds that SFL is the theory, and here he echoes this claim by identifying Appraisal with description, rather than theory. However, a part of a theory is also a theory (e.g. transitivity theory), and in SFL Theory, every system network constitutes a theory. Moreover, in SFL, at least, the term 'description' refers to the application of the theory to individual languages (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: xxiii, 55). That is, Appraisal Theory can be used to provide descriptions of appraisal in English, Chinese, etc.
But, in any case, Appraisal Theory can be used by linguists who are not acquainted with SFL Theory, as has been proved many times over.
[6] To be clear, this is the challenge of dealing with applications and critiques of Appraisal Theory by those who do not acknowledge it as one of Jim Martin's discourse semantic systems in SFL. The intellectual way of dealing with this is to critically examine the work by reasoning on the basis of evidence, but this is also the way of dealing with applications and critiques of Appraisal Theory who do acknowledge it as one of Jim Martin's discourse semantic systems in SFL. In other words, whether or not Appraisal Theory is acknowledged as one of Jim Martin's discourse semantic systems in SFL is irrelevant to sound academic practice. Consequently, here Martin is merely concerned with maintaining the public perception that Appraisal Theory is one of his discourse semantic systems in SFL.
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