Brad Smith On Theories-As-Languages As Formative/Constitutive Of Academic Communities

 Brad Smith wrote to asflanet on 23 Feb 2024 at 11:35:

there is an argument, or hypothesis I suppose, that theories-as-languages are actually formative/constitutive of academic communities — as Kay O'Halloran used to say (and possibly still does), 'the systemic functional way of life!'

Blogger Comments:

[1] Some relevant notes from The Life Of Meaning (2002):

Aligning With Specific Metafunctional Consistencies

Meaning potential thus involves a web of different networks of metafunctional consistencies: different construals, different values, different foci of attention. Meaning-makers variously align (consistently or inconsistently) with different networks of consistency within the overall web of variant consistencies. Those who share a specific network of consistency potentially form a community of ‘like-minded’ individuals with a ‘common interest’: a community formed around a way of construing experience, a community formed around a way of valuing a construal, a community formed around a way of grading the relative importance of construals and values. Since each individual can align (consistently or inconsistently) with multiple networks, each can belong to multiple communities, “us”, and disassociate from multiple communities, “you” or “them”.

Communities As Bodies Organised By Shared Construals, Values And Attentions

Communities of users of shared construals-values-attentions emerge from social-semiotic interactions between potential users of models in a population. Bonding through shared values and attentions of specific construals of experience reinforces group identity and social identity of individuals in that group. It provides group cohesion and co-operation, creating a community of ‘us’ as an integrated ‘self’. Just as shared biological potential groups individuals as kin, as family, shared semiotic potential, in general, groups individuals together as kith, friends and acquaintances. But importantly, local bonding of ‘us’, the ‘self’, also defines the ‘not-us’ as the ‘not-self’, as the ‘other’. To bond is to exclude. The self-other distinction is itself a continuum rather than a binary opposition: a scale that extends from ‘first person us’ to ‘second person you’ (those we talk to) to ‘third person them’ (those we talk about).

Semiosis As Social Immunological Process

The specific construals, values and foci of attention that organise a specific community can be understood as functioning as a type of immunological system of that social body. That is, semiotic construals, values and foci are a means of extending immunological function beyond the confines of an individual body to the confines of a social body. This can be explained as follows. 

Immunological systems in bodies recognise molecules as either ‘self’ or ‘other’ with regard to the systems of the body. Those that are categorised as ‘self’ are allowed, while those that are categorised as ‘other’, antigens, trigger an immune response in the system: the molecular shape of the antigen selects the production of multiple antibodies whose molecular shape fits into the antigen (and any of its copies) in order to neutralise it as a threat to the body. 

Similarly, semiotic systems in social bodies recognise the construals, values and foci of attention in models as either ‘self’ or ‘other’ with regard to systems of the social body. Those that are categorised as ‘self’ are allowed, while those that are categorised as ‘other’ trigger an immune response in the social-semiotic system: the metafunctional ‘shape’ (meanings) of the model selects the production of multiple ‘anti-texts’ (negative critiques) whose metafunctional ‘shape’ fits into the offending model (and any of its ‘copies’) in order to neutralise it as a threat to the social body (by undermining certainty in the offending model). 

Because the probability that a model will be selected is dependent on the recognition of it as ‘self’ or ‘other’ — in terms of consistency with the construals, values and attentions that potential users are most certain of — there is the possibility of misrecognition. On the one hand, ‘other’ construals, values and/or attentions can be misrecognised as ‘self’, and so not attacked. On the other hand, ‘self’ construals, values and/or attentions can be misrecognised as ‘other’ and consequently attacked with anti-texts. 

[2] A relevant quote from What Lies Beneath (2022):

The Culture Of 'Faith' In The SFL Community

SFL Theory is both intellectually challenging and unfamiliar in its methodology. For example, it requires linguists to be able to operate at multiple levels of different types of abstraction, and to be always aware of the level at which they are operating. This is most problematic in the case of distinguishing meaning (semantics) from wording (lexicogrammar), since wording is lexicogrammatical form (clause, group & phrase, etc.) categorised according to the meaning it realises.

In terms of unfamiliar methodology, where other linguistic theories begin with the lowest levels of symbolic abstraction: structure and form, and assign them categories, SFL Theory begins the highest levels of symbolic abstraction: system and meaning, and asks how these are realised in structure and form.

Its intellectual challenges and contrary methodology make SFL Theory and its argumentation comparatively difficult to understand. This creates a culture in the SFL community where the theory is less understood than taken on trust, like religious faith.

In a faith community, a doctrine is held as a revelation to be believed, rather than a theory to be in/validated by reasoned argumentation. In such a community, experts are providers or interpreters of revelations, rather than experts in reasoned argumentation, and in matters of interpretation, it is such individuals that are criterial, rather than reasoned argumentation. With individuals as criterial in doctrine interpretation, communities form around those individuals.

Where, in a scientific community, interpretations of theory are on a scale from accurate to inaccurate, in a faith community, interpretations of doctrine are on a scale from orthodox to unorthodox (if tolerated), or to heretical (if not tolerated).