David Rose's History Of SFL In Sydney

On the asflanet discussion list, David Rose replied to Brad Smith on 23 Feb 2024 at 15:25:

Let’s consider that hypothesis in the light of Rob’s iteration of ‘our prophet’ (in a parallel post). I’ve no doubt that’s the last thing Michael would have wanted to be. Until 1985 he was an academic leader, in both senses of leading a theoretical field and organising it through courses, doctorates, conferences, university politics etc. His ten years at Sydney enormously expanded the field, resulting not only in IFG, but also Xian’s Lexicogrammatical Cartography and Jim’s English Text, along with courses that taught them and graduates to teach them, and arguably SFL’s biggest export, genre literacy pedagogy.

His elevation to ‘prophet’ status coincided with both expansion and fragmentation of the field. When he retired early, the Australian descriptivists organised a coup in Sydney that marginalised SFL ever after. Jim refused to give in, but has used it as a base to seed further generations of research in genre pedagogy, appraisal, multimodality, individuation, register studies, grammar and typology. He too has been an academic leader in both senses.

Meanwhile, SFL became more widely taught, particularly the IFG grammar. Macquarie became another base thanks to Ruqaiya’s powerful academic leadership. As it widened, and Michael’s status grew, a rift started appearing between the work emerging from Sydney and elsewhere (I’m obviously oversimplifying). Students at Sydney and associated centres continued to study IFG, but applied its principles to researching other strata and modes. From outside, this work got corralled as the ‘Sydney school’. Its boundaries were defined in contrast to work up to 1985, which were cemented as the SFL ‘canon’ (as Rob put it), in concert with Michael’s canonisation as ‘prophet’.

Ironically the opposite of his own stated goals, politics, and how he carried himself...

‘This standpoint is associated with impure categories, with tendencies (analogy), with functionalism, and with the testing of theories by better-or-worse criteria of application - whether or not you can do something with them.’

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, it was Rose himself who introduced Bernstein's (2000) application of 'prophet' to the social structure of a pedagogical field, and Spence merely used what Rose provided: 

The religious field is constituted by three positions which stand in various relations of complementarity and opposition. In the religious field, we have the prophets, we have the priests, and we have the laity. The rule is that one can only occupy one category at a time. Priests cannot be prophets, and prophets cannot be priests, and the laity cannot be either. There is a natural affinity between prophets and laity, and there is a natural opposition between prophets and priests. These are the lines of opposition structuring the religious field.

If we look at the structure of the pedagogic field, we also have basically three positions that provide analogues to the prophets, priests and laity. The ‘prophets’ are the producers of the knowledge, the ‘priests’ are the recontextualisers or the reproducers, and the ‘laity’ are the acquirers. Thus, we have the structure of the pedagogic field.

[2] To be clear, this is irrelevant, since it is Bernstein's sociological model that positions Halliday as a prophet.

[3] To be clear, Martin's English Text, including his model of genre, is inconsistent with the theory that Halliday created (evidence here).

[4] To be clear, Halliday was not elevated to prophet status. There was no historical event. 'Prophet' is merely Halliday's position in Bernstein's sociological model.

[5] As should be obvious, there was no 'coup'. As one member of the selection panel, not a linguist, told her son, a linguistics student, the choice of Halliday's successor as departmental professor was decided on the basis of publication history. Importantly, if Halliday had wanted Martin to succeed him as departmental professor, he need only have retired at a later date, instead of at the comparatively young age of 59.

[6] To be clear, Martin subsequently tried to leave the Sydney University Linguistic Department by applying for a professorship at Macquarie University, but lost out again, this time to Christian Matthiessen, six years his junior.

[7] To be clear, any rift that appeared was between those who adopted Martin's misunderstandings of Halliday's theory (evidence here), and those who didn't.

[8] This is very misleading because it is very untrue. According to its Wikipedia entry, which Rose obviously contributed to, at the very least, the Sydney School was founded by Michael Halliday who established it in 1979 at the Working Conference on Language in Education held at the University of Sydney. See also Deceptive Use Of Wikipedia.

[9] To be clear, the SFL 'canon' is a religious term for what, in science, would be called the Standard Theory.

[10] To be clear, this quote from Halliday (1984) is part of a characterisation of the rhetorical-ethnographic orientation to meaning, as opposed to the logico-philosophical orientation. As such, it is entirely irrelevant to any point previously made by Rose in this email post. Its inclusion here is an instance of logical fallacy known as the Red Herring:

As an informal fallacy, the red herring falls into a broad class of relevance fallacies. Unlike the straw man, which involves a distortion of the other party's position, the red herring is a seemingly plausible, though ultimately irrelevant, diversionary tactic. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a red herring may be intentional or unintentional; it is not necessarily a conscious intent to mislead.

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).

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