Tenor

Homonymy

Redundancy

Extension: Composition

Instance Vs Potential

Mental Projection

Text Vs Discourse [Defined]

Halliday (2008: 78):

I do make a distinction between these two; but it is a difference in point of view, between different angles of vision on the phenomena, not in the phenomena themselves. So we can use either to define the other: “discourse” is text that is being viewed in its sociocultural context, while “text” is discourse that is being viewed as a process of language.

Health Facts

Orthography

Counterexpectancy: Limiting

A Giant About To Stand On The Shoulders Of Giants

ASFLA 2015
Abstract #:    39       
Day:    Wednesday    
Session type:            50 minute paper

Presenter:     ROSE - David Rose, University of Sydney

Title:  Movin’ on up: the stratal progress of SFL research

Abstract: The development of SFL theory and research can be seen, from the broadest perspective, as a pilgrim’s progress up the strata of language in social context, along with the specialisations of its leading figures. Halliday’s teacher, JR Firth, was a phonologist, but he had already mapped out SFL’s stratified model of meaning, long before Halliday became his student. ‘I propose to split up meaning or function into a series of component functions… Meaning, that is to say, is to be regarded as a complex of contextual relations, and phonetics, grammar, lexicography, and semantics each handles its own components of the complex in its appropriate context’ (1935:45).

Like Firth, Halliday was interested in language in general but specialised in grammar, for which his most profound contribution was the recognition of its organising principles as three metafunctions, intrinsically related to three dimensions of social context. Halliday and Hasan (1976) also explored semantic relations in discourse, in terms of the textual metafunction, as cohesive devices for relating grammatical units as texts unfold. Halliday’s student, JR Martin, specialised in discourse, for which he further proposed a metafunctional analysis, termed discourse semantics. In so doing, Halliday’s model of intrinsic functionality was extended to model tenor, field and mode as register variables, realised by discourse semantic systems, and genre as a further contextual stratum configuring these variables. 

These giants have spawned generations of researchers who have massively extended and applied our knowledge of grammar, discourse semantic and genre systems, alongside other modalities. The next research frontier is the vast domain of register, already well underway in work such as Halliday and Martin on science, Halliday and Painter on early language learning, Hasan, Cloran, Williams on parent/child exchanges and early reading, Rothery, Christie, Derewianka on literacy teaching, Coffin on history, Iedema on bureacracy, Macken-Horarik on literature, O’Halloran on maths, Wignell on social science, to name only a few. This research speaks to trained systemicists and is often recontextualised for other practitioners.

In this paper I would like to suggest another approach to register, informed by this work, but deliberately described in terms of register systems and processes. As phonology, grammar and discourse are each described in their own terms, so register deserves registerial description, motivated by but not constrained to its linguistic realisations. It is conceivable that such descriptions could not only speak directly to practitioners in the fields under investigation, but enable these practitioners to analyse their own fields semiotically, without insisting on specialist linguistic training. This approach is taken to analysing the registers of both curricula and classroom teaching in the Reading to Learn teacher training program, which the paper will illustrate, and is previewed for science and history teaching in Martin 2013. But the principle is applicable to many other fields, potentially widening the scope of SFL’s appliability, sustainability and growth.

Blogger Comment:

For a reality check, see here and here.

Postdoc Pananoia

Permanent Head Damage

Reading To Learn

Write It Right

Pomo Sapiens

Blogger Turns 60

Body Language

Meaning "Beyond" The Clause

In SFL theory, the two enabling metafunctions, the logical and the textual, provide the means of realising meaning "beyond" the clause.

The logical metafunction does this structurally, by relating clauses in complexes by means of interdependency and the logico-semantic relations of expansion and projection.

The textual metafunction does this non-structurally, through the cohesive relations of reference, substitution–&–ellipsis, conjunction and lexical cohesion.

Anyone who claims that the grammatics does not model meaning "beyond" the clause does not understand the theory (or is being dishonest).

Number

Instantiation vs Logogenesis

Cooking Data

In scientific culture, cooking is a term for falsifying data or selectively deleting data in an attempt to prove a hypothesis.

Cline Of Dynamism Vs Cline Of Involvement

Hasan (1985: 45):

If we define effectuality – or dynamism – as the quality of being able to affect the world around us, and of bringing change into the surrounding environment, the semantic value of the various –er roles must be seen as distinct. This distinction correlates with two factors:

(1) the nature of the Process configuration into which the –er role enters, i.e., what other transitivity functions there are within the same clause; and  

(2) the nature of the carriers of roles, other than the –er role under focus ... a human carrier of –er role appears more dynamic than a non-human animate, and the latter appears more so than an object..

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 173):

The “degree of involvement” in the sense of how deeply some element is involved in actualising the process that is construed by the figure, can thus be represented as a cline: the difference appears not only between participants and circumstances as a whole, but also within each of these primary categories, so that there is a continuum from one to the other along this scale.

First Order Field Vs Material Setting

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 321-2):

…  the first order field is the social activity being pursued (e.g. instructing somebody in how to prepare a dish, predicting tomorrow's weather, informing somebody about yellow-pages information over the phone) …

Halliday (2007 [1991]: 278):

The setting, on the other hand, is the immediate material environment. This may be a direct manifestation of the context of situation, and so be integrated into it: if the situation is one of, say, medical care, involving a doctor and one or more patients, then the setting of hospital or clinic is a relevant part of the picture. But even there the setting does not constitute the context of situation …

Phonemic Awareness

Why Relational Constructions With An Indefinite ‘Value’ Cannot Be Viewed As Attributive

Relational constructions with an indefinite ‘Value’: Non-exhaustive instance-type specification

Kristin Davidse (University of Leuven):

The grammar and semantics of relational constructions are a key interest in SFL. Yet, a number of these constructions, particularly ones that contain participants realized by indefinite nominal groups have, in my view, not yet received a wholly satisfactory characterization – not in their own right and not in terms of their agnation relations to other relational constructions. In this talk I’ll address some of these issues, focusing on clausal and ‘cleft’ constructions in English with be and indefinite nominal groups.

A first set of issues is situated at the borderline between identification and attribution. Clauses with an indefinite Value such as (1a)-(1b) are viewed as identifying in Halliday (1967, 1994: 129) because they share reversibility as a crucial recognition criterion with identifying (2a) – (2b). The question I want to raise is whether they can be viewed as attributive. Semantically, they express a categorizing relation: a more specific thing is said to be an instance of a more general type. Unlike with identifying clauses, no exhaustiveness is implied. Moreover, as is typical of attributive (but not identifying) clauses, the conformity of the instance to the type can be graded in certain contexts, as in (3). If they are viewed as attributive, i.e. as ‘categorizing’ rather than ‘equative’, the further question is whether an opposition akin to decoding – encoding for identifying clauses should be posited for attributive clauses.

(1a) … The Gulf War is a good example.
(1b) … Also, a good example is the Gulf War …
(2a) … Tom is the loser.
(2b) … The losers are you and me.
(3) … but Pandora's Tower is very much an example of the difficulty I'd like to see in Zelda game.

Blogger Comments:

[1] It is not true that clauses with an indefinite Value such as (1a)-(1b) semantically express a categorising relation.  In these clauses, the Gulf War identifies a good example — so they are identifying.  (Identifying an example isn't assigning it membership to a class.) The identity encodes a good example by reference to The Gulf War.  (See further clarification here.)

encoding: operative

The Gulf War	is	a good example
Agent	Process:	Medium
Token/Identifier	identifying	Value/Identified

encoding: receptive

a good example	is	the Gulf War
Medium	Process:	Agent
Value/Identified	identifying	Token/Identifier

Importantly, encoding identifying clauses and attributive clauses differ markedly on the ergative model.  In terms of agency, encoding clauses are effective, whereas attributive clauses are middle.

encoding

the Gulf War	is	a good example
Agent	Process:	Medium
Token/Identifier	identifying	Value/Identified

attributive

the Gulf War	was	immoral
Medium	Process:	Range
Carrier	attributive	Attribute

[2] The function of very much in (3) is interpersonal: a mood Adjunct of intensity.

Pandora's Tower	is	very much	an example [of the difficulty [[I'd like to see in Zelda game]] ]
Agent	Process:		Medium
Token/Identifier	identifying		Value/Identified
Subject	Finite	mood Adjunct: intensity	Complement
Mood			Residue

These occur whether the clause is identifying or attributive, and whether the Value is definite or indefinite:

• Tom is very much the loser (identifying with definite Value) 
• Gerri is hardly an actress (attributive).

Therefore, the Adjunct does not grade 'the conformity of the instance to the type' and does not provide an argument for treating such clauses as attributive.

[3] Since such clauses cannot be viewed as attributive, there is no motivation for positing an opposition akin to encoding and decoding for attributive clauses.

∞

Moreover, it is actually the decoding identifying clauses — not the encoding — that are closer to attributives.  Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 237):

The 'decoding' type of 'identifying' clause is intermediate between the 'attributive' and  the 'encoding' type. … Nominal Attributes are closer to Values than adjectival ones; and these, in turn, are very close to the ‘is an example of’ type of ‘identifying’ clause …

How To Get An Abstract Accepted To An ISFC

Step 1: Choose an abstract from another field.

Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity

Alan D. Sokal

There are many natural scientists, and especially physicists, who continue to reject the notion that the disciplines concerned with social and cultural criticism can have anything to contribute, except perhaps peripherally, to their research. Still less are they receptive to the idea that the very foundations of their worldview must be revised or rebuilt in the light of such criticism. Rather, they cling to the dogma imposed by the long post-Enlightenment hegemony over the Western intellectual outlook, which can be summarized briefly as follows: that there exists an external world, whose properties are independent of any individual human being and indeed of humanity as a whole; that these properties are encoded in "eternal" physical laws; and that human beings can obtain reliable, albeit imperfect and tentative, knowledge of these laws by hewing to the "objective" procedures and epistemological strictures prescribed by the (so-called) scientific method. …

My approach will be as follows: First I will review very briefly some of the philosophical and ideological issues raised by quantum mechanics and by classical general relativity. Next I will sketch the outlines of the emerging theory of quantum gravity, and discuss some of the conceptual issues it raises. Finally, I will comment on the cultural and political implications of these scientific developments. It should be emphasized that this article is of necessity tentative and preliminary; I do not pretend to answer all of the questions that I raise. My aim is, rather, to draw the attention of readers to these important developments in physical science, and to sketch as best I can their philosophical and political implications. …

Step 2: Adapt the source wording to that of the target field.

Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Systemic Functionalisation Of Formal Syntax

There are many linguists, and especially Formal linguists, who continue to reject the notion that the disciplines concerned with social and cultural phenomena can have anything to contribute, except perhaps peripherally, to their research. Still less are they receptive to the idea that the very foundations of their worldview must be revised or rebuilt in the light of such insights. Rather, they cling to the dogma which can be summarised briefly as follows: that there exists a Universal Grammar, whose properties are independent of any individual human being and indeed of humanity as a whole; that these properties are encoded in a Language Acquisition Device (LAD); and that linguists can only acquire knowledge of language by sticking rigidly to the "objective'' procedures and epistemological strictures prescribed by the scientific method.

In challenging this hegemony, my approach will be as follows: First I will review very briefly some of the philosophical and ideological issues raised by Formal and Functional theories of language. Next I will sketch the epistemological assumptions of Systemic Functional Grammatics (SFG), and discuss some of the conceptual issues they raise. Finally, I will comment on the implications of such an approach. It should be emphasised that this paper is of necessity tentative and preliminary; I do not pretend to answer all of the questions that I raise. My aim is, rather, to draw attention to these important issues, and to sketch as best I can their philosophical and ideological implications.

Step 3: Add an appropriate reference list.

Chomsky, N. 1995 The Minimalist Program Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 

Fitch, W. T., Hauser M. D., and Chomsky N. The Evolution Of The Language Faculty: Clarifications And Implications Cognition 97.2 (2005): 179-210.

Halliday, M.A.K. and Matthiessen, C.M.I.M. 1999 Construing Experience Through Meaning: A Language-Based Approach To Cognition London: Continuum

Halliday, M.A.K. and Matthiessen, C.M.I.M. 2004 An Introduction To Functional Grammar London: Arnold

Hauser, M. D., Chomsky N., and Fitch W. T. The Faculty Of Language: What Is It, Who Has It, And How Did It Evolve? Science 298.5598 (2002): 1569-1579.

Construing Experience Through Meaning

How German Sounds Compared To Other Languages

Construing Experience Without Language

Interspecies Semiosis

The Origin Of The Notion Of A 'Language Organ'

The notion of a 'language organ' derives from the field of phrenology, a pseudoscience primarily focused on measurements of the human skull, based on the concept that the brain is the organ of the mind, and that certain brain areas have localised, specific functions or modules.

https://www.questia.com/magazine/1G1-155404357/phrenology-and-language

aBook

Anaphoric Reference

Stratification: Levels Of Symbolic Abstraction

The semantic stratum (meaning) and the lexicogrammatical stratum (wording) are two levels of symbolic abstraction of the one phenomenon: the content plane.  The content plane is an identifying relation between meaning and wording.

The content plane and the expression plane are two levels of symbolic abstraction of the one phenomenon: language.  Language is an identifying relation between content and expression.

Vowel Raising And Expansion Types

Cartesian Reductionism

"A Register"

Halliday (2002 [1990]: 168):

I shall assume the concept of register, or functional (diatypic) variation in language.  It is convenient to talk of "a register", in the same way that one talks of "a dialect": in reality, of course, dialectal variation is typically continuous, along many dimensions (that is, with many features varying simultaneously), and what we call "a dialect" is a syndrome of variants that tend to co-occur.  Those feature combinations that actually do occur — what we recognise as "the dialects of English", for example, or "the dialects of Italian" — are only a tiny fraction of the combinations that would be theoretically possible within the given language.  Similarly, "a register" is a syndrome, or a cluster of associated variants; and again only a small fraction of the theoretically possible combinations will actually be found to occur.

Halliday M.A.K. 2002 Linguistic Studies of Text And Discourse London: Continuum

Accelerated Learning

How To Tell Baddies From Goodies: Form

Social Realism And SFL: Epistemological Differences

Social realism, in sociology, refers to the assumption that social reality, social structures and related social phenomena have an existence over and above the existence of individual members of society, and independent of our conception or perception of them.

In Systemic Functional Linguistic theory, human experience is construed (as ideational meaning) and social relations are enacted (as interpersonal meaning).  Social structures and related social phenomena are thus construals of language and enactments of language by humans, and thus crucially dependent on the construing and enacting of the humans involved.

Theorising Knowledge Practices

it's not what you know but who you know*

Proverb

For success, and especially to obtain employment, one's knowledge and skills are less useful and less important than one's network of personal contacts.


* Cf Oxbridge vs the rest.

Grammatical Metaphor As Junctional Meaning: Congruent Realised By Metaphorical

Iconicity

Multimodality: Image-Text Relations

Transcategorisation (As Opposed To Grammatical Metaphor)

Halliday (2008: 100):

Two aspects of a language are involved [in developing technical, theoretical forms of discourse]: (1) the metaphoric potential, realigning the relations between the semantics and the lexicogrammar (“de- and re-coupling”); (2) the transcategorising potential, moving lexicalised elements across syntactic classes. The first of these is the essential operation; the second is the mechanism by which it is achieved.

Halliday (2008: 152-3):

Technology is based on things: complex things, whose parts are measured and consolidated into wholes. Grammatically, these things are construed as nouns and organised into taxonomies, on the principle of meronymy. Measuring and taxonomising are steps toward scientific theory; a theory is a designed construction of meanings (a piece of semiotic technology!) in which the grammar is being used to construe more elaborate and more abstract models of experience: cosmologies, geometries, theories of the socio-political and moral order. For the first two, at least, you need to theorise about generalised processes and qualities: [how] big things are, how fast and in what directions they move, how they change from one state to another; so the grammar turns these processes and qualities into pseudo-things, virtual objects like length, motion, speed, distance, proportion. To do this the grammar uses the resources of transcategorising, which is part of its architecture: it makes verbs and adjectives into nouns, the category which construes phenomena that can be measured, and that are stable and persist through time. Transcategorising is a syntactic operation; it may use formal marking, morphological and phonological, but there may be no formal variation at all.

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 271): 

Thus grammatical metaphor is a means of having things both ways. An element that is transcategorised loses its original status because of the nature of the semantic feature(s) with which it comes to be combined … A[n] element that is metaphorised does not lose its original status. Its construction is not triggered by its being associated with any new semantic feature. If it has a new semantic feature this is a result of the metaphorising process. … It has become a ‘junctional’ construct, combining two of the basic properties that the grammar evolved as it grew into a theory of experience.

Decoding Graphology By Reference To Grammar

Sociolinguistics

The Plight Of The Young Female Academic

The Dead Hand Of Plato In Formal Linguistics

Genuine change, according to essentialism, is possible only through the saltational origin of new essences.  Because evolution, as explained by Darwin, is by necessity gradual, it is quite incompatible with essentialism.

 — Ernst Mayr

Social Realism

Social realism, in sociology, refers to the assumption that social reality, social structures and related social phenomena have an existence over and above the existence of individual members of society, and independent of our conception or perception of them.

Social realists consider that science is an empirically based, rational and objective enterprise, the purpose of which is to provide explanatory and predictive knowledge. For the realist, there is an important distinction between explanation and prediction. Social realists believe that explanation should be the primary objective. They claim that explanation in both the natural and social sciences should entail going beyond simply demonstrating that phenomena are instances of some observed regularity, and uncovering the underlying and often invisible mechanisms which causally connect them. Frequently, this means postulating on the existence of types of unobservable phenomena and processes which are unfamiliar to us, but realists believe that only by doing this will it be possible to get beyond the mere "appearance" of things to their very nature and essence.

Sociologists make a distinction between social realism and positivism, which asserts that science can only deal with observable entities known directly to experience.

Cross

Behaviourist Teaching Model

A Spell From Teaching

The Exception That Proves The Rule

Rose-Coloured Theorising

'I don't know what you mean by "glory",' Alice said.

Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. 'Of course you don't — till I tell you. I meant "there's a nice knock-down argument for you!"'

'But "glory" doesn't mean "a nice knock-down argument",' Alice objected.

'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.'

'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.'

'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master — that's all.'

Alice was too much puzzled to say anything; so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again. 'They've a temper, some of them — particularly verbs: they're the proudest — adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs — however, I can manage the whole lot of them! Impenetrability! That's what I say!'

'Would you tell me please,' said Alice, 'what that means?'

'Now you talk like a reasonable child,' said Humpty Dumpty, looking very much pleased. 'I meant by "impenetrability" that we've had enough of that subject, and it would be just as well if you'd mention what you mean to do next, as I suppose you don't mean to stop here all the rest of your life.'

'That's a great deal to make one word mean,' Alice said in a thoughtful tone.

'When I make a word do a lot of work like that,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'I always pay it extra.'

'Oh!' said Alice. She was too much puzzled to make any other remark.