Born Disagreer

Research prizes are opaque and rife with bias — it’s time to shake them up

“Scientific prizes are plagued by opaque and seemingly biased selection criteria,” argues biologist Malgorzata Lagisz. She and an international group of fellow volunteers analysed a broad sample of ‘best paper’ awards. The majority of awards had failings that could open the door to discrimination or conflicts of interest, and some relied on simplistic metrics, such as citations. “Next time you see another award announcement, maybe reflect on whether this prize contributes to the reproducibility crisis and various biases rampant in academia,” she concludes.

Snakes On Ladders

How To Take Credit For Somebody Else's Idea

How To Come Up With A Prize-Winning Idea

Celebrating Our Achievements

He who praises everybody, praises nobody. — Samuel Johnson

A Close Examination Of Yaegan Doran's 2023 ASFLA Plenary Abstract

Negotiating social relations: Viewing tenor from multiple perspectives

Whenever we talk or write, we negotiate our social relations. This may involve small seemingly inconsequential chats with friends, families and colleagues that help us stay in contact and possibly get us closer to them; or they may be large, momentous events that bring us together or tear us apart. In all cases, we negotiate these social relations through the discourse we use – through language and a range of related semiotic resources. In SFL, this has typically been explored through tenor, a variable of context (Halliday 1978; or register, Martin 1992, depending on the model being used). Tenor has variously been described in terms of the 'roles played by those taking part’ in a situation, ‘the values that the interactants imbue’ the activity with (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 33) and the relationships between addressees or interactants (Gregory 1967; Hasan 2020). Or, more broadly, the ‘general dimensions of social relations’ (Poynton 1990:70) and their negotiation (Martin 1992: 523). However, to this point, there has been little by way of comprehensive models of tenor that have been able to link the various dimensions underpinning our social relations with the set of language resources that realise them, in particular, resources within the interpersonal metafunction (Hasan 2020 and related work such as Butt et al. 2021 being perhaps the most comprehensive proposal thus far).

As a step toward such a model, this talk will focus on how we can consider tenor in SFL in relation to recent expansions of SFL theory that have distinguished realisation, instantiation and individuation (Halliday 1991, Matthiessen 1993, Martin 2010). It will propose that a fruitful avenue for understanding the link between language and social relations is to view tenor from these multiple perspectives. 

From the perspective of realisation, tenor can be viewed as a set of resources for enacting social relations (drawing on a model developed in Doran, Martin and Zappavigna forthcoming). 

From the perspective of instantiation, it can be viewed as sets of guiding principles that underly how we co-select and arrange different language features (such as the principles of status and contact, described by, e.g. Poynton 1990, Martin 1992, Hasan 2020 and Butt et al. 2021). 

And in terms of individuation, it can be viewed as sets of social roles and relationships – or more broadly, arenas of sociality – that offer possibilities for variation, contestation and collaboration, in terms of the meaning making resources that are taken up or presumed. 

In short, given the major role tenor plays in our understanding of how language and broader semiosis enacts social relations, this talk will propose that it is time to give it the theoretical space it needs.

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, the fundamental misunderstanding in this abstract, as in two of Doran's previous seminars on the subject, is the confusion of interpersonal context with interpersonal semantics. This is a consequence of not understanding the meaning of distinct levels of symbolic abstraction. See further below.

[1] To be clear, even in Martin's model, negotiation is a matter of discourse semantics, whereas social relations are a matter of context. Speakers and writers do not negotiate tenor variables. For example, the essay of a primary school student does not negotiate the status roles  — equal or unequal power — with the teacher for whom the essay was written. In his work, The Lord Of The Rings, the author Tolkien does not negotiate the contact roles — familiar or unfamiliar — of himself with his readers.

What speakers and writers potentially negotiate are their propositions and proposals — statements, questions, offers and commands — their speech functional moves in exchanges, as realised by the grammar of MOOD. But such negotiation is largely restricted to the semantics that realise dialogic MODE. For example, what propositions or proposals does Lewis Carroll negotiate with his readers in The Hunting Of The Snark?

[2] To be clear, the linking of social relations with the interpersonal language that realise them is not a model of tenor. It is a description of interstratal relations: how tenor variables are realised by semantic options. See [4] below.

[3] This misunderstands realisation. Specifically, it confuses context with the language that realises it. That is, the set of resources for enacting social relations as meaning is interpersonal language, not tenor. Tenor is the interpersonal context that language realises.

[4] This confuses instantiation with interstratal realisation. From the perspective of instantiation, tenor is the interpersonal dimension of the culture > subcultures/situation types > situations. The notion of tenor as "guiding principles" for the selection of language features is modelled in SFL Theory by interstratal preselection. Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 375):

At the same time, this stratal organisation means that it is crucial to specify the realisational relations between strata — inter-stratal realisation. … More specifically, inter-stratal realisation is specified by means of inter-stratal preselection: contextual features are realised by preselection within the semantic system, semantic features are realised by preselection within the lexicogrammatical system, and lexicogrammatical features are realised by preselection within the phonological/graphological system. This type of preselection may take different forms between different strata! boundaries, but the principle is quite general.

[5] To be clear, individuation is the process of creating different types of individuals. Individuated tenor thus refers to the different types of tenor (from potential to instance) at the level of the individual. Moving up the cline of individuation (of tenor) is moving up to ever more inclusive types of individuations (of tenor). This is distinct from the individuation of language, and the use of language to contest and collaborate.

[6] To be clear, this presents Doran's paper as righting a wrong, which, in terms of logical fallacies, might be interpreted as an appeal to emotion.

ASFLA Awards The Inaugural MAK Halliday Prize To Cléirigh's Plagiarisers

The inaugural MAK Halliday Prize has been awarded to Thu Ngo, Susan Hood, J.R. Martin, Clare Painter, Bradley A. Smith and Michele Zappavigna for their book Modelling Paralanguage using Systemic Functional Semiotics: Theory and Application.

As demonstrated in meticulous detail here for a previous publication, the authors have rebranded Cléirigh's model of body language as their model of paralanguage, in which Cléirigh's 'linguistic' body language is rebranded as their 'sonovergent' paralanguage, and Cléirigh's 'epilinguistic' body language is rebranded as their 'semovergent' paralanguage. By unnecessarily relabelling Cléirigh's model, they give the false impression that Cléirigh's ideas are theirs.

Plagiarism: the practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own.

See, for example:

An Approach "Inspired" By Cléirigh’s "Contributions"

Misrepresenting Cléirigh's Ideas As Their Own

The Pretext For Rebranding Cléirigh's Body Language Systems As The Authors' Paralanguage Systems

Misrepresenting Cléirigh's Work As The Authors' Work

Martin's Model Of Paralanguage

The fact that more worthy contenders were passed over — the works of Matthiessen et al, McCabe, and Maagerø et al — suggests either that theoretical competence and intellectual integrity were not high on the list of criteria for determining the winner, or that the judges lacked the knowledge and ability to apply these criteria to the works submitted for the prize.

All in all, if this first award is any indication, the MAK Halliday Prize has been established by the Sydney-based members of ASFLA merely to confer the prestige status of 'Halliday' on themselves. This conclusion is supported by the fact that ASFLA chose a judging committee that was mostly composed of educationalists affiliated with Martin's pedagogy, rather than experts on SFL theory, and the fact that the only nominee from Sydney-based members of ASFLA was the work that just happened to be awarded the prize — at an ASFLA conference.

Conference 'Bonding' T-Shirt

 

A Close Examination Of David Rose's 2023 SFLIG Plenary Abstract

Plenary 3: Cultures, Texts and People: Challenges Of Change In SFL Practice 

Dr David Rose, University of Sydney 

Abstract: 

Thanks to Jay Lemke, SFL has a model for interpreting change at three time scales, named for us by Michael Halliday as phylogenesis for the evolution of semiotic systems, ontogenesis for the growth of persons, and logogenesis for the unfolding of texts. Jim Martin has associated these scales of change with three hierachies [sic] in our model of semiosis. Phylogenesis is associated with the hierachy [sic] of realisation, between evolving systems at the strata of genre, register, discourse, grammar and phonology. Ontogenesis is associated with the cline of individuation, from personae to groups, communities and master identities. Logogenesis is associated with the instantiation cline, from systems to text types to texts to readings. 

Perhaps most relevant to the research themes of this conference are clines of individuation - how communities affiliate around issues of environment, governance and conflict, how semiotic repertoires are allocated by institutions such as education and healthcare, and now how to characterise the place of AI in semiotic communities. For SFL researchers, variations in affiliation and allocation are found by comparing patterns instantiated in texts. A difficult question is how to grapple with this complexity in our data and our arguments. 

The traditional practice of listing features with clause examples falters beyond systems of grammar and phonology. One alternative is to leave linguistic analysis for statistics, mining texts for clause or item types and counting their frequencies. Another is to interpret data discursively with loosely defined topologies. But if our goal is changing practices in these fields, we need to be able to show how systems are instantiated and individuated at each semiotic stratum, in ways that will be useful for non-specialists. For me, that means hanging on to texts, and presenting them in novel formats that foreground the patterns we are concerned with. These formats must also be economical for the analyst, and concise enough for publication. In this talk I will illustrate some processes for designing analyses, that couple multiple perspectives on texts, while keeping them intact.

Blogger Comments:

[1] As the term suggests, 'ontogenesis' is the coming into being of the system (in the individual).

[2] This is very misleading indeed. This was not Martin's innovation but Halliday's model. For example, Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 18):

[3] This is misleading. Phylogenesis is the evolution of the system — meaning potential — in the species, whereas realisation is merely the relation of symbolic abstraction that obtains between system and structure and between strata. Phylogenesis involves change in all dimensions of language, for example, change within the systems of semantics, lexicogrammar and phonology, change in the structures of semantics, lexicogrammar and phonology, change in the instantiation probabilities of semantics, lexicogrammar and phonology.

[4] To be clear, these are Martin's strata, all of which are proposed on the basis of theoretical misunderstandings, as demonstrated in great detail here. For example, Martin's genre misconstrues text type and the semantic structures of various text types as non-linguistic context. Martin's register misconstrues functional varieties of language as the non-linguistic context that are realised by such varieties. Martin's 'discourse' is primarily his rebranding of Halliday & Hasan's lexicogrammatical cohesion as his discourse semantics.

[5] To be clear, this has Martin's cline of individuation backwards. Individuation is the process by which an individual becomes distinct. But see further below.

[6] This misunderstands the cline of instantiation. Texts are instances of a speaker's meaning potential, whereas readings are addressees' interpretation of such texts.

[7] This misunderstands the cline of individuation. The organising principle of individuation, like instantiation, is elaboration (hyponymy). Moving down the cline is viewing the elaboration of types. The organising principle of affiliation, on the other hand, is extension (meronymy). Affiliation is concerned with the groups that individuals associate with. This confusion explains why Rose described Martin's cline from the bottom up, instead of the top down.

[8] Clearly, there are no clause features in phonology.

[9] To be clear, in SFL Theory, statistics are the means of distinguishing varieties on the cline of instantiation. Viewed from the system pole, varieties differ in terms of the instantiation probabilities of features; viewed from the instance pole, varieties differ in terms of the instantiation frequencies of features.

[10] To be clear, "hanging on to texts" should go without saying in SFL. Halliday (2003[1994]: 437):

… systemic theory gives prominence to discourse, or 'text'; not — or not only — as evidence for the system, but valued, rather, as constitutive of the culture.

∞

See also:

David Rose Promoting Jim Martin's Misunderstandings Of Realisation, Instantiation And Individuation
David Rose On Martin's Context-Bound/Free And Individuation As Allocation/Affiliation
David Rose On Jim Martin's Individuation
David Rose Endorsing Martin's Misunderstandings Of Individuation
A Close Examination Of Martin's 2023 ISFC Plenary Abstract

This Calls For Immediate Discussion

Anaphoric Reference

Explaining Lexis As Most Delicate Grammar Through A Phonological Analogy

The notion of lexis as most delicate grammar is made difficult to understand by the fact that we don't have the grammar elaborated sufficiently delicately to the features that specify individual lexical items and the lexical sets that they form through shared features. But the principle can be understood by looking at articulatory phonology, where systems are sufficiently delicate.

In lexicogrammar, 'word' conflates two abstractions: word as grammatical rank and word as lexical item. The same conflation can be applied to the phoneme in articulatory phonology: a phoneme can be understood as both a phonological rank and an articulatory item.

As a phonological rank unit, the phoneme is a constituent of the higher rank unit, the syllable, and classes of phoneme, consonants and vowels, realise elements of syllable structure, Onset, Nucleus and Coda — just as a grammatical rank unit, the word is a constituent of the higher rank unit, the group, and classes of word, nominal, verbal etc., realise elements of group structure, Thing, Event etc.

As an articulatory item, the phoneme is the synthetic realisation of the most delicate articulatory features. For example, the phoneme /b/ is the synthetic realisation of the features [voiced, bilabial, stop] and phonemes can be grouped into articulatory sets on the basis of shared features, such as [voiced] and/or [bilabial] and/or [stop]. For example, the [voiced] set includes {b d g v z m n a e i o u w y}, the [bilabial] set includes {p b m} and the [stop] set includes {p b m t d n k g}.

It is in this sense that the lexical item is the synthetic realisation of the most delicate grammatical features, and that lexical items form lexical sets on the basis of shared features.

The Problem

The Goal

Another Victory For Dumocracy

Icons To Rally Around

Deconstruction

Geoff Thompson On Genre

Thompson (2014: 42-3):

If we now turn, more briefly, to genre, this can be seen in very simple terms as register plus communicative purpose: that is, it includes the more general idea of what the interactants are doing through language, and how they organise the language event, typically in recognisable stages, in order to achieve that purpose. An image that may help you to grasp the difference between register and genre is to see register as cloth and genre as garment: the garment is made of an appropriate type of cloth or cloths, cut and shaped in conventional ways to suit particular purposes. Similarly, a genre deploys the resources of a register (or more than one register) in particular patterns to achieve certain communicative goals.

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, in SFL Theory, 'communicative purpose/goal' is rhetorical mode, a textual system of context. Every register realises the mode as well as the field and tenor of a situation type. The notion of 'genre' here is thus redundant.

Thompson's aim here was to include Hasan's notion of genre in his coverage of SFL, but Hasan herself identified her 'genre' as Halliday's 'register'.

Instead Of Arguing With Idiots

David Rose On There Being No Important Differences Between Martin's And Halliday's Approaches To SFL

David Rose wrote to Sysfling on 19/9/23 at 16:32: 

no *important* differences...

Blogger Comments:

No important differences:

David Rose Strategically Misrepresenting Michæl Halliday

David Rose wrote to Sysfling on 17/9/23 at 7:29:

For Halliday’s own take on this shared approach, see his Introduction to Martin’s Systemic functional grammar: a next step into the theory – axial relations.

Framed as history, from Saussure through Firth, he describes how and why he came up with the approach, and the value of a textbook for doing it...

Blogger Comments:

[1] A meticulous review of this monograph has begun at Systemic Functional Grammar: A Next Step Into The Theory — Axial Relations.

[2] This is very misleading indeed. Halliday's only comment on Martin's monograph itself was, as stated, that it teaches students 'the principles and practice of using system networks'. The rest of his introduction is an introduction to his theory of SFL. There is no endorsement of a "shared approach" that includes Martin's approach to SFL Theory.

David Rose On Martin's Approach To SFL

David Rose replied to Annabelle Lukin and Mick O'Donnell on SYSFLING on 16 Sept 2023 at 20:34:

It’s important that people know that the approach is always SFL, as developed by Halliday and colleagues through the 60s-70s, and applied by himself and others to different regions of meaning making over the following decades. The theory has been extended as descriptions have expanded, but the approach is the same... linguistic(/semiotic), functional, systemic.

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, for Rose, it is enough that Martin's work is in SFL. Questions of whether the work is consistent with SFL Theory or with itself are immaterial. This is SFL as a faith, rather than a theory. See The Culture Of 'Faith' In The SFL Community.

Field, Tenure & Mode

The Community Of Bluff

Positive Discourse Analysis

It is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from inquiry.
— Thomas Paine

Wording As The Overlap Of Form And Meaning

SFL Collegiality

Collegiality

Circumstances Inherent In A Process

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 243):

There are also, in fact, certain circumstances that are construed as inherent in a process. This happens with [transformative] ‘enhancing’ clauses construing movement through space of a participant: here a circumstance of Place represents the destination of that movement and may be inherent in the process. For example:

Did these books and articles put groceries on the table?

They carved its image into stone || and placed it on their temples and palaces.

Interpersonal Graphology

Woofer As Tweeter

English for Aliens

Hypothesis Testing

Genre vs Subverting The Genre

Paralanguage

Engagement

Meaner At Risk

command^F

Presentations

Inciting Debate

Demanding Information

Arguing On The Basis Of Evidence

Cancel Culture

 

Your Right To Speak

David Rose Attempting To Deceive The Asflanet And Sysfling Communities

 David Rose wrote to asflanet on 30 April 2023, at 12:57:

In order to have open public discussions about language and pedagogy could I please ask people to use this official discussion list for ASFLA.

asflanet@freelists.org

The “sys-func” address is now a privately managed blog site which I keep trying to block (because of how it has been used), but keeps popping up in my feed because all our colleagues and friends are in my contact list.

 

David Rose later wrote to Sysfling on 30 April 2023 at 22:17:

In another thread (unfortunately conducted on the private “sys-func” blog, instead of sysfling or asflanet), William Armour asked the age old question …

 

David Rose then wrote to Asflanet on 4 May 2023, at 12:42:

The jig’s up Chris

Just be kind to people and most people will be kind to you

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, here Rose has resorted to telling what he knows to be an outright lie in order to knowingly deceive his colleagues on the Asflanet and Sysfling email lists. The Sys-Func email list is demonstrably not a blog, private or otherwise, as shown by the public discussions that have taken place over the last 30 years.

An ethical intelligent reader might ask why Rose would want to betray the trust of his colleagues.

[2] Here Rose repeats and compounds the lie by further claiming that he is not the one who has been caught out, without a defence.

[3] To be clear, here Rose is explaining that the reason he told deliberate lies was in order to be deliberately unkind. That is, it was an act of bullying. See, also David Rose Negatively Judging My 'Behaviour'.

See also Rose's Deceptive Use Of Wikipedia.

Liar Profile

 

Ideation vs Attitude

Insincere And Very Nice

The Head Teacher

Personal Reference

Debater

Paradigmatic Lexicogrammar vs Syntagmatic Lexical Collocation

Graham Lock wrote to SYSFLING on 23 Mar 2023, at 11:21:

A question for the theorists among us. Like so many I have been trying out ChatGPT and have been astounded at what it can do. For example, I asked it to translate into English passages from an obscure Buddhist text in Classical Chinese that I am 99.9% sure has never been translated before and it produced a reasonably good translation. That is not particularly surprising. What did surprise me is that when challenged on parts of its translation, it was able to engage in a discussion of why it had translated in a certain way, including unpacking some metaphors (I can upload some screen shots if anyone is interested). It was also able to consider and evaluate alternative translations. How does it do this without some semantic “understanding”? I know nothing about AI, but from everything I have read and heard its language processing is entirely connectionist. It trawls through huge amounts of text identifying and matching patters, and making predictions. It can do some basic parsing of syntax but, I am assured, cannot do any kind of semantic analysis, including semantically oriented functional analyses.. Any semantic “understanding” it comes to must be gleaned through identifying and comparing intra text relations, i.e. collocations. So here’s my question. Was John Sinclair right when he said that SFL greatly exaggerated the role of (paradigmatic) lexicogrammar and greatly underestimated the role of (syntagmatic) lexical collocation in generating coherent text?

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, the claim attributed to John Sinclair misunderstands SFL Theory. The syntagmatic juxtaposition of words is the realisation of choices in paradigmatic lexicogrammatical systems in logogenesis. So it is not a matter of "underestimating the role" of one and "exaggerating the role" of the other. One is the (less abstract) realisation of the other.

Postscript:

There have been more than 50 replies to this post on Sysfling, not one of them answering Graham Lock's theoretical question.

A Close Examination Of Fontaine's 2023 ISFC Plenary Abstract

Grammatical Energy: the Powerhouse of Language

“Meaning is brought about by language; and the energy by which this is achieved, the source of its semogenic power, is grammar.”

(Halliday, 2005, p. 63)

Within the framework of systemic functional linguistics (SFL), language is modelled as a semiotic system.  At the heart of this language system is the lexicogrammar, which, for Halliday (2005 p 74), is the powerhouse of language. Despite its central role, however, there is generally a feeling that this core area is relatively understudied, at least for English, which has historically provided the foundation of the theory. While the expansive development and use of SFL for transdisciplinary purposes (Wegener et al, in preparation) is very welcome and indeed promising, the source of grammatical energy, the powerhouse itself, should also be the focus of our attention — not instead of, but in addition to, the wealth of work being done on the understanding of its effects on people and society at large. Accepting that language is a semiotic system implies that we should also accept that while it is "made of meaning", it has "to materialise — to become matter" (Halliday 2005 p 68). It follows that if the semiotic system is entirely semantic, the materialised form (matter) of language must be related to, but outside of (or at some boundary of) the semiotic system. We might agree that the materialised form is embedded in context, but the language system as a whole, i.e. its theoretical (abstract) representation, cannot be. For this reason, the distinction between instantiation and actualisation becomes significant, where "actualisation is defined as the relation between the actual and either the potential or the typical" (Wegener 2011 p 98). 

In this talk, I use the semantic profile of watch, as an atypical verb of visual perception, to demonstrate ways in which, at the lexical level, we can explore the relationship between instantiation and actualisation. I will also consider its semantic features in relation to several related verbs (see, stare, look and listen). The unique profile of watch makes it a challenging case study because it appears to defy categorisation and as such, provides a useful example to demonstrate the significance of the SFL concept of 'meaning potential' in a meaning driven account of lexical semantics (cf. Allwood 2003, Fontaine 2017). By shift [sic] our focus to the lexical side of the lexicogrammar stratum, we may shed more light on the theoretical powerhouse, ideally resulting in a better understanding of its grammatical energy.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, this unsourced 'feeling' is self-contradictory. Since the lexicogrammar 'has historically provided the foundation of the theory' — Halliday's term for the theory is Systemic Functional Grammar — this 'core area' is demonstrably not 'relatively understudied', especially with regard to English, since the theory of grammar is elaborated in most detail in the description of English (Introduction to Functional Grammar 1985, 1994, 2004, 2014).

[2] To be clear, the work that Fontaine positively appraises as 'very welcome and indeed promising' is her own collaboration:

Wegener, R., McCabe, A., Sellami Baklouti, A. & Fontaine, L. (In preparation) The Routledge Handbook of Transdisciplinary Systemic Functional Linguistics. London: Routledge.

[3] To be clear, in SFL Theory, the grammar is the CPU ('powerhouse') of language, and the CPU of the grammar is the clause. Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 22, 10):

Grammar is the central processing unit of language, the powerhouse where meanings are created … The clause is the central processing unit in the lexicogrammar — in the specific sense that it is in the clause that meanings of different kinds are mapped into an integrated grammatical structure.

It will be seen that, despite the title of her paper, Fontaine is concerned here not with this 'powerhouse', but with lexis.

[4] To be clear, no semiotic system is entirely semantic, since every semiotic system also necessarily includes an expression plane, and in the case of language, the content plane includes a stratum of lexicogrammar as well as a stratum of semantics. ('Semiotic' does not mean 'semantic'.)

[5] To be clear, the 'materialised form' of language is the audible sound or visible marks made by bodily action. These are specified by the systems of the expression plane of language.

[6] To be clear, the materialised forms of language, audible sounds and visible marks, form part of the first-order material experience, whereas context is a plane of second-order semiotic experience. In SFL Theory, 'context' refers to the culture as a semiotic system. Clearly, here Fontaine is misconstruing 'context' as material.

[7] As Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 25) explain:

A language is a series of redundancies by which we link our eco-social environment to non-random disturbances in the air (soundwaves).

That is, language links two aspects of its material environment, and in that sense, can be said to be "embedded" in the material order (Fontaine's understanding of 'context'). On the other hand, in SFL terms, language construes and realises context: the culture as a semiotic system.

[8] This confuses a first-order semiotic, language ('the language system as a whole'), with a second-order semiotic, metalanguage ('its theoretical (abstract) representation').

[9] To be clear, the claim here is that because the language system as a whole cannot be embedded in the material environment ("context"), the distinction between instantiation and actualisation (Wegener 2011) becomes significant.

Wegener proposes actualisation as an interstratal relation (p98) between actual and either potential or typical (p95):

However, this distinction is motivated by a misunderstanding of instantiation (p95):

Instantiation as a relation is not contextualised. It is, as Halliday (1992) suggests, entirely intrastratal. Because it is intrastratal it does not reach the actual. The actual is interstratal and thus is contextualised.

To be clear, in SFL Theory, the 'contextualisation' of instantiation is the dimension of stratification. As such, the notion of 'actualisation' is a confusion of the dimensions of instantiation and stratification, proposed as an additional complementary dimension.

[10] To be clear, the verb watch is grammatically anomalous, as noted 29 years ago in Halliday (1994: 139):

The verb watch is anomalous: in I’m watching you, the tense suggests a behavioural process but the you appears as a participant like the Phenomenon of a ‘mental’ clause.

[11] To be clear, the concern 'at the lexical level' is with the meaning of lexical items in open sets, not with meanings of grammatical systems, such as the clause. Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 604n):

We can talk of "lexical semantics" if we want to foreground the meanings of words (lexical items functioning in open sets), and of "grammatical semantics" if we want to foreground the meanings of closed grammatical systems;

[12] To be clear, in terms of 'grammatical semantics', the verb see typically serves as a mental process, whereas the verbs stare, look and listen typically serve as behavioural processes.

[13] To be clear, the verb watch is not unique in this respect. Other examples include observe, ogle, eye, view, contemplate and ponder. In each case, the tense suggests behavioural process, but each affords a Phenomenon, suggesting a mental process.

[14] Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 549-52) outline five types of ideational indeterminacy: ambiguities, blends, overlaps, neutralisations, and complementarities. Anomalies like clauses featuring the verb watch are cases of overlap: 'two categories overlap so that certain members display some features of each'.

[15] To be clear, the term 'meaning potential' in SFL Theory refers to language as system, as opposed to language as instance (text). Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 33):

The meaning potential itself is one pole on the dimension of instantiation: it is instantiated in the unfolding of text, with patterns of typical instantiation (specific domains of meaning) lying somewhere in between the potential and the instance.

∞

See also 

Lise Fontaine's Right To Stop Me Saying It

Lexis As Most Local Context (Fontaine 2017)

Lise Fontaine Personally Attacking Her Paper's Reviewer