Martin's Rebranding Of Halliday's 'Extended Numerative' As "Focus"

From Deploying Functional Grammar (Martin et al 2010: 169):

However, there is one type of structure where the two types of structure [logical and experiential] are out of phase with one another … .  This happens when the Head is a noun that does not represent a thing in its own right but rather an elaboration or extension of another thing, as in the side of the house, two metres of fabric, another cup of coffee. … we'll suggest an analysis here that treats these structures as having an embedded nominal group with the multivariate function Focus …

	two	metres	of	fabric
multivariate	Focus			Thing
univariate	β	Head	β

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, this is merely a rebranding of Halliday's 'complex Numerative' (IFG2: 195-6) or 'extended Numerative' (IFG3: 332-5; IFG4: 394-6) as "Focus".  The analysis above is merely a rebranding of:

	two	metres	of	fabric
experiential	extended Numerative: quantum			Thing
logical	Premodifier	Head	Postmodifier

No argument is provided in support of the change of terminology, which fails to acknowledge its Numerative function, and the term itself is textual, not experiential, in orientation, and is already in use in SFL theory for the focus of New information.

For other examples of Martin rebranding other people's ideas, see here.

'Deploying Functional Grammar' On "Behavioural" Processes

In Deploying Functional Grammar (Martin et al. 2010: 124), the following clauses are said to be 'best treated as behavioural':

the tyres went 'screech!'

the little engine went 'wheeee!'

the car went 'bang!'

This is a very strange analysis, not least because behavioural processes are processes of psychological and physiological behaviour.

Looked at from above, in terms of the meaning being realised, these are creative happenings (making noises).

Looked at from their own level, in terms of the wording that realises the meaning, these are verbal clauses quoting locutions (cf and she went "Oh my God!").

They are therefore metaphorical clauses in which a material happening [meaning] is realised as a verbal projection nexus [wording] — one stylistic resource for personifying inanimate objects in children's stories.

The source of this confusion — aside from not taking a trinocular perspective — appears to be the unsupported claim that behavioural processes include 'processes which concern the creation of a symbolic representation' (ibid) — though it is more likely that this was added as an ad hoc afterthought intended to justify the analysis.

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Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 252):

… while ‘behavioural’ clauses do not ‘project’ indirect speech or thought, they often appear in fictional narrative introducing direct speech, as a means of attaching a behavioural feature to the verbal process of ‘saying’.

For example: "She's responsible", they gossiped.