Binary Handshaking Preferences

 

Problems With Martin's ISFC Plenary 2022

Construing entities: types of structure

Over the past couple of years, Yaegan Doran, Zhang Dongbing and I have had the pleasure of editing three special issues of Word devoted to the analysis of nominal groups across a range of languages (including Dagarre, Lhasa Tibetan, Khorchin Mongolian, Korean, Serbian, Brazilian Portuguese, Old English, Ancient Greek, Pitjantjatjara, Tagalog, Mandarin Chinese, and Sundanese. In this talk I address some issues arising from this work, focusing on types of structure. In particular I will look at SFG's traditional distinction between multivariate and univariate structures and their association with non-recursive and recursive systems respectively (Halliday 1981, 1979). With respect to nominal group structure I'll suggest that the association of multivariate structure with non-recursive systems and univariate structure with recursive systems needs to be relaxed. Doing so makes room for recognition of non-iterative dependency structures, which I'll refer to as subjacency duplexes (first foregrounded as duplexes in Rose's work on Pitjantjatjara; 2001) – a structure which can be usefully applied to the analysis of what are often fudged as 'structure markers' in SFG descriptions of nominal groups – and elsewhere (i.e. adpositions and linkers).

References：

Halliday, M A K 1981 (1965) Types of Structure. M A K Halliday & J R Martin [Eds.] Readings in Systemic Linguistics. London:Batsford. 29-41.

Halliday, M A K 1979 Modes of meaning and modes of expression: types of grammatical structure, and their determination by different semantic functions. D J Allerton, E Carney, D Holcroft [Eds] Function and Context in Linguistics Analysis: essays offers to William Haas. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 57-79

Rose, D 2001 The Western Desert code: an Australian cryptogrammar. Canberra:Pacific Linguistics.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, 'entity' here is a rebranding of 'participant' (Halliday & Matthiessen 1999) by Martin's student Hao.

[2] To be clear, Martin falsely claims that Halliday (1965) restricts multivariate structures to non-recursive systems and univariate structures to recursive systems. The truth is that Halliday (1965) associates multivariate structures with both non-recursive and cyclically recursive systems, and univariate structures with lineally recursive systems. Halliday (1981 [1965]: 45):

[3] The following are examples of Martin's 'subjacency duplex' structure:

The problems here are that a duplex is a two-unit complex, and a complex is an expansion of a rank scale unit, and Martin's proposed new structure violates both principles. That is, β# does not expand α, and α is not restricted to single rank unit.

Moreover, because a duplex is a two-unit complex, there should also be a subjacency simplex. Because this would be equivalent to the dominant unit (α) of the duplex, a subjacency simplex is subjacency duplex without the preposition or conjunction.

[4] This is misleading, because it is not true. Rose takes the term 'duplex' from Matthiessen (1995), where it just means a two-unit complex, which is how Rose also uses the term. Rose's work does not foreground Martin's mistaken notion of a subjacency duplex.

[5] This misleading, because it is untrue. there is no "fudging" involved in identifying 'structure marker' as the function of these forms.

∞

See also Some Problems With Martin's Notion Of A 'Subjacency Duplex Structure'

What Liars Hate

Litteracy

The Realisation Of The Metafunctions In Phonology

At the rank of tone group:

• the system of TONALITY — choice in the distribution of tone groups — realises the distribution of information units (textual metafunction);
• the system of TONICITY — choice in the placement of tonic prominence — realises the culmination of New information (textual metafunction);
• the system of TONE — choice in the major pitch movement — realises the system of KEY (interpersonal metafunction);
• the systems of TONE SEQUENCE and TONE CONCORD realise the systems of TAXIS and LOGICO-SEMANTIC TYPE (logical metafunction).

The Global And Local Dimensions That Define The Architecture Of Language

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 20, 31-2)

… We have now introduced the major semiotic dimensions that define the ‘architecture’ of language in context. Some of these dimensions enable us to locate lexicogrammar in relation to the other sub-systems that make up the total system of language; these are known as global dimensions because they determine the overall organisation of language in context: the hierarchy of stratification, the cline of instantiation, and the spectrum of metafunctions. The other dimensions enable us to characterise the internal organisation of lexicogrammar and also of the other sub-systems of language, and of context; these are known as local dimensions because they operate locally within linguistic sub-systems. Let us summarise the semiotic dimensions of language in context under these two headings: see Table 1-7. 

Our Teachers

The Socio Path

Deceptive Use Of Wikipedia

Annabelle Lukin wrote to sys-func on 22/6/22 at 13:06:

Halliday's position is distinct from Martin's. A colleague contacted me as someone had made the claim on Halliday's Wikipedia page that while he was at Sydney University he founded the Sydney School of genre pedagogy, adding a link to a Reading to Learn page. See screenshot.

This is completely false. Martin is responsible for the 'Sydney School', and for genre pedagogy.

I've now removed that sentence.

 

David Rose replied at 19:41:

Annabelle, I agree that this Wikipedia edit was inappropriate. Can you see when it was done?

It is a widely held misconception that MAKH was directly responsible for genre pedagogy. One factor has been its dissemination without acknowledgement to JRM, while functional grammar is strongly associated with MAKH.

On the other hand, it is a major part of the careers of many in the SFL community, who teach and research both genre and grammar. It is by far the most widely known of SFL’s applications, bringing many 1000s of teachers to the grammar. So the terms genre pedagogy and Sydney school could bring readers to the Halliday page.

Would it be worth disambiguating this issue by saying that Halliday’s research provided the basis for the later development of the genre-based literacy pedagogy of the Sydney School, led by his student JR Martin?

I checked why a Sydney School link might lead to the Reading to Learn site. There have been several papers downloadable on the site, but gooogle scholar now directs mainly to researchgate.

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, in her email, Annabelle Lukin alerted the Sys-Func community that the Wikipedia page of Michæl Halliday had been deceptively edited so as to use Halliday's high status to advertise Jim Martin's 'Sydney School' of Genre Pedagogy and David Rose's Reading To Learn program, neither of which is the work of Halliday. 

Clearly, the person most likely to have carried out this deception is David Rose, since his Reading To Learn program is a mixture of Martin's Genre Pedagogy and Brian Gray's Accelerated Literacy.

The only person to respond to Lukin's message was David Rose, who played down the deception as merely 'inappropriate', and went on to provide spurious reasons to excuse it, thereby unwittingly identifying himself as the person responsible for the deception.

Whistleblowers

Persuasive Presentation

Scare Quote's

Interpersonal Consensus Vs Experiential Consistency

Black & White Pronouns

Team Player

 

Professing

Supervision

Reputation And Reliability

Self-Importance

Temporal Meanings And SFL Worlds Of Experience

Temporal meanings and SFL worlds of experience

Rosemary Huisman

Later this year, Routledge is publishing my book, Narrative Worlds and the Texture of Time, a Social-Semiotic Perspective. The general blurb - no doubt more intended to be impressive than informative - says:

This book brings together a model of time and a model of language to generate a new model of narrative, where different stories with different temporalities and non-chronological modes of sequence can tell of different worlds of human – and non-human – experience, woven together (the ‘texture of time’) in the one narrative.

The model of language referred to is that of SFL, especially as developed in the publications of M.A.K. Halliday and Christian M.I.M. Matthiessen. The model of time, of different temporalities in natural levels of complexity, is that of J.T. Fraser. Both Halliday and Fraser are influenced by Gerald Edelman's model of the brain, which links human consciousness with the development of language and temporal awareness. And for most narrative theorists, narrative is, at least, the way humans organise their awareness of time.

In this paper I focus on the contribution of SFL to the development of the narrative model. (In the book, the narrative model developed is then used to compare the "texture of time" in English literary texts of different historical periods.)

Blogger Comments:

In this seminar, time was equated with sequence. The problem here is that sequence is not time, but the ordering of processes in time. In SFL Theory, time is a circumstance of processes, and in physics, quantified as a dimension. See also Making Sense Of Time.

Tech Support

Cognitive Behaviour Therapy

Expertise

The Joy Of Whistleblowing

Yaegan Doran On Sundanese Nominal Groups

Sundanese nominal groups: A textual grammar

Yaegan Doran

The Australian Catholic University

This talk considers the nominal group in Sundanese, a Malayo-Polynesian language of West Java, Indonesia. In particular, it builds a meaning-based description of Sundanese nominal groups, focusing in particular on textual meaning. Born of educational concerns associated with literacy programs, this talk describes the nominal group not only in terms of the formal syntagms at play, but also their functions; not only the paradigmatic choices that are available, but how they are taken up in text; and not only the grammar by itself, but how it realises meanings in discourse. The aim is to develop a richly co-textualised and metafunctional description of Sundanese nominal groups that can explain text patterns from a range of genres and registers.

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, this paper did not discuss the textual meaning of the nominal group. Instead, it was concerned with reference, which is not a system of the nominal group, though the nominal group, along with the adverbial group, is a grammatical domain in which reference items are located.

One reason why reference is not a system of the nominal group is that it is not realised by a structural relation within the nominal group. Instead, reference is realised by a non-structural relation between a reference item and a referent which may not even be in the text (exophoric reference), let alone in the same nominal group.

This confusion was compounded by the fact that Doran used Martin's model of reference (identification), though without acknowledging the fact, which is (purportedly) discourse semantics, not grammar. Moreover, as explained in great detail here, Martin's model mistakes nominal groups for reference items, mistakes ideational denotation for textual reference, mistakes interpersonal deixis for textual reference, and mistakes non-reference ("presenting reference") for reference.

Ellipsis And Textual Prominence

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 635):

Ellipsis marks the textual status of continuous information within a certain grammatical structure. At the same time, the non-ellipsed elements of that structure are given the status of being contrastive in the environment of continuous information. Ellipsis thus assigns differential prominence to the elements of a structure: 

if they are non-prominent (continuous), they are ellipsed; 

if they are prominent (contrastive), they are present. 

The absence of elements through ellipsis is an iconic realisation of lack of prominence.

Deixis Vs Reference

Personal and demonstrative DEIXIS is a system of the nominal group, personal and demonstrative REFERENCE is not a system of the nominal group.

Personal and demonstrative DEIXIS serves an interpersonal function, personal and demonstrative REFERENCE serves a textual function.

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 367):

Many languages embody these two forms of deixis in the structure of the nominal group. The two are closely related, both being (as indicated by the term ‘deixis’) a form of orientation by reference to the speaker – or more accurately, to the ‘speaker-now’; the temporal-modal complex that constitutes the point of reference of the speech event.

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 623):

The textual status at issue in the system of reference is that of identifiability: does the speaker judge that a given element can be recovered or identified by the listener at the relevant point in the discourse or not? If it is presented as identifiable, then the listener will have to recover the identity from somewhere else. If it is presented as non-identifiable, then the listener will have to establish it as a new element of meaning in the interpretation of the text.

Everyone Thinks

Criteria For Distinguishing Process Types

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 354):

Speaking Truth To Power

Buyer Beware!

Modelling Paralanguage using Systemic Functional Semiotics: Theory and Application.

by Thu Ngo, Susan Hood, J.R. Martin, Clare Painter, Bradley A. Smith and Michele Zappavigna.

This book is the first comprehensive account of 'body language' as 'paralanguage' informed by Systemic Functional Semiotics (SFS). It brings together the collaborative work of internationally renowned academics and emerging scholars to offer a fresh linguistic perspective on gesture, body orientation, body movement, facial expression and voice quality resources that support all spoken language.

The authors create a framework for distinguishing non-semiotic behaviour from paralanguage, and provide a comprehensive modelling of paralanguage in each of the three metafunctions of meaning (ideational, interpersonal and textual). Illustrations of the application of this new model for multimodal discourse analysis draw on a range of contexts, from social media vlogs, to animated children's narratives, to face-to-face teaching. Modelling Paralanguage Using Systemic Functional Semiotics offers an innovative way for dealing with culture-specific and context specific paralanguage.

Blogger Comments:

If you buy or reference this book, you will be supporting plagiarism.

See Martin's Model Of Paralanguage.

The Proud Authors: Clare Painter, Jim Martin, Sue Hood And Thu Ngo At The Book Launch