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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