The Distinction Between Generality, Abstraction And Instantiation In SFL

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 615):

General terms are not necessarily abstract; a bird is no more abstract than a pigeon.

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 144-5):

In other words, the elaboration sets up a relationship either of 

• generality (delicacy), of 
• abstraction (realisation), or of 
• token to type (instantiation);

Blogger Comments:

1. Generality/delicacy is equivalent to hyponymy and can be construed as either an identifying or attributive relation;
2. Abstraction/realisation can only be construed as an identifying relation;
3. Instantiation can only be construed as an attributive relation.

Affiliation

Hierarchy vs Taxonomy vs Cline As General Scale Types

Halliday (1961: Section 2.2):

... I have used the terms 'hierarchy', taxonomy', and 'cline' as general scale types. 

A hierarchy is taken to mean a system of terms related along a single dimension which must be one involving some form of logical precedence (such as inclusion). 

A taxonomy is taken to mean a special type of hierarchy, one with two additional characteristics:

(i) there is a constant relation of each term to the term immediately following it, and a constant reciprocal relation of each to that immediately preceding it; and 

(ii) degree is significant, so that the place in order of each one of the terms, statable as the distance in number of steps from either end, is a defining characteristic of that term.

A cline resembles a hierarchy in that it involves relation along a single dimension; but instead of being made up of a number of discrete terms a cline is a continuum carrying potentially infinite gradation.

The Facial Expression Of Content

The Meaning Of 'Topology' In SFL

Lemke (unpublished, undated):

A topology, in mathematical terms, is A SET OF CRITERIA FOR ESTABLISHING DEGREES OF NEARNESS OR PROXIMITY AMONG THE MEMBERS OF SOME CATEGORY. It turns a 'collection' or set of objects into a space defined by the relations of those objects. Objects which are more alike by the criteria are represented in this space as being closer together; those which are less alike are further apart. There can be multiple criteria, which may be more or less independent of one another, so that two texts, for instance may be closer together in one dimension (say horizontal distance), but further apart in another (vertical distance).  What is essential, obviously, is our choice of the criteria, the parameters, that define similarity and difference on each dimension.

Making Meaning Of Wording

Foucault's Polemic Against Polemics

See the previous comments here.

See also Jim Martin Confusing 'Polemic' With 'Critique'.

Commitment

Two Reasons Why Halliday Does Not Use The Term 'Syntax' [Contra Fawcett]

Halliday (1994: xiv):

Reality Bites

Experiential Semantics: Types Of Participant, Types Of Thing

(Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 182, 190)

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.

A Pedagogically Harmful Misunderstanding

Dimensionality and all that: new tools for understanding disciplinary knowledge building across the school years

Abstract

The metalanguage for talking about SFL’s discourse semantic stratum (Martin, 1992; Martin & Rose, 2007) has increasingly been found useful for analysing students’ writing and facilitating classroom talk about disciplinary genres. This paper reports on new descriptions of SFL systems of IDEATION (Hao, 2015, in press), which, with emerging descriptions of field (Doran and Martin in press), have provided valuable ways of talking about knowledge building. Focussing on resources for building relations between items and activities in the field (i.e. dimensionality of entities), we report on the application of this metalanguage in three disciplinary contexts. Looking first at the discipline of science, we show how dimensionality and fine-tuned distinctions of entity types revealed some previously hidden critical aspects of development in young learners’ report writing. We then move to the senior years to show the work of dimensionality in categorising items and activities according to disciplinary specifications in Biology before also exploring the work of dimensionality in response genres of senior Visual Arts. Throughout the presentation we draw attention to the value of a discourse semantic metalanguage and ways in which it may be recontextualised as theoretically principled ‘bridging’ metalanguage to facilitate productive classroom discussion.

Blogger Comments:

The abstract of this seminar paper argues for the value of Martin's model of discourse semantics, in general, and his experiential discourse system of IDEATION, in particular, on the mistaken notion that what is useful to teachers is sufficient to guarantee the validity of a theory.  Logically, pedagogical utility is distinct from theoretical validity.

As demonstrated here, the theorising of discourse semantics (Martin 1992) is founded on misunderstandings of SFL theory, at all scales, from its macro architecture to its micro systems.

As demonstrated here, the experiential discourse system of IDEATION (Martin 1992) is a confusion of textual lexical cohesion (misunderstood), lexis as most delicate grammar, and logical relations (misapplied).

As demonstrated here, Working With Discourse (Martin & Rose 2007) further develops the misunderstandings of Martin (1992) and additionally misunderstands and misrepresents the (theoretically coherent) semantic system of APPRAISAL.

If talented teachers can make good use of even demonstrably very poor theorising, imagine how much more they could achieve by using theory that is self-consistent, consistent with the rest of SFL theory, and its principles, and consistent with experience.  Imagine how much less harm would be done to students, to teachers and to the SFL community in general, if serious misunderstandings of the theory weren't actively promoted.