SFL Metalanguage: A Stratified Semiotic

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 30-4):

We noted above that the semantics/lexicogrammar of natural language is itself a 'realisation' (an abstract construction) of daily experience. Likewise, the system we use to explore the semantics/lexicogrammar — our theory of semantics and our grammatics — is a 'realisation' of that part of daily experience that is constituted by semantics and lexicogrammar; that is, it is an abstract construction of language. This system is itself a semiotic one — a metalanguage; in Firth's more everyday terms, it is language turned back on itself (cf. Matthiessen & Nesbitt, 1996). So whereas a language is (from an ideational point of view) a resource for construing our experience of the world, a metalanguage is a resource for construing our experience of language. 

Metalanguage has the same basic properties as any semiotic system. This means that it is stratified. It construes language in abstract theoretical terms; but this construal is in turn realised as some form of representation — either language itself, in discursive constructions of theory, or some form of designed semiotic (system networks, constituency rules, conceptual networks, logical formulae, and so on). In the environment of computational work, this level is in turn realised in some form of implementation (stated in a programming language1 such as LISP, Prolog or C). We could summarise as follows (see Figure 1-7): 

• metalanguage construes language at various strata (theoretical construal, representation, and implementation)
• metalanguage construes language in terms of resources (the circles) and processes using the resources (the arrows), where processes include description, deduction and compilation.
• the relationship between theoretical construal and representation should preferably be a natural one (note the 'should be'!), while the relationship between representation and implementation is likely to be more arbitrary (for instance, it should not matter whether LISP, Prolog or C is used).
• the range of phenomena accounted for in metalanguage tends to decrease at lower levels. (A primary goal of research is always to expand it.)

If we recognise stratification as an aspect of the design of metalanguage, we are in a position to locate aspects of the overall construal of meaning at the appropriate stratum. … 

Thus any account of [language] has to be metalinguistically stratified. It has to be constructed as a theoretical model out of the resources the theory provides and according to the constraints imposed by these resources. … 

As we have already noted, the representational semiotic may also be language itself — the theory may be represented discursively in the registers) of linguistics. In this case, the relationship between theory and language is similar to the relationship between 'theme' and 'language' in Hasan's (1985/9) theory of verbal art — a relationship where theory might be construed as a connotative semiotic (in Hjelmslev's, 1943, conception: a semiotic system whose expression plane is a semiotic system) … 

Finally, the representational semiotic may also be a diagrammatic one — e.g. network graphs, tree diagrams, our circle diagrams. With such graphic representation, it is important to ask (i) if the information represented graphically can be restated in some other form of representation and (ii) if its realisational relationship with respect to theory is clear. 

Another Thing Up With Which A Teacher Will Not Put

Ignorance Of Incompetence Explained

Arranging Language Data To Fit Discourse Semantic Theory

Halliday On Discourse Analysis

Halliday (1985/1994: xvi-xvii):

The current preoccupation is with discourse analysis, or 'text linguistics'; and it has sometimes been assumed that this can be carried on without grammar — or even that it is somehow an alternative to grammar.  But this is an illusion.  A discourse analysis that is not based on grammar is not an analysis at all, but simply a running commentary on a text … the exercise remains a private one in which one explanation is as good or as bad as another.

A text is a semantic unit, not a grammatical one.  But meanings are realised through wordings; and without a theory of wordings — that is, a grammar — there is no way of making explicit one's interpretation of the meaning of a text.

Standards

Entry Condition

Lemke On Covariate "Structure"

Lemke (1988: 159) reinterpreted his 'covariate structure' as a structuring principle, rather than a kind of structure:

My own 'covariate structure' (Lemke 1985), which includes Halliday's univariate type, is for the case of homogeneous relations of co-classed units, and should perhaps be called a 'structuring principle' rather than a kind of structure. 

Negotiating Commitment To Affiliation

The Teaching–Learning Unicycle

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.