Misunderstanding Semogenic Processes

Martin & Rose (2007: 1-2):

We should emphasise that although we can assign a name to each of these phenomena, a clause, a text or a culture are not ‘things’, but social processes that unfold at different time scales. Culture unfolds through uncountable series of situations, as our lives unfold through these situations as learners, speakers and actors, producing texts that unfold as sequences of meanings.

Blogger Comments:

[1] With regard to the claim that clause, text and culture are social, SFL construes language and culture as social semiotic systems, as opposed to, say, somatic semiotic systems, such as those of visual perception.

[2] With regard to the claim that clause, text and culture are processes, the actual processes that SFL distinguishes are the three semogenic processes of:

• logogenesis, the instantiation of the system in the text,
• ontogenesis, the development of the system in the individual, and 
• phylogenesis, the evolution of the system in the species.

[3] This confuses the relation between culture and situation, instantiation, with the semogenic process of phylogenesis, the evolution of the culture in the species.

[4] This confuses the 'unfolding of a life' with ontogenesis, the development of the system in the individual.  The 'unfolding of a life' occurs at all three semogenic timescales.

[5] This confuses 'sequences of meanings' with logogenesis, the instantiation of the system in the text.