Misrepresenting Martin (1992) On Activity Sequences

Martin & Rose (2007: 18-9):

Ideation (the content of a discourse) 

Here we’re concerned with people and things, and the activities they’re involved in.  Since Helena's telling her story, there’s lots of activity involved and it unfolds in sequences. …
As well as sequences of activities, ideation is concerned with describing and classifying people and things. Helena’s second love for example is classified (policeman, man, murderer, vulture), partitioned (face, hands, eyes, throat, head, brains; personality, soul, conscience) and variously described (bubbly, charming, bewildered, dull like the dead, wasted etc.).

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, in SFL theory, 'ideation' refers to the metafunction that includes both the experiential and logical metafunctions, across strata.  Halliday & Matthiessen (1999) use the term 'ideation base' to refer to the ideational dimension of the stratum of semantics.  In contrast, Martin's (1992) 'ideation' refers only to the experiential dimension of his stratum of discourse semantics.

[2] To be clear, in SFL theory, 'content' refers to the plane (level of symbolic abstraction) that includes both semantics (meaning) and lexicogrammar (wording) across all metafunctions — experiential, logical, interpersonal and textual — at all points on the cline of instantiation.  In contrast, here 'content' is reduced to one stratum (discourse semantics), one metafunction (experiential) and one point on the cline of instantiation: the instance pole (discourse).

[3] This is inconsistent with the theory of discourse semantics, Martin (1992), on which this publication is based.  Here, activity sequences are construed as experiential in terms of metafunction and discourse semantic in terms of stratum.  In contrast, in Martin (1992), activity sequences are construed as field: the ideational dimension of context — which Martin misconstrues as register, a diatypic variety of language.  Adding another dimension to this confusion, Martin (1992) uses 'activity sequence' to refer to both events that go on in the environment of a text (first-order experience) and events that are represented in a text (second-order experience), thus blurring the distinction between the material and semiotic order.  Evidence here.

In SFL theory, 'sequence' refers to the highest order of complexity, of the most general categories of experiential phenomena, on the stratum of semantics (Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 48ff).  The congruent realisation of a sequence is a clause complex: logically related experiential configurations of wording.  Including the logical relations in sequences in the model of experiential discourse semantics adds yet another confusion to the inconsistencies identified above.

[4] In SFL theory, 'describing and classifying people and things' occurs on both strata of the content plane: lexicogrammar and semantics.  In ideational semantics, 'people and things' are classified as participants, one of the categories of the simplest order of phenomena, elements, which are congruently realised in the grammar as nominal groups.  'Describing and classifying' means expanding the element in terms of elaboration, extension or enhancement.  In the grammar, this can be achieved at clause rank, through relational processes, and at group rank, through the Modifiers of the Head of a nominal group.

Misconstruing (Functional Varieties Of) Language As Social Context

Martin & Rose (2007: 17-8):

And in Chapter 9 we then contextualise the discourse systems in models of the social contexts of discourse, including register and genre theory, and we make connections to multi-modal discourse analysis and critical discourse analysis.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This confuses functional varieties of language with the context that is realised by language.  In SFL theory, register and genre (text type) are modelled as two perspectives on the same phenomenon: a midway point on the cline of instantiation of language (not context).  Language as register is the view from the system pole of the cline, whereas language as text type is the view from the instance pole of the cline.

[2] In SFL theory, context is the culture modelled as a semiotic system that is realised by language (and its attendant semiotic systems).  As a semiotic system, context is second-order experience with respect to the first-order of the interlocutors: speakers/writers and addressees.  The term 'social context' risks confusing the first-order experience of the interlocutors with the second-order experience of the culture being realised by the language they project.

Problems With The Textual Discourse Semantic System Of Periodicity

Martin & Rose (2007: 17):

Periodicity considers the rhythm of discourse — the layers of prediction that flag for readers what’s to come, and the layers of consolidation that accumulate the meanings made. These are also textual kinds of meanings, concerned with organising discourse as pulses of information.

Blogger Comments:

Periodicity is concerned with textual peaks of Theme and New information.  Here it is presented as a resource of the textual metafunction on the stratum of discourse semantics.  This is quite different to the model in Martin (1992: 393), in which these are theorised as 'method of development' and 'point', two of four 'interaction patterns' between strata, with strata misconstrued as modules instead of levels of symbolic abstraction.  The other two interaction patterns are (misunderstandings of) cohesive harmony and modal responsibility.  Interaction patterns are said to be processes rather than systems (op. cit.: 401).  In SFL terms, this means there is instantiation but no potential to be instantiated!

Martin (1992) takes the term 'method of development' from Fries (1981), and redefines it as an interaction pattern between Theme (textual lexicogrammar) and reference chains (textual discourse semantics) and lexical strings (experiential discourse semantics).  It will be remembered that Martin's reference chains are a confusion of Halliday's cohesive reference and lexical cohesion.

He then confuses theory (description) with pedagogy (prescription) by importing two notions from writing pedagogy into the model:

• topic sentence, which he rebrands as 'Hyper-Theme', a term taken from Daneš (1974) that he misunderstands (evidence here), and
• introductory paragraph, which he rebrands as 'Macro-Theme'.

Similarly, Martin (1992) takes the term 'point' from Fries (1981), and redefines it as an interaction pattern between New information (which he misconstrues as textual phonology(!), instead of lexicogrammar) and reference chains (textual discourse semantics) and lexical strings (experiential discourse semantics).  In Martin's exposition, New information is falsely assumed to occur always in the Rheme of a clause.

He then, again, confuses theory with pedagogy by importing two notions from writing pedagogy into the model:

• paragraph summary, which he rebrands as 'Hyper-New', and
• text summary, which he rebrands as 'Macro-New'.

The model of periodicity in Martin and Rose (2007), a model of meaning named after a structure type, thus involves these two confusions of (misunderstood) theory and pedagogy.  It is the original pedagogy — that Martin has rebranded — that makes the confused model attractive to teachers.

For the more detailed arguments on which the above is based, see the critiques here.

Problems With The Textual Discourse Semantic System Of Identification

Martin & Rose (2007: 17):

Identification is concerned with tracking participants — with introducing people, places and things into a discourse and keeping track of them once there. These are textual resources, concerned with how discourse makes sense to the reader by keeping track of identities.

Blogger Comments:

The system of identification — 'reference as semantic choice' — is Martin's (1992) textual system on his stratum of discourse semantics.  In the first instance, it is a rebranding of Halliday's cohesive (non-structural) system of reference, relocated from lexicogrammar to Martin's stratum of discourse semantics.

However, as demonstrated in some detail here, it is actually a confusion of Halliday's systems of reference and lexical cohesion.  This is largely due to the fact that the system of referring is confused with the referent.  This is why the unit of identification is an ideational category, participant (Martin 1992: 385), rather than a textual category*, and also why Martin has trouble distinguishing reference chains from lexical strings (see here).


* Perhaps unsurprisingly, Martin's unit for his experiential system, ideation, is a textual category, message part (Martin 1992: 385), rather than an experiential category.