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.