On The Heteroglossic Function Of Usuality, Obligation, Inclination And Ability

Martin & Rose (2007: 55):

Helena uses modality even more often, across a range of modal meanings:

Negotiating information
how usual         He and his friends would visit regularly
how probable    there must have been someone out there who is still alive 

Negotiating services
how obliged      I had to watch how white people became dissatisfied with the best
how inclined     I would have done the same had I been denied everything
how able           who can give a face to 'the orders from above' for all the operations

These examples show the five types of modality discussed by Halliday (1994): usuality, probability, obligation, inclination and ability.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, negotiation is discussion aimed at reaching an agreement.

[2] These four instances do not exemplify heteroglossia, the acknowledgment of other voices.  Each instance is monoglossic, since each enacts the author's voice only; no other viewpoints are acknowledged.

[3] These three instances are modulated propositions, not proposals — they are neither offers nor commands — and so the commodity of exchange is information, not (goods–&–)services.  The first two are modulated statements that give information, the third is a modulated question that demands information.

On The Heteroglossic Function Of Usuality

Martin & Rose (2007: 54-5):

Modality functions very much like negation when we look at it in terms of these scales (cf. Fuller 1998; Martin and White 2005). Arguing that something must be the case, for example, sounds assertive but in fact allows an element of doubt; it’s stronger than saying something would be true, but not as strong as avoiding modality completely and arguing it is the case. So modality, like polarity, acknowledges alternative voices around a suggestion or claim. Unlike polarity, it doesn’t take these voices on and deny them; rather it opens up a space for negotiation, in which different points of view can circulate around an issue, a space perhaps for mediation and possible reconciliation. 

Tutu uses a range of modal resources in his exposition to acknowledge alternative positions, including usuality when he is generalising about the effects of a public hearing:

It was often the very first time that their communities and even sometimes their families heard that these people were, for instance, actually members of death squads or regular torturers of detainees in their custody.

Here the grading has to do with ‘how often’ something happened, along a scale like the following:

Blogger Comments:

The claim here is that usuality acknowledges alternative voices, or viewpoints, on a proposition. Martin & Rose do not identify the different positions acknowledged by the use of instances of usuality in the exemplifying text, but instead make reference to the grading of values of usuality. In doing so, they confuse an assessment of usuality with the recognition of different viewpoints (engagement: heteroglossia).

On The Heteroglossic Function Of Negative Polarity

Martin & Rose (2007: 53):

As we’ve said, modality can be used as a resource for introducing additional voices into a text, and this includes polarity. To see how this works, let’s start with polarity and the role of negation. Tutu begins his exposition with a question, which he follows up immediately with a negative clause:

So is amnesty being given at the cost of justice being done? This is not a frivolous question, but a very serious issue, one which challenges the integrity of the entire Truth and Reconciliation process.

What Tutu is doing here is countering anyone who thinks that the cost of justice issue is a frivolous question (or perhaps anyone who says Tutu thinks it’s frivolous).  He uses a negative clause to pre-empt this position before it can cloud the discussion.  Negation places his voice in relation to a potential opposing one; two voices are implicated. In this respect negative polarity is different from positive polarity; all things being equal, positive polarity invokes one voice whereas negative polarity invokes two.

Blogger Comments: 

[1] This misunderstands the text. The negative element here functions at group rank, not clause rank, and it marks a logical relation — extension: variation: replacive (not X but Y) — between the nominal groups in a group complex:

not	a frivolous question	but	a very serious issue
	1		+ 2

[2] This misunderstands the text.  It is amnesty, not the cost of justice, that is the issue.  As Subject, it is amnesty that carries the modal responsibility of the proposition:

so	is	amnesty	being given	at the cost of justice being done
	Process:	Goal	material	Contingency: default
	Finite	Subject	Predicator	Adjunct
	Mood		Residue

The agnate statement of this rhetorical question is that 'amnesty is being given at the cost of justice being done', which entertains a negative ethical judgement of 'giving amnesty'. It is the use of this rhetorical question, not the logical deployment of not that acknowledges voices other than the author's. In terms of Appraisal theory, the rhetorical question can be interpreted as an instance of ENGAGEMENT: heterogloss: expand: entertain; see Martin & White (2005: 110).

[3] This misunderstands the text.  What Tutu is doing is enacting a positive appreciation (social value) of the rhetorical question itself:

this	is		not a frivolous question but a very serious issue
Carrier	Process: attributive		Attribute
Subject	Finite	Predicator	Complement
Mood		Residue

[4] This misunderstands the text. The negation here marks a replacive relation between a frivolous question and a very serious issue; see [1].

[5] This misunderstands the text.  The other voice is implicated by the rhetorical question, not by the use of negation; see [2].

[6] Since this claim is made following a misunderstanding, it stands here as a bare assertion. What is true is that positive and negative polarity are mutually defining, and that positive polarity is more probable to be instantiated than negative polarity across registers (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 173). The claim can be falsified by considering minimal pairs such as:

• Go to sleep! vs Don't go to sleep!
• Do you have any? vs Don't you have any?
• I believe in God. vs I don't believe in God.
• How did you manage to see him? vs How did you manage not to see him?

Projection Summary

Martin & Rose (2007: 52):

In sum we have seen four ways in which projection is used to attribute sources: as projecting clauses, as names for speech acts, as projecting within clauses, and as scare quotes.  Examples of these are given in Table 2.6.

Blogger Comments:

In sum:

1. Martin & Rose do not account for the logico-semantic relation of projection at the discourse semantic level.
2. Martin & Rose mistake the names of projections — locutions or ideas — for the names of "speech acts".
3. To be clear, "projecting within clauses" encompasses projection relations between verbal groups in verbal group complexes and the assignment of identifying and attributive relations by projection.
4. Martin & Rose misinterpret the attitudinal function of scare quotes as disowning an appraisal, rather than enacting one.