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?