On The "Coupling" Of Ideational And Interpersonal Meaning

Martin & Rose (2007: 70):

Of these dimensions, valuation is especially tied up with field, since the criteria for valuing a text/process are for the most part institutionally specific. But beyond this, since both judgement and appreciation are in a sense institutionalisations of feeling, all of the dimensions involved will prove sensitive to field. An example of this coupling of ideational and interpersonal meaning is presented in Table 2.11 for appreciations of research in the field of linguistics.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This confuses the appraised with the system of appraisal (appreciation).  It is the appreciated that varies according to the field being realised in language-as-register, not the means of appreciating.  This is shown by the fact that the terms of appreciation in Table 2.11 are not limited to a specialised field like linguistics, and by the fact that the positive and negative values of the terms are also not limited to a specialised field like linguistics.

[2] The reason the authors link 'institutionalisation' to 'field' is because Martin (1992: 180-1, 292, 527, 536) mistakenly identifies 'institution' with only the ideational dimension of context (misconstrued as register).  In SFL theory, on the other hand, 'institution' is 'situation type' viewed from the potential pole of the cline of instantiation, such that institution variation is realised by register variation.

[3] The notion of "this coupling of ideational and interpersonal meaning" — ideational context and interpersonal semantics — betrays the authors' misunderstanding of strata and metafunctions as interacting modules of meaning (Martin 1992: 390); see, for example Misconstruing Strata And Metafunctions As Modules.