Activity Sequences: A Cornucopia Of Theoretical Inconsistencies

Martin & Rose (2007: 75-6):

We can identify three sets of lexical relations. … 

The third is the sequence of activities construed by clauses as a text unfolds. These are the relations from one process to the next that imply a series of steps, such as meeting - beginning relationship - marriage. As they construe the field of a text as unfolding in series of activities, these relations are known as activity sequences.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This misrepresents lexicogrammar as discourse semantics.  To be clear, lexical relations are relations between lexical items, and lexical items are the synthetic realisations of feature combinations at the level of lexicogrammar (Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 199).  The theoretical inconsistency is in terms of stratification.

[2] There are many inconsistencies here, five of which can be identified as follows.

Firstly, the notion of activity sequences as discourse semantic is inconsistent with the informing text, Martin (1992), where they are theorised as field, ideational context, where context is misunderstood as register.  For some of the problems with the theorising of activity sequences in Martin (1992), see here.

Secondly, the notion of activity sequences as experiential is inconsistent in terms of metafunction. As will be seen, relations between activities are not experiential relations, but a confusion of logical relations between clauses in complexes, on the one hand, and textual relations of cohesive conjunction, on the other.

Thirdly, the notion of activity sequences as lexical relations is inconsistent in terms of delicacy.  From the perspective of lexicogrammar, relations between activities are not lexical relations — relations between lexical items — but grammatical relations, whether structural or cohesive.

Fourthly, the relocation of activity sequences here to discourse semantics creates a further inconsistency, within the discourse semantic model, since relations between activities in sequences are also modelled in terms of the logical system of conjunction — itself a confusion of clause complexing and cohesive conjunction.  Martin & Rose (2007: 115):

Conjunction looks at interconnections between processes — adding, comparing, sequencing, or explaining them. These are logical meanings that link activities and messages in sequences.

Fifthly, as the previous four inconsistencies suggest, the modelling of activity sequences is also inconsistent with SFL theory, where the semantic counterparts of clauses, figures, are related logically in sequences; see Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 104-27).

[3] This confuses levels of symbolic abstraction, mistaking an instance of language (relations between processes) for an instance of the culture (field) that the language realises.