Confusing Textual Cohesion With Ideational Construal

Martin & Rose (2007: 83):

On the other hand, taxonomies are more often constructed implicitly as a text unfolds from clause to clause, as we saw for the people in Helena’s story. A difference with technical fields, such as legal justice, is that the writer may deliberately construct a technical taxonomy as the text unfolds.

Blogger Comments:

This confuses the cohesive relations between lexical items (textual metafunction) with the construal of experience as taxonomies (ideational metafunction).

Confusing Ideational Grammar With Textual Cohesion And Rebranding The Misunderstanding Experiential Discourse Semantics (Taxonomic Relations)

Martin & Rose (2007: 83):

Now let’s turn to find how Tutu construes the field of Truth and Reconciliation through taxonomic relations. Institutional fields such as the law, government, education and so on consist largely of abstract things like amnesty, justice, truth, reconciliation. These abstractions often denote a large set of activities, which the reader is expected to recognise. Sometimes, however, the subordinate activities may be specified, particularly for pedagogic or legal purposes. For example, Tutu quotes the Act’s definition of one type of offence as a set of more specific activities:

The Act required that where the offence is a gross violation of human rights — defined as an abduction, killing, torture or severe ill-treatment

This sentence explicitly instantiates a classifying taxonomy, as in Figure 3.8.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This confuses the ideational metafunction (cultural field) with the textual metafunction (lexical cohesion rebranded as 'taxonomic relations'); see further below.

[2] To be clear, in SFL theory, the term 'institution' refers to a sub-potential of cultural context; that is, it is situation type viewed from the system pole of the cline of instantiation.  'Institutional field' thus refers to the ideational dimension of a cultural sub-potential.  Accordingly, institutional fields do not consist of abstract things, because abstract things are linguistic construals of experience.  That is, the relation between culture and language is not one of constituency, since culture and language are different levels of symbolic abstraction.  The relation between them is thus one of realisation.

[3] To be clear, this denotation is a relation between meaning (semantics) and wording (lexicogrammar) on the content plane of language.

[4] To be clear, this specification in the definition is construed in the grammar as an encoding identifying clause, wherein a superordinate Value a gross violation of human rights is encoded by reference to a more delicate Token as an abduction, killing, torture or severe ill-treatment, realised as a prepositional phrase whose Range is realised by a nominal group complex of extension: alternation.

(a gross violation of human rights)	(is) defined	as an abduction, killing, torture or severe ill-treatment
Identified Value	Process: relational	Identifier Token

as	an abduction, killing, torture or severe ill-treatment
minor Process	Range

an abduction	killing	torture	or severe ill-treatment
1	+ 2	+ 3	+ 4

That is, here Martin & Rose confuse hyponymic lexical cohesion (textual lexicogrammar) with clause transitivity (experiential grammar) and nominal group complexing (logical grammar), and rebrand the confusion as taxonomic relations (experiential discourse semantics).

Confusing Lexical Cohesion (Collocation) With Clause Ergativity ("Nuclear Relations")

Martin & Rose (2007: 83):

At the same time there are other lexical relations between each of these simple strings. These include relations between human rights violations and amnesty, and between victims and reparation. However these lexical relations are less taxonomic than nuclear — human rights violators are to be granted amnesty, and victims are to be granted reparations. The simplicity of the taxonomic strings here enables the complexity of nuclear relations between their elements to be developed comprehensibly.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, human rights violations, like violations of human rights, is not a lexical item and so does not participate in lexical relations.  Moreover, lexical items and lexical relations are lexicogrammatical, not discourse semantic.

[2] To be clear, in SFL theory, these lexical relations are those of collocation, a tendency to co-occur, one type of lexical cohesion, a non-structural resource of the textual metafunction at the level of lexicogrammar.  Collocation differs from the other types of lexical cohesion (Martin & Rose's "taxonomic relations") in that the nature of the relation is syntagmatic rather than paradigmatic (Halliday & Matthiessen 2004: 572). 

It will be seen in later posts that Martin & Rose confuse the semantic basis of lexical collocation with grammar, specifically: the ergative model of transitivity ("nuclear relations"), and present their misunderstanding of lexicogrammar as discourse semantics.  As Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 577) explain:

In general, the semantic basis of many instances of collocation is the relation of enhancement, as with dine + restaurant, table; fry + pan; bake + oven. These are circumstantial relationships, but as the example with smoke + pipe  illustrates, participant + process relationships also form the basis of collocation — the most important ones involving either Process +  Range (e.g. play +  musical instrument: piano, violin,  etc; grow + old ) and Process +  Medium (e.g. shell + peas, twinkle + star, polish + shoes). While we can typically find a semantic basis to collocation in this way, the relationship is at the same time a direct association between the words;

[3] This is a bare assertion, unsupported by theoretical argument or textual evidence, and based on misunderstandings of lexical items, lexical cohesion ("taxonomic relations") and clause ergativity ("nuclear relations").

Misrepresenting Lexical Cohesion (Repetition And Synonymy) As Discourse Semantic Ideation

Martin & Rose (2007: 82-3):

In building the purposes for the Commission and its three Committees, repetition and synonymy are used extensively to make quite clear which purpose is related to which Committee or Commission. This includes various synonyms for ‘the whole truth’, which is made explicit in the name of the Commission, and repetitions of human rights violations, amnesty, victims and reparation, which become the names of the Committees.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, merely repeating lexical items or using synonyms does not relate purposes to Committees and a Commission.  Semantically, this is achieved through sequences of figures and their elements (the counterparts of clause complexes, clause transitivity and groups/phrases).  In SFL theory, repetition and synonymy are lexical resources of textual cohesion.

[2] On the one hand, the nominal group 'the whole truth' is not a lexical item, and on the other hand, it does not feature in the text.  Moreover, contrary to Martin & Rose's claims, Truth and Reconciliation Commission is not a synonym of 'the whole truth' — or of all the relevant facts or of full disclosure or of complete a picture (the nominal groups that do appear in the text).

[3] On the one hand, the nominal group human rights violations is not a lexical item, and on the other hand, the function of these words — victims does not feature — in qualifying each of the Things (Committees) is grammatical, not lexical:

• a Committee on Human Rights Violations, 
• a Committee on Amnesty and 
• a Committee on Reparation and Rehabilitation.

Misconstruing (Abridged) Grammatical Structures As Lexical Items

Martin & Rose (2007: 82):

These lexical items are presented as lexical strings in Figure 3.7. The order in which they occur in the text is indicated by their position in the table.

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, Figure 3.7 presents abridged grammatical structures (nominal groups) as lexical items.  The five lexical strings can be considered in turn.

[1] In the first lexical string, none of the four "lexical items" are lexical items:

• complete a picture
• full disclosure
• all the relevant facts
• Truth and Reconciliation Commission

Ignoring this minor detail, the spurious claims here are also that:

• complete a picture and full disclosure are synonymous
• full disclosure and all the relevant facts are synonymous
• all the relevant facts and Truth and Reconciliation Commission are synonymous.

By way of contrast, in SFL Theory, the lexical items complete and full are textually cohesive through synonymy.

[2] In the second lexical string, four of the five "lexical items" are not lexical items:

• gross violations of human rights
• violations they suffered
• violations of human rights
• Committee on Human Rights Violations

Ignoring this minor detail, the spurious claims here are also that:

• violations they suffered is a repetition of gross violations of human rights
• violations is a repetition of violations they suffered
• violations of human rights is a repetition of violations
• Committee on Human Rights Violations is a repetition of violations of human rights

By way of contrast, in SFL Theory, the repetition of the lexical item violations is textually cohesive.

[3] In the third lexical string, neither of the two "lexical items" are lexical items:

• granting of amnesty
• Committee on Amnesty

Ignoring this minor detail, the spurious claim here is also that:

• Committee on Amnesty is a repetition of granting of amnesty

By way of contrast, in SFL Theory, the repetition of the lexical item amnesty is textually cohesive.

[4] In the fifth lexical string, neither of the two "lexical items" are lexical items:

• granting of reparation
• Committee on Reparation and Rehabilitation

Ignoring this minor detail, the spurious claim here is also that:

• Committee on Reparation and Rehabilitation is a repetition of granting of reparation

By way of contrast, in SFL Theory, the repetition of the lexical item reparation is textually cohesive.