Contrasts Between Lexical Items Constructing Arguments And Interpretations

Martin & Rose (2007: 87):

Contrasts are also an important resource for constructing arguments and interpretations, in which one position or set of behaviours and qualities is preferred over another. Helena used contrasts between her lovers’ behaviour and qualities before and after their ‘operations’ to make her point about the damage that has been done to them.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is misleading. To be clear, mere contrastive relations between lexical items do not, of themselves, construct arguments and interpretations.  This can be demonstrated by isolating two contrastive lexical items, teacher and student.  The resource for constructing arguments and interpretations is the lexicogrammar that construes the semantics.

[2] To be clear, the differential assessment of 'one position or set of behaviours and qualities over another' is a stance, which is the concern of the interpersonal metafunction (the enactment of intersubjective relations as meaning) not the experiential metafunction (the construal of experience as meaning).  That is, Martin & Rose, having misinterpreted a textual system (lexical cohesion) as an experiential system (ideation), now add interpersonal meaning to the confusion.