Confusing Context With Language

Martin & Rose (2007: 93):

We said earlier that a field consists of sequences of activities. The granting of amnesty is one activity within the Truth and Reconciliation field, that includes activities such as applying for, giving and refusing. This hierarchy of activities can be represented by a tree diagram, as in Figure 3.11. 

 

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, even Martin & Rose model field as context — even if they misconstrue context as register — and here they locate activity sequences as discourse semantics, contradicting Martin (1992) where activity sequences are located in context.  That is, even in their own terms, Martin & Rose misconstrue the realisation relation between two levels of symbolic abstraction, context and discourse semantics, as one of composition at the same level.

[2] To be clear, the claims here are that:

• granting includes applying for
• granting includes giving
• granting includes refusing.

The logical inconsistencies here are therefore as follows:

• inclusion is a relation of extension: composition (meronymy), but
• the relation of granting to applying for is enhancement: time or cause-condition (collocation),
• the relation of granting to giving is elaboration (synonymy),
• the relation of granting to refusing is elaboration (antonymy).

Mistaking Range For Medium And Medium For Agent

Martin & Rose (2007: 92):

Amnesty is construed here as a commodity that is given or refused to various recipients, by an implicit giver (the Commission), and is also demanded by potential recipients (police officers). The central elements in this construal are the processes of exchanging (given, not given, refused, applied for), the nuclear element is the commodity exchanged (amnesty), and the marginal elements are its givers and recipients. We can represent these nuclear relations in Figure 3.10.

 

Blogger Comments:

[1] Here Martin & Rose use the terms of speech function (enacting interpersonal meaning) — exchanging (giving or demanding) commodities (goods–&–services or information) — as the basis for determining the relative involvement of participants in a process, in their rebranding of Halliday's ergative model of transitivity (construing experiential meaning) as a discourse semantic system. The confusion is thus one of metafunction.

[2] To be clear, Martin & Rose provide no argument as to why processes are central, why the commodity (Range misinterpreted as Medium) is nuclear, or why givers (Medium misinterpreted as Agent) and recipients (Beneficiaries) are marginal.  This confirms that Martin & Rose do not understand the ergative principle on which Halliday's model of clause nuclearity is based.

[3] To be clear, Martin & Rose misinterpret the ergative functions of these clauses, mistaking Range for Medium and Medium for Agent:

the Commission	may grant	amnesty	to those who plead guilty
Medium	Process	Range	Beneficiary

the Commission	does not give	amnesty	to innocent people
Medium	Process	Range	Beneficiary

the Commission	does not give	amnesty	to those who claim to be innocent
Medium	Process	Range	Beneficiary

the Commission	refused	amnesty	to the police officers
Medium	Process	Range	Beneficiary

the police officers	applied for	amnesty
Medium	Process	Range

That is, it is through the Commission and the police officers that the processes of 'granting' etc. are actualised, with amnesty as the domain of such processes.

These errors invalidate the model in Figure 3.10, even in its own terms.  In Halliday's original model, the Commission and the police officers are nuclear, with amnesty outside the nucleus:




[4] To be clear, Martin & Rose construe nuclear relations

• as lexical (and discourse semantic), even though the relations obtain between elements of grammatical structure, and
• as nuclear, even though, in their understanding, it is not the nucleus to which other elements are related.

∞

The bigger picture here is that Martin & Rose are taking Halliday's ergative model of clause grammar and rebranding it as part of Martin's model of discourse semantics.  Yet, in doing so, they demonstrate that they do not understand the principle on which Halliday's model is based, and that they cannot apply it accurately to data. 

Misrepresenting 'Field' And Mistaking Range For Medium And Medium For Agent

Martin & Rose (2007: 92):

In the grounds that Tutu gives for his second Argument, he names its field as the granting of amnesty. This field is expanded in the following clauses as processes of ‘giving’, ‘not giving’, ‘refusing’ and ‘applying for’ (in italics below), of which amnesty is the Medium (in bold), with various Agents and Beneficiaries (underlined):

It is also not true that THE GRANTING OF AMNESTY encourages impunity ...
because amnesty is only given to those who plead guilty ...
Amnesty is not given to innocent people or to those who claim to be innocent.
It was on precisely this point that amnesty was refused to the police officers
who applied for [amnesty] for their part in the death of Steve Biko.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the ideational meaning instantiated in Tutu's text is semantics, not context.  In SFL theory, 'field' refers to the ideational dimension of the context that is realised by language — along the cline from the culture that is realised by language as system to the situation that is realised by an instance of language (a text).  For Martin's misunderstandings of the SFL notion of field, see the clarifying critiques here.

[2] This is potentially misleading, since field (context) and clause (lexicogrammar) are different levels of symbolic abstraction. To be clear, taking metaredundancy into account, context (e.g. field) is realised in the realisation of semantics in lexicogrammar (e.g. clauses).

[3] To be clear, amnesty serves as the Range of these four Processes, not the Medium.  The processes of ‘giving’, ‘not giving’, ‘refusing’ and ‘applying for’ are not actualised by amnesty, but by the Commission, which is omitted from these medio-receptive clauses.

[4] To be clear, no Agents are underlined.  Of the underlined, the only participant that is not a Beneficiary, who, serves as the Medium through which the Process applied (for) is actualised — in a rankshifted clause serving as the Qualifier of a nominal group.

because	amnesty	is	only	given	to those who plead guilty
	Range	Pro-		-cess	Beneficiary

amnesty	is not given	to innocent people or to those who claim to be innocent
Range	Process	Beneficiary

[[amnesty	was refused	to the police officers [[who applied for (amnesty) for their part in the death of Steve Biko]] ]]
Range	Process	Beneficiary

[[who	applied for	(amnesty)	for their part in the death of Steve Biko]]
Medium	Process	Range	Cause

Misunderstanding The Basis Of Nuclearity

Martin & Rose (2007: 92):

The Medium may be affected by the process, but the Agent is left implicit, as in I’m going to be haunted, amnesty was refused. As Agent and Beneficiary may be left out of the clause, they are relatively marginal in terms of nuclear relations. 

How do these grammatical functions interact with the lexical elements that instantiate them in particular texts?

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, on the ergative model, the Medium is participant through which the Process is actualised; on the transitive model, in contrast, the Goal is the participant that is impacted by the Process.

[2] To be clear, the clause amnesty was refused is middle (medio-receptive), not effective.  That is, the clause lacks the feature [agency], so it does not feature an Agent, implicit or otherwise.

amnesty	was refused	by the Commission
Range	Process	Medium

[3] This seriously misunderstands nuclearity.  Agent and Beneficiary, as participants, are "marginal" in the sense of their participation in the Process, not because they can be left out.  The problems with 'omittability' as a criterion include:

• the omission of a participant serves a textual function, not an experiential function; and
• even the most nuclear participant, the Medium, can be omitted, as demonstrated by the medio-receptive clauses such as amnesty was refused, you were seen!  What was said?

It will be seen later that Martin & Rose contradict their own principle by interpreting 'Range: process' — e.g. a song in he sang (a song) — as central, despite the fact that it can be omitted.

[4] The notion of grammatical functions interacting with lexical items betrays the Martin's (1992) misunderstanding of the dimensions of SFL theory as the interaction of modules; see the clarifying critiques here.

To be clear, the relation between grammatical functions and lexical items involves both delicacy and realisation, since each lexical item is the synthetic realisation of the most delicate features of lexicogrammatical systems.

[5] The notion of lexical items instantiating grammatical function confuses instantiation — the relation between potential and instance — with delicacy (and realisation), as explained above in [4].

∞

Importantly, none of this is

1. discourse semantic,
2. beyond the clause, or 
3. the authors' original theorising.

Misconstruing Middle Clauses As Effective

Martin & Rose (2007: 91-2):

Some effective processes can also be extended to a third participant, known as a Beneficiary:

 

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the acceptance of a Beneficiary applies to middle clauses as well as effective clauses, as demonstrated by the three clauses that Martin & Rose present above, all of which are actually middle, not effective:

The Commission	may grant	amnesty	to those who plead guilty
Medium	Process	Range	Beneficiary

amnesty	is not granted	by the Commission	to innocent people
Range	Process	Medium	Beneficiary

the police officers	were refused	amnesty	by the Commission
Beneficiary	Process	Range	Medium

That is, the process of granting or refusing is actualised through the Commission, with amnesty being the range of their granting or refusing.  It will be seen that the authors subsequently build their rebranding of Halliday's clause nuclearity on such misunderstandings.

[2] To be clear, it is the clause that is effective (+agency) or middle (–agency), not the Process.

[3] To be clear, in SFL theory, the variable of extension applies to the transitive model, not the ergative model of nuclearity, where the variable is instead one of causation (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 339-40). Moreover, the relation of the Beneficiary is to the clause Nucleus (Process/Medium), and the relation is one of enhancement (cause), not extension; see Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 348).

Agent And Voice

Martin & Rose (2007: 91):

In addition to the Medium, one or two other participants may be involved in the process, including Agent, Beneficiary and various types of Range. An Agent instigates the process, which affects the Medium in some way:

These effective clauses can be reversed in passive form, with the Agent as a ‘by phrase’:

Blogger Comments:

[1] Trivially, Agent, Beneficiary and Range are three types of participant, but less trivially, all three may be involved in a single Process, as in:

the minister	made	Bach	play	organ	for the choir
Agent	Pro-	Medium	-cess	Range	Beneficiary

[2] To be clear, Agent is the external cause of a Process, construed as a participant (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 336).  For example:

meaning	is realised	by wording
Medium Value	Process	Agent Token

Having here identified the Agent as the participant that instigates a Process, the authors later (p94) present the Medium as instigating a Process.

[3] To be clear, an Agent causes the actualisation of a Process through a Medium.

[4] Trivially, in SFL theory, this is termed 'receptive' at clause rank, with passive' being reserved for the verbal group.  Non-trivially, the choice of voice serves a textual function, not an experiential function; see Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 348). That is, the two variants construe the same experience, but differ in which experiential function is made Theme and (unmarked) New.

Importantly, the reason Martin & Rose introduce this spurious variable here, is that they are preparing to misinterpret Halliday's ergative model of clause nuclearity in terms of what can and cannot be omitted for textual reasons.  That is, as will be seen, their model of nuclear relations, as experiential discourse semantics, is based on a confusion of the experiential metafunction with the textual.

Medium

Martin & Rose (2007: 91):

Nuclear relations within the clause

To set the scene for exploring nuclear relations, we first need to discuss a few of the semantic patterns within the clause described by Halliday (1994/2004). The essential experiential pattern is that people and things participate in a process. In Halliday’s terms the core participant in the process is known as its Medium, ‘without which there would be no process’. Here are some familiar examples:

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, Martin's (1992) model of 'nuclear relations' is Halliday's ergative model of clause transitivity, misunderstood, and relocated from lexicogrammar to discourse semantics.  See the clarifying critiques here.

[2] To be clear, the subtitle of this publication is Meaning Beyond The Clause.  Martin's model of nuclear relations is concerned with the realisation of meaning as wording — within the clause.

[3] To be clear, 'people and things' are realised at the rank of group, not clause.

[4] To be clear, the Medium is the participant through which the Process is actualised (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 336).  The Medium is not obligatory in medio-receptive clauses like you were seen, they were told etc., or location-receptive clauses like this bed hasn't been slept in.

[5] To be clear, the mood Adjuncts even and never do not serve any experiential function, let alone Process.