Martin & Rose (2007: 100-1):
We have shown how fields of experience are construed in discourse, from one perspective as taxonomies of people, things, processes, places and qualities, and from another perspective as configurations of these elements in clauses. Our third perspective on fields construed in texts is on sequences of such configurations. A field of human experience is composed of recurrent sequences of activities.
Blogger Comments:
[1] To be clear, here the authors misunderstand the architecture of SFL theory and the epistemological assumptions that inform it. In terms of epistemology, SFL theory assumes that all meaning is within the domain of semiotic systems. Construing experience as meaning is the intellectual construction of the non-semiotic domain as the semiotic domain of ideational meaning. In terms of theoretical architecture, the ideational domain of language construes the ideational domain of culture (field).
Thus, in saying 'fields of experience' are construed as meanings of language, the authors have conflated the non-semiotic domain ('experience') with the culture as semiotic system ('fields'). On the SFL model, experience is construed as ideational meaning of language, and the ideational meanings of language construe the fields of a culture.
[2] To be clear, as demonstrated in previous posts, the authors have not shown how lexical taxonomies construe field (the ideational dimension of the culture as semiotic system, which the authors confuse with the ideational dimension of language). They have merely misconstrued Halliday's model of lexical cohesion, a lexicogrammatical resource of the textual metafunction, as an experiential system, and rebranded the misunderstandings as their discourse semantic system of taxonomic relations.
[3] To be clear, as demonstrated in previous posts, the authors have not shown how nuclear relations in clauses construe field. They have merely misunderstood Halliday's 'degree of participation' and rebranded ergative functions as central, nuclear, marginal and peripheral — in ways that are inconsistent with both the principle of 'degree of participation' and the expansion relations between elements.
[4] To be clear, the notion of field being composed of sequences of configurations of clause elements confuses two distinct levels of symbolic abstraction: culture (field) and language (sequences of configurations of clause elements). This confusion with regard to activity sequences features throughout Martin's English Text (1992), as demonstrated here.
Moreover, it will be seen in the posts that follow, that despite being presented here as experiential in metafunction, activity sequences actually involve logico-semantic relations between clauses (logical metafunction) and cohesive conjunctive relations between messages (textual metafunction), which the authors elsewhere (pp115-55) model as the logical discourse semantic system of CONJUNCTION.
[3] To be clear, as demonstrated in previous posts, the authors have not shown how nuclear relations in clauses construe field. They have merely misunderstood Halliday's 'degree of participation' and rebranded ergative functions as central, nuclear, marginal and peripheral — in ways that are inconsistent with both the principle of 'degree of participation' and the expansion relations between elements.
[4] To be clear, the notion of field being composed of sequences of configurations of clause elements confuses two distinct levels of symbolic abstraction: culture (field) and language (sequences of configurations of clause elements). This confusion with regard to activity sequences features throughout Martin's English Text (1992), as demonstrated here.
Moreover, it will be seen in the posts that follow, that despite being presented here as experiential in metafunction, activity sequences actually involve logico-semantic relations between clauses (logical metafunction) and cohesive conjunctive relations between messages (textual metafunction), which the authors elsewhere (pp115-55) model as the logical discourse semantic system of CONJUNCTION.
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