Friday, 9 August 2019

Implication Sequences: Misunderstanding Theory And Misrepresenting Data

Martin & Rose (2007: 102):
In science fields, by contrast, the unmarked relation between events in a sequence is typically assumed to be cause and effect, so that each succeeding effect is implied by the preceding cause. For this reason such event series are known as implication sequences. An example is the following explanation of cycles of bushfires and regeneration in the Australian Mallee woodland. The implication sequence is predicted by the opening sentence, and each step of cause and effect unfolds without any explicit markers:
Regeneration of the Mallee depends on periodic fires.
Old mallee produces a build-up of very dry litter and the branches themselves are often festooned with streamers of bark inviting a flame up to the canopy of leaves loaded with volatile eucalyptus oil.
A dry electrical storm in summer is all that is needed to start a blaze,
which, with a very hot northerly wind behind it will race unchecked through the bush.
The next rains will bring an explosion of ground flora;
the summer grasses and forbs not able to compete under a mallee canopy, will break out in a riot of colour.
New shoots of mallee will spring from the lignotuber
and another cycle of succession will begin. (Corrigan 1991; 100)

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, anyone who assumes this is unfamiliar with science texts.  On the one hand, expansion relations other than 'cause' are not "marked", and on the other hand, in any case, texts in written mode, unless addressed to children, tend favour lexical density over grammatical intricacy, as Halliday has demonstrated.

[2] To be clear, an implication is the conclusion that can be drawn from something although it is not explicitly stated.  Here Martin & Rose confuse the causal relation between reason and result ('cause and effect') with the implicitness ('implied by') of such a relation.

[3] To be clear, in SFL theory, causal relations between "events" are manifestations of enhancement, a type of expansion.  When the relation obtains between units in a complex, it serves the logical metafunction.  When the relation obtains between units of different structures, as a feature of cohesive conjunction, it serves the textual metafunction.  Here, however, Martin & Rose present the relation, without supporting argument, as serving the experiential metafunction.

[4] To be clear, the opening sentence of the text does not predict what follows.  The reader can test the claim by reading the opening sentence and trying to predict everything that follows. Hindsight is not prediction.

[5] To be clear, the reason why there are no explicit markers of cause-effect relations between "events" in the text is that there are no cause-effect relations between "events" in the text, as the following table demonstrates:


Reason ("Cause")

Result ('Effect")
Regeneration of the Mallee depends on periodic fires
causes?
Old mallee produces a build-up of very dry litter and the branches themselves are often festooned with streamers of bark inviting a flame up to the canopy of leaves loaded with volatile eucalyptus oil
Old mallee produces a build-up of very dry litter and the branches themselves are often festooned with streamers of bark inviting a flame up to the canopy of leaves loaded with volatile eucalyptus oil
causes?
A dry electrical storm in summer is all that is needed to start a blaze
A dry electrical storm in summer is all that is needed to start a blaze
causes?
which, with a very hot northerly wind behind it will race unchecked through the bush
which, with a very hot northerly wind behind it will race unchecked through the bush
causes?
The next rains will bring an explosion of ground flora
The next rains will bring an explosion of ground flora
causes?
the summer grasses and forbs not able to compete under a mallee canopy, will break out in a riot of colour
the summer grasses and forbs not able to compete under a mallee canopy, will break out in a riot of colour
causes?
New shoots of mallee will spring from the lignotuber
New shoots of mallee will spring from the lignotuber
causes?
and another cycle of succession will begin

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