Misrepresenting Elemental Ideational Metaphor As Logical Metaphor

Martin & Rose (2007: 115-6):

Finally section 4.6 discusses what happens when conjunctions are realised by other kinds of grammatical classes, such as verbs and nouns; this kind of grammatical metaphor is known as logical metaphor. A method is presented for unpacking logical metaphors to analyse activity sequences.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, here Martin & Rose misunderstand grammatical metaphor as a realisation relation between word classes and present this intra-grammatical relation as discourse semantics.  There are three obvious problems with this:

1. Conjunction is a class of word, and in SFL theory, word is a unit on the lexicogrammatical rank scale, not a semantic phenomenon. 
2. Word classes are all at the same level of symbolic abstraction, whereas realisation is the relation between different levels of symbolic abstraction, as for example, between strata. 
3. Grammatical metaphor is a relation between strata, semantics and lexicogrammar, not a relation between word classes within the lexicogrammatical stratum.

[2] To be clear, here Martin & Rose misunderstand elemental ideational metaphor as logical metaphor.  The reason that such metaphor cannot be restricted to the logical metafunction is that the metaphor involves realising a logico-semantic relation as experiential elements: circumstance, process, quality or thing.  Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 245):

Misunderstanding The Distinction Between External And Internal Conjunction(s)

Martin & Rose (2007: 115):

Section 4.2 describes conjunctions that are used to relate activities; as they construe a field beyond the text these are known as external conjunctions. Section 4.3 describes conjunctions that are used to organise texts; as this organisation is internal to the text, these are known as internal conjunctions.

Blogger Comments:

Here Martin & Rose, following Martin (1992), misunderstand the distinction between external and internal conjunction.  To be clear, the source of the distinction is Halliday & Hasan (1976: 239-41), where it is made on the basis of metafunction: experiential vs interpersonal. As Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 611) explain:

Relations between representations of segments of experience are called external relations, and conjunctions marking such relations are called external conjunctions. …Relations linking text segments in their interpersonal guise are called internal relations – internal to the text as a speech event, and conjunctions marking such relations are called internal conjunctions.

Misconstruing The Distinction Between Logical Complexing And Textual Cohesion As The Distinction Between External And Internal Conjunction

Martin & Rose (2007: 115):

Section 4.1 outlines four general dimensions of conjunction: the difference between conjunctions that relate activities and those that organise texts; the role of conjunctions in what we expect to happen in a text; the four main types of conjunction (adding, comparing, time and consequence); and three types of dependency between clauses (paratactic, hypotactic and cohesive).

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, in SFL theory, "conjunctions that relate activities" are 'external' conjunctions, whether they do so logically and structurally (in clause complexes) or textually and non-structurally (cohesive relations between messages).  On the other hand, "conjunctions that organise texts" are those that function textually and non-structurally — not logically and structurally — whether externally (relating experiential functions) or internally (relating interpersonal functions).

In other words, in this chapter, Martin & Rose misconstrue the distinction between logical structure and textual cohesion as the distinction between external and internal expansion relations.

[2] To be clear, "what we expect to happen in a text" is concerned with the mental projections of readers, whereas text analysis is concerned with the verbal projections of speakers.

[3] To be clear, in the original textual grammatical model (Halliday & Hasan 1976: 242-3) that Martin & Rose here rebrand as logical discourse semantics, the main types of conjunctive relation were identified as:

• additive
• adversative
• causal
• temporal

However, these were later reinterpreted (Halliday 1985) as more delicate types within the three most general types of expansion — elaboration, extension and enhancement — that are manifested throughout the grammar.  In these terms, the authors'

• 'adding' is a subtype of extension, whereas
• 'comparing', 'time' and 'consequence' are all subtypes of enhancement.

Moreover, Martin & Rose, just like the source of "their" ideas, Halliday & Hasan, omit all types of elaboration (and projection) from their model.

[4] To be clear, here Martin & Rose misconstrue non-structural cohesive relations as a type of structural (inter)dependency relation.

Conjunction: A Foretaste Of Some Of The Misunderstandings In Chapter 4

Martin & Rose (2007: 115):

Conjunction looks at interconnections between processes — adding, comparing, sequencing, or explaining them. These are logical meanings that link activities and messages in sequences.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, in this case, conjunction is Martin's (1992) confusion of two of Halliday's lexicogrammatical systems: cohesive conjunction (a non-structural system of the textual metafunction) and clause complexing (a structurally realised system of the logical metafunction) rebranded as logical discourse semantics.  Evidence here.  This confusion has since been rebranded as 'connexion' to differentiate from Halliday's original ideas.

[2] To be clear, only external conjunction is concerned with relations between processes.  Internal conjunction is concerned with relations between interpersonal functions internal to the speech event; see, for example, Halliday & Hasan (1976: 240) or Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 611-2).

[3] To be clear, in SFL theory, 'adding' is one type of extension, 'comparing' and temporal 'sequencing' are two types of enhancement, and 'explaining' could be either elaboration or enhancement. That is to say, Martin's misunderstanding of Halliday's system is not grounded on the three most general types of expansion — elaboration, extension and enhancement — and entirely omits projection.  One effect of this is to undermine grammatical metaphor, since Martin provides no congruent relations between semantics and grammar on which to identify metaphorical (incongruent) realisations.

[4] To be clear, the term 'activity' is here used to refer to meaning in texts, whereas elsewhere, inconsistently, it is used to refer to what those who produce texts are doing.

[5] To be clear, the term 'message' derives from Halliday's theory, and refers to the textual semantic unit realised as a clause.  Because cohesive conjunction is a textual system, it realises relations between textual units.

[6] To be clear, the term 'sequence' derives from Halliday's theory, and refers to the ideational semantic unit that is congruently realised as a clause complex.

∞

To be clear, in the previous chapter, Martin & Rose theorised 'activity sequences' and relations between 'activities' in 'sequences' as experiential rather than logical.

Misrepresenting Ideational Metaphor

Martin & Rose (2007: 112):

Ideational metaphor tends to reconstrue our experience of reality as if it consisted of relations between institutional abstractions. These strategies have evolved to enable writers to generalise about social processes, and to describe, classify and evaluate them. One cost is that it may be hard to recover who is doing what to whom; another is that this type of discourse can be very hard to read and understand. Unpacking ideational metaphors as we have shown here can help to reveal how they construe reality and is one key strategy for teaching language learners how they work.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, this bare assertion, unsupported by evidence, severely under-represents the range of functions of ideational metaphor.  For example, what institutional abstractions and what relations between them are construed by the grammatical metaphor in the volume of the screeching of lorikeets signals the degree to which they are alarmed?

[2] To be clear, on the SFL model, reality is the ideational meaning we construe of experience. Here Martin & Rose identify reality with the domain that is transcendent of semiotic systems.

[3] To be clear, evolution happens 'because' (cause: reason) not 'in order to' (cause: purpose).  For example, in biology, eyes evolved because they afford behavioural advantages, not in order to afford behavioural advantages.

[4] To be clear, the function of ideational metaphor is not merely to generalise about social processes.  For example, what social process is being generalised about by the ideational metaphor in Quantum systems can become entangled through various types of interactions?

[5] This is misleadingly presented as if it is the authors' insight, rather than Halliday's.

[6] To be clear, as previous posts have shown, Martin & Rose reduce all ideational metaphor to one type, elemental metaphor, and their "unpacking" of metaphor consists of little more than rewording the text and ignoring the metaphorical wording, thereby ignoring the junctional nature of metaphor.

Misconstruing A Clause Beneficiary As A Nominal Group Qualifier

Martin & Rose (2007: 112):

In the following example the processes of ‘exposing’ and ‘humiliating’ become things that qualify the penalty, and are themselves qualified by their participant the perpetrator:

Blogger Comments:

Original Text:

Thus there is the penalty of public exposure and humiliation for the perpetrator.

Here Martin & Rose misconstrue an element of clause structure (Beneficiary) as an element of nominal group structure (Qualifier):

Thus	there	is	the penalty of public exposure and humiliation	for the perpetrator
		Process	Existent	Beneficiary

The fact that the prepositional phrase for the perpetrator serves a function at clause rank, and not group rank, is demonstrated by the fact that, unlike a nominal group Qualifier, it can be relocated to other parts of the clause:

1. Thus, for the perpetrator, there is the penalty of public exposure and humiliation.
2. Thus there is, for the perpetrator, the penalty of public exposure and humiliation.

Misunderstanding Ideational Metaphor

Martin & Rose (2007: 110):

In general the drift in meaning, by means of grammatical metaphor, has been from reality as processes involving people and concrete things, to reality as relations between abstract things, as with the transference from marrying as process to marriage as thing. …

There is a set of regular principles for creating ideational metaphors — for reconstruing one kind of element as another. The most common include:

(1) a process or quality can be reconstrued as if it was a thing
(2) a process, or a quality of a process, can be reconstrued as a quality of a thing

These are ideational metaphors of the experiential type, i.e. they are concerned with elements of figures. Ideational metaphors of the logical type are concerned with reconstruing a conjunction between figures as if it were a process or thing.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, here Martin & Rose confuse the metaphorical realisation of a figure ("processes involving people and concrete things") as a group or word (marriage) with the elemental metaphor of a Process realised as Thing (marriage).

[2] To be clear, the actual range of elemental metaphor is set out in Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 245):

[3] To be clear, the authors' differentiation of ideational metaphor as either experiential or logical is invalidated by the inclusion of experiential categories (Process or Thing) in what they regard as logical metaphor.

Misrepresenting Data And Grammatical Metaphor

Martin & Rose (2007: 109-10):

Grammatical metaphors on the other hand involve a transference of meaning from one kind of element to another kind. A simple example in Helena’s story is the process of marrying, which is reconstrued as a quality married and as a thing marriage.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, this is only one type of grammatical metaphor, elemental metaphor (Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 244-9).  More broadly, grammatical metaphor also involves the realisation of a semantic sequence as a clause or group (instead of a clause complex), the realisation of a semantic figure as group or word (instead of a clause), and the realisation of a semantic element as a word (instead of a group).  Most importantly, grammatical metaphor is a junctional construct, embodying the meanings of both the metaphorical and congruent wordings.

[2] To be clear, here Martin & Rose misrepresent the data, since 'marry' is nowhere reconstrued as a Quality, as demonstrated by the five instances of the lexical item in the original text:

1. We even spoke about marriage.
2. An extremely short marriage to someone else failed all because I married to forget.
3. After my unsuccessful marriage, I met another policeman.
4. For some it has been so traumatic that marriages have broken up.

More importantly, the authors fail to recognise the the nature of the metaphors involved, which might be unpacked a little along the following lines:

1. figure ('us getting married') metaphorically realised as nominal group (marriage);
2. figure ('I was married to someone else very briefly') metaphorically realised as nominal group (An extremely short marriage to someone else);
3. sequence ('I married but we did not succeed to remain together') metaphorically realised as nominal group (my unsuccessful marriage);
4. sequence ('people got married and later they separated') metaphorically realised as clause (that marriages have broken up).

Misrepresenting Commentary As Analysis

Martin & Rose (2007: 108-9):

Relations between activities are as follows. First meeting, beginning to relate and marrying are parts of a ‘romance’ field that expect one another in a sequence. In the description phase, each of the young man’s qualities is expected by the romantic field, and intensified by the girlfriends’ envying. A problem is signalled by then one day he said, and then going and won’t see are parts of ‘leaving’. Helena’s reactions include feelings (torn to pieces) and action (married to forget).  The ‘consequences’ phase again begins with a setting, of which learning for the first time is expected by meeting. Then as parts of the Truth and Reconciliation field, operating overseas expects not being punished. This time Helena’s reactions include saying (can’t explain), feeling hurt and bitter, and seeing what was left. Finally saw what was left expects a description, in which we have unpacked desire as ‘wanting’, must be told as ‘wanting to tell’, didn’t matter as ‘didn’t care’, and only a means to the truth as ‘only wanted to tell truth’. These are analysed as various processes of desire, which elaborate each other in this phase.

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, this misrepresents mere commentary as analysis.  As Halliday (1985: xvii) pointed out:

A discourse analysis that is not based on grammar is not an analysis at all, but simply a running commentary on a text … the exercise remains a private one in which one explanation is as good or as bad as another.

Moreover, Martin & Rose use the metaphor of 'expecting' to make (sometimes ludicrous) bare assertions masquerading as theoretical analysis:

1. meeting, beginning to relate and marrying expect one another in a sequence;
2. the romantic field expects each of the young man’s qualities;
3. the girlfriends’ envying intensifies the young man’s qualities;
4. meeting expects learning for the first time;
5. operating overseas expects not being punished;
6. saw what was left expects a description.

See a previous post for the authors' misunderstanding of the text in their unpacking of what they regard as metaphor.

Original Text:

My story begins in my late teenage years as a farm girl in the Bethlehem district of Eastern Free State. As an eighteen-year-old, I met a young man in his twenties. He was working in a top security structure. It was the beginning of a beautiful relationship. We even spoke about marriage. A bubbly, vivacious man who beamed out wild energy. Sharply intelligent. Even if he was an Englishman, he was popular with all the 'Boer' Afrikaners. And all my girlfriends envied me. Then one day he said he was going on a 'trip'. 'We won't see each other again...maybe never ever again.’ I was torn to pieces. So was he. An extremely short marriage to someone else failed all because I married to forget. More than a year ago, I met my first love again through a good friend. I was to learn for the first time that he had been operating overseas and that he was going to ask for amnesty. I can’t explain the pain and bitterness in me when I saw what was left of that beautiful, big, strong person. He had only one desire - that the truth must come out. Amnesty didn't matter. It was only a means to the truth.

Misapplying Their Own Model Of Nuclear Relations [3]

Martin & Rose (2007: 107-9):

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, ignoring the theoretical problems with the Martin & Rose rebranding of Halliday & Matthiessen's (1999: 165-76) degrees of participation and involvement as nuclear relations, and ignoring their replacement of the metaphors in the original text, the following discrepancies between their model and their application of their model can be noted:

Clause Element	Martin & Rose Model	Martin & Rose Analysis
as a farm girl	peripheral	nuclear
in the Bethlehem district of Eastern Free State	peripheral	(omitted)
As an eighteen-year-old	peripheral	nuclear
with all the 'Boer' Afrikaners	peripheral	(omitted)
through a good friend	peripheral	nuclear
for the first time	peripheral	nuclear

Original Text:

My story begins in my late teenage years as a farm girl in the Bethlehem district of Eastern Free State. As an eighteen-year-old, I met a young man in his twenties. He was working in a top security structure. It was the beginning of a beautiful relationship. We even spoke about marriage. A bubbly, vivacious man who beamed out wild energy. Sharply intelligent. Even if he was an Englishman, he was popular with all the 'Boer' Afrikaners. And all my girlfriends envied me. Then one day he said he was going on a 'trip'. 'We won't see each other again...maybe never ever again.’ I was torn to pieces. So was he. An extremely short marriage to someone else failed all because I married to forget. More than a year ago, I met my first love again through a good friend. I was to learn for the first time that he had been operating overseas and that he was going to ask for amnesty. I can’t explain the pain and bitterness in me when I saw what was left of that beautiful, big, strong person. He had only one desire - that the truth must come out. Amnesty didn't matter. It was only a means to the truth.

Misrepresenting A Text In Rewording Grammatical Metaphors

Martin & Rose (2007: 107-9):

These unpacking strategies are used in the following analysis, Table 3.6. …

Blogger Comments:

Original Text:

My story begins in my late teenage years as a farm girl in the Bethlehem district of Eastern Free State. As an eighteen-year-old, I met a young man in his twenties. He was working in a top security structure. It was the beginning of a beautiful relationship. We even spoke about marriage. A bubbly, vivacious man who beamed out wild energy. Sharply intelligent. Even if he was an Englishman, he was popular with all the 'Boer' Afrikaners. And all my girlfriends envied me. Then one day he said he was going on a 'trip'. 'We won't see each other again...maybe never ever again.’ I was torn to pieces. So was he. An extremely short marriage to someone else failed all because I married to forget. More than a year ago, I met my first love again through a good friend. I was to learn for the first time that he had been operating overseas and that he was going to ask for amnesty. I can’t explain the pain and bitterness in me when I saw what was left of that beautiful, big, strong person. He had only one desire - that the truth must come out. Amnesty didn't matter. It was only a means to the truth.

To be clear, the authors' "unpacking of metaphor" is merely the following rewordings:

Original Text	Rewordings By Martin & Rose
It was the beginning of a beautiful relationship	Helena and young man began relating beautifully
An extremely short marriage to someone else failed	Helena married someone else extremely briefly
he was going to ask for amnesty	the young man was going to ask not to be punished for his crimes
He had only one desire	the young man wanted only one thing
the truth must come out	the young man wanted to tell the truth
Amnesty didn't matter	the young man didn't care not to be punished
It was only a means to the truth	the young man only wanted to tell the truth

It can be seen that the final three rewordings misunderstand the original text, and include the unpacking of a technical term, amnesty, which is no longer metaphorical.  Moreover, in replacing the original wordings, Martin & Rose have misrepresented the text by ignoring the junctional quality of grammatical metaphor. Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 283):

However, we have shown that the metaphorical version is not simply a meaningless (i.e. synonymous) variant of some more congruent form; it is 'junctional' — that is, it embodies semantic features deriving from its own lexicogrammatical properties.

On Grammatical Metaphor

Martin & Rose (2007: 107):

As with metaphor in general, grammatical metaphors are read on two levels at once, a grammatical meaning and a discourse semantic meaning, and this double meaning may have several dimensions. …

In technical and institutional fields, grammatical metaphors become naturalised as technical terms. It may not be necessary to unpack these, unless we are trying for pedagogic purposes to relate technical terms to everyday meanings. For example, amnesty could be unpacked in commonsense terms as ‘not punish for crimes.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, ideational grammatical metaphor involves a directional remapping of meaning onto wording. Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 712-3):

… grammatical metaphor within the ideational metafunction involves a ‘re-mapping’ between sequences, figures and elements in the semantics and clause nexuses, clauses and groups in the grammar. In the congruent mode of realisation … a sequence is realised by a clause nexus and a figure is realised by a clause. In the metaphorical mode, the whole set of mappings seems to be shifted ‘downwards’: a sequence is realised by a clause, a figure is realised by a group, and an element is realised by a word.

Semantically, a metaphorical wording realises the junction of the meanings of the metaphorical and congruent wordings, such that, within the semantic stratum, the meaning of the congruent wording is realised by the meaning of the metaphorical wording. Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 288):

The correspondence that is construed through grammatical metaphor is an elaborating relationship: an identity is set up between two patterns … In this identity, the metaphorical term is the ‘Token’ and the congruent term is the ‘Value’ … The identity holds between the two configurations as a whole; but … the components of the configurations are also mapped one onto another …

The metaphorical relation is thus similar to inter-stratal realisation in that it construes a token–value type of relation. Here, however, the relation is intra-stratal: the identity holds between different meanings, not between meanings and wordings. The metaphor consists in relating different semantic domains of experience …

[2] To be clear, technical terms have lost their junction with more congruent agnates, and can no longer be unpacked.  Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 286):

Almost all technical terms start out as grammatical metaphors; but they are grammatical metaphors which can no longer be unpacked. When a wording becomes technicalised, a new meaning has been construed — almost always, in our present-day construction of knowledge, a new thing (participating entity); and the junction with any more congruent agnates is (more or less quickly) dissolved.

Misrepresenting New Information

Martin & Rose (2007: 107):

Nominalisations are a common form of grammatical metaphor. Reconstruing a process as a Thing has the twin advantage that i) Things can be classified and described with the rich resources of nominal group lexis, including many kinds of evaluation, and ii) the nominalised process and its qualities can be presented as the starting point or end point of the clause, as its Theme or New information.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, not all nominalisations are metaphorical; see, for example, Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 286) on technical terms.

[2] To be clear, the "rich resources" of the grammatical unit nominal group, including 'evaluations', are grammatical. Lexis is specified by the most delicate features of lexicogrammatical systems.

[3] This is misleading, because it is untrue. To be clear,

• information is not a system of the clause,
• any element of a clause can be highlighted as New information, not just the 'end point', 
• more than one element of a clause may be highlighted as New information, 
• there may no element of a clause highlighted as New information, and
• nominalisation is not a prerequisite for highlighting information as New.