Sunday 22 September 2019

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


Martin & Rose (2007: 115):
Conjunction looks at interconnections between processesadding, 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.

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