The Interplay Of Explicit And Implicit Conjunction To Manage Expectancy [2]

Martin & Rose (2007: 118-9):

This interplay of explicit and implicit conjunction to manage expectancy is well illustrated in the first Incident of Helena’s story:

… 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.

… And in the description phase that follows, she uses even if in a similar way [to even], to tell us that an Englishman being liked by the ‘Boer’ Afrikaners is counterexpectant (if they were expected to like him she might have said because he was an Englishman). In contrast, her girlfriends’ reaction is explicitly added by starting a sentence with And, letting us know that their envy is entirely to be expected.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the claim here is that the conjunction even if functions similarly to the adverb even (see previous post).  In SFL theory, the functional difference is significant.  The function of conjunction even if is to relate two clauses in a clause nexus by the enhancement relation of concessive condition, whose meaning is 'if P then contrary to expectation Q' (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 478).  So, in the above extract, the meaning is 'if he was an Englishman, then contrary to expectation, he was popular with all the 'Boer' Afrikaners'.  In terms of metafunction, the meaning being realised is logical, and the grammatical domain is the clause complex.

In contrast, the function of the adverb even is that of a mood Adjunct of intensity: counterexpectancy: exceeding, whose meaning is 'went so far as' (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 188).  So the meaning of we even spoke about marriage is 'we went so far as to speak about marriage'.  In terms of metafunction, the meaning being realised is interpersonal, not logical, and the grammatical domain is the clause, not the clause complex.

These important distinctions are lost on Martin & Rose, in their rebranding of Halliday's lexicogrammar as Martin's discourse semantics.

[2] To be clear, the explicit use of the conjunction and does not "let us know that their envy is entirely to be expected".  This can be demonstrated by omitting the conjunction, leaving the textually cohesive relation implicit:

Even if he was an Englishman,
he was popular with all the 'Boer' Afrikaners.
All my girlfriends envied me.

Here Martin & Rose are merely making bare assertions, unsupported by any linguistic evidence or argumentation.