Martin & Rose (2007: 145-6):
Note that in Figure 4.9 we have allowed at least one line between each connected figure, so that we can draw the connection. Most of the connections are external succession, as the story unfolds in time (drawn on the right). Some are realised explicitly by conjunction (Then, again, Then, finally), but others are realised by circumstances (After my unsuccessful marriage, After about three years, Today), so it is a simple matter to show this succession by inserting (then) in brackets.
Most of these successive connections are simply between phases as the story unfolds, but when we get to the Interpretation, their scope includes the whole story. They connect the Interpretation right back to the Orientation (My story begins...), spanning all the events between, as we have drawn. The same is also true of the internal connection between the Coda (I end with a few lines...) and the Orientation. This internal succession is realised lexically with I end, which we have rendered as the conjunction (lastly), and connected back to the start.
We have already discussed the implicit similarity between the Orientation and first Incident, rendered as (that is). There is also an implicit contrast between the two Interpretation phases of ‘black struggle’ and ‘white guilt’, which we have shown with (by contrast).
By these simple techniques we can show how a text unfolds logically, by conjunction between figures, phases and text stages. The relation may be implicit but is apparent lexically as a circumstance (e.g. After about three years), a process (I end), or participants (the people of the struggle vs our leaders), and so can be rendered as a conjunction.
[1] To be clear, the unacknowledged source of the semantic notion of a 'figure' is Halliday & Matthiessen (1999), where it refers to the order of complexity in ideational meaning that is congruently realised as a clause.
[2] To be clear, circumstances function experientially within clauses, not logically between them, and so their analysis does not demonstrate "how a text unfolds logically". Moreover, inserting the conjunctions then, now and lastly into the text misrepresents the actual logical relations in the text. The commonality here is the realisation of time, not of logical relations.
[3] Here Martin & Rose demonstrate that they do not understand the distinction between the terms 'lexical' and 'grammatical'. Circumstances, processes and participants are grammatical categories, not lexical categories.
[4] See the earlier post Misconstruing Imaginary Elaboration As Similarity.
[5] The relevant portions of text are:
'black struggle'
I finally understand what the struggle was really about. I would have done the same had I been denied everything. If my life, that of my children and my parents was strangled with legislation, if I had to watch how white people became dissatisfied with the best and still wanted better and got it. I envy and respect the people of the struggle — at least their leaders have the guts to stand by their vultures, to recognise their sacrifices.
'white guilt'To be clear, the authors' 'contrast' is a rebranding of Halliday's textual grammar, the conjunctive relation of 'adversative addition', as logical discourse semantics. However, Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 622) provide the following reasons against assuming conjunctive relations where none are expressed:
What do we have? Our leaders are too holy and innocent. And faceless. I can understand if Mr F. W. de Klerk says he didn't know, but dammit, there must be a clique, there must have been someone out there who is still alive and who can give a face to 'the orders from above' for all the operations. Dammit! What else can this abnormal life be than a cruel human rights violation? Spiritual murder is more inhumane than a messy, physical murder. At least a murder victim rests. I wish I had the power to make those poor wasted people whole again, I wish I could wipe the old South Africa out of everyone's past.
It is perhaps as well, therefore, to be cautious in assigning implicit conjunction in the interpretation of a text. It is likely that there will always be other forms of cohesion present, and that these are the main source of our intuition that there is a pattern of conjunctive relationships as well. … Moreover the absence of explicit conjunction is one of the principal variables in English discourse, both as between registers and as between texts in the same register; this variation is obscured if we assume conjunction where it is not expressed. It is important therefore to note those instances where conjunction is being recognised that is implicit; and to characterise the text also without it, to see how much we still feel is being left unaccounted for.
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