The Resources For Identifying People

Martin & Rose (2007: 161):

Let’s sum up the resources we’ve seen for identifying people, and add a few more in Table 5.3. 

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, from the perspective of SFL Theory:

1. 'Presenting' reference is not reference, but non-specific deixis, which, by definition, does not present a recoverable identity. The identities said to be presented are the participants realised by the nominal groups in which the non-specific determiner functions. That is, this is reference in the sense of ideational denotation.
2. 'Presuming' reference is a mixture of demonstrative reference (the, this, that), cohesive personal reference (she, he, it, they, them), non-cohesive personal reference (I, me, you, we, us), and reference in the sense of ideational denotation (Helena).
3. 'Possessive' reference is a mixture of cohesive personal reference (his), non-cohesive personal reference (my), and reference in the sense of ideational denotation (Helena's).

Comparative Reference and Possessive Reference

Martin & Rose (2007: 161): 

However, comparative reference and possessive reference are a little different, because they can be used in nominal groups which both present and presume. So another policeman and someone else both present a new person, at the same time as they presume the person they are compared with. The ‘an’ part of another presents a new person, but the ‘other’ part compares him with someone we already know. Likewise someone presents a new person, but else compares him with someone we already know. With possessive reference, my first love presumes someone we already know. However, all my girlfriends presents new people, even though my refers to someone we already know: the narrator, Helena.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, in comparative and personal ("possessive") reference, it is the reference item — not the nominal group — that presumes a recoverable identity. Moreover, in comparative reference, the domain in which reference items occur also includes the adverbial group — see Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 626) — which is unaccounted for in this rebranding of Halliday & Hasan's (1976) grammatical reference as Martin's discourse semantic identification.

[2] To be clear, this misconstrues the deictic function of determiners (an, some) in nominal groups as a referential function. Moreover, since these are non-specific determiners, they do not reference a specific identity to be recovered.

[3] To be clear, the people said to be presumed and presented here are the participants realised by the nominal groups my first love and all my girlfriends, respectively. That is, this is not textual reference, but reference in the sense of ideational denotation. This contrasts with the textual reference of my, which, as acknowledged, refers to the speaker, Helena, and as such, does not function cohesively (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 628).

Basic Resources For Introducing And Tracking People

Martin & Rose (2007: 160-1):

The participant identification resources we’ve been looking at so far are summed up in Table 5.2, with ways of introducing participants on the left and ways of tracking them on the right. 

So on the left we have resources that introduce us to people; and on the right we have resources which tell us who we already know. Technically, we can say that resources that introduce people are presenting reference, and those that track people are presuming reference. Words like a, an and someone are used for presenting reference. Words like the, that, he, we and names like Helena are used for presuming reference.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the presenting reference resources that introduce people (a, an, some) do not function as reference items because, as non-specific determiners, they do not present a recoverable identity. As previously explained, the authors' misunderstanding arises from confusing the deictic function of determiners in nominal groups with the referential function of determiners in cohesion. (The "introduced" person is necessarily the Thing of the nominal group that the determiner, as Deictic, sub-classifies as non-specific.)

[2] To be clear, the presuming reference resources that track people confuse reference in the sense of ideational denotation (Helena) with non-cohesive textual reference (my) and cohesive textual reference (his, he, that, the).

As previously explained, the speaker does not need to keep track of participants because she already knows who she is talking about. This is especially so in the case of my — which Martin & Rose strategically omit from the final sentence — since this refers to the speaker herself.

However, the authors clearly think that the identity at stake is Helena's first love, rather than Helena herself, which demonstrates their confusion of deixis with reference, since the relation between my and first love is deictic, not referential.

Identifying Participants Using Possessive "Pronouns"

Martin & Rose (2007: 160):

Another important resource for identifying participants is possessive pronouns. These pronouns (my, your, her, his, its, our, their) work like a, some, the, this, that, these, those, to tell us which participant we are talking about. In her story, Helena introduces her girlfriends, their police friends and the Africans' leaders in this way:

all my girlfriends
and three of our friends
their leaders

As well as people, the possessions and parts of people can all be presented and presumed with this resource, for example, his throat, my head. 

There are actually two identities in these expressions; one is realised by the possessive pronoun (e.g. my) and the other by the thing that is ‘possessed’ (e.g. girlfriends). The possessive pronoun always presumes an identity, but the thing that is ‘possessed’ may or may not have been previously mentioned.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, in SFL Theory, these are known as 'possessive determiners' (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 382, 623, 627).

[2] To be clear, only 3rd person forms function cohesively as reference items (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 628). For the cohesive component of 'exclusive' we/our/ours, see Halliday & Hasan (1976: 49-50).

[3] To be clear, non-specific determiners, like a and some, do not presume a recoverable identity, because they are non-specific. Their inclusion in Martin's system of identification — 'the semantics of reference' — derives from his confusion of nominal group deixis with cohesive reference.

[4] To be clear, the identities presumed by my, our and their are not the participants introduced. This discrepancy derives from confusing nominal group deixis, where a determiner sub-classifies the Thing of a nominal group, with cohesive reference, where a determiner signals a recoverable identity elsewhere in the text.

[5] To be clear, the relation between people and their parts is one of lexical cohesion, meronymy, not reference.

[6] To be clear, the two "identities" in such nominal groups are (a) that which is referred to by the possessive determiner and (b) that which the Thing realises. Only the determiner refers in the sense of textual reference; the Thing of a nominal group refers in the sense of ideational denotation. The confusion here is one of metafunction.

"Comparing People"

Martin & Rose (2007: ):

We have seen that participants can be referred to as different from others, with another or someone else. These kinds of resources compare one participant with another, and so are known as comparative reference. Comparative reference may involve simple contrast, or numbers such as first, second and superlatives such as best, better:

my first love
someone else
another policeman

In English, unlike many languages, we tend to insist on signalling whether we are presenting or presuming every time a participant is mentioned. However comparison is optional; we just use it when we need to.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the unacknowledged sources of comparative reference are Halliday & Hasan (1976: 76-87) and Halliday (1985: 294-5). Moreover, the function of comparative reference is not merely to compare one participant with another, but to create cohesion through a relation of contrast. Halliday (1985: 294):

[2] To be clear, ordinatives and superlatives do not serve as comparative reference items, and Martin & Rose provide no argument in support of their claim that they do. Moreover, reference items are not restricted to the domain of the nominal group. Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 633) classify comparative reference items as follows:

[3] Trivially, better is not a superlative, but non-trivially, as a comparative adverb, it does serve as a comparative reference item.

[4] To be clear, the authors' 'presenting reference' is concerned with their notion of 'introducing participants', and their 'presuming reference' with their notion of 'tracking participants'. However, the distinction here is not one of reference, but one of deixis: non-specific ('introducing/presenting') vs specific ('tracking/presuming') — and it is this distinction that "we tend insist on signalling" in English.

This is shown by the fact that non-specific determiners do not refer, and by the fact that Martin & Rose are concerned with the identity realised by the nominal group in which the determiner functions, rather than with information elsewhere in the text that would resolve the identity referred to by a genuine reference item.

[5] To be clear, the 'optionality' of comparative reference, in this context, lies in the fact that it is not a feature of deixis.  Presumably, when 'we need to use it', it ceases to be 'optional'.

Confusing Text Comprehension With Text Production

Martin & Rose (2007: 159-60):

Helena didn’t name her first love, although she did make up a name for herself, as introduced by Tutu:

a woman calling herself Helena

The name gives us a useful way of referring to Helena, although in her story of course she relies on pronouns (I, my; we, our).

Another tracking resource is ‘the’, which Helena uses later to refer to her second love:

I can't handle the man anymore!

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, a name is an instance of ideational denotation, not textual reference.

[2] Here again Martin & Rose confuse the meaning potential of a speaker/writer — the language that constitutes the data for linguistic theorising — with the comprehension strategies of a listener/reader/analyst. In the text, it is the speaker/writer who refers, not the listener/reader/analyst.

[3] To be clear, in SFL Theory, personal reference items are restricted to the 3rd person (non-interactants). Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 628):

This is because the SFL model of reference is a system of textual cohesion, not ideational denotation. Halliday & Hasan (1976: 51):

[4] To be clear, the speaker, Helena, does not need to keep track of the participants in her story, since she demonstrably knows who she is talking about. This is the task of her audience, and so does not constitute a resource of the speaker, which is what linguistic theory models.

Misrepresenting Text Comprehension As Text Production

Martin & Rose (2007: 158-9):

The minor players aren’t mentioned again in the story; but Helena’s first and second loves are. Her first love is tracked as follows:

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 1 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.

Once he is introduced as a young man, the main strategy for tracking his identity is with pronouns, which refer to him ten times on his own (he and his), and twice together with Helena (we). He’s also identified twice as a kind of person: my first love, and that beautiful big, strong person.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, it is the listener/reader — or discourse analyst — that has to keep track of an identity through a text, not the speaker/writer, since the speaker/writer already knows who they are talking about. That is, the notion of tracking participants misrepresents a listener/reader strategy for the meaning potential of the speaker/writer.

[2] To be clear, in terms of SFL Theory, this confuses two distinct types of cohesion: reference (that) and lexical cohesion (love, person).

Introducing Other People

Martin & Rose (2007: 158):

Moving on to her second love, Helena introduces him as follows:

I met another policeman.

Another identifies him in two ways. First an is indefinite like ‘a’, so we know we can’t assume this identity; secondly other tells us that he is different from the first policeman. These two meanings (indefiniteness and difference) are fused together as another. …

A third man whom she briefly marries is introduced indefinitely as someone, i.e. nobody we know; and is also distinguished from her first love as someone else:

An extremely short marriage to someone else

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is self-contradiction. To be clear, if no identity is recoverable, then there is no identification.

[2] To be clear, other and else are markers of comparative reference, where what is presupposed is another referent of the same class. Contrary to Martin's model of identification, the 'semantics of reference', the domain of comparative reference is not restricted to nominal groups. Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 633):

Introducing People

Martin & Rose (2007: 157-8):

Helena’s story has three main characters: Helena and her first and second loves. Helena is introduced to us by Tutu:

The South Africa Broadcasting Corporation's radio team covering the Truth and Reconciliation Commission received a letter from a woman calling herself Helena (she wanted to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals).

And Helena in turn introduces her two loves; her first love is introduced as follows:

I met a young man in his twenties.

How are these people introduced? As we can see, the basic strategy here is to use ‘a’ to introduce a woman and a young man. The word ‘a’ tells us that this is someone whose identity we can’t assume. When we can’t assume an identity it is ‘indefinite’, so a participant with ‘a’ is traditionally known as ‘indefinite’. On the other hand ‘the’ tells us that we can assume an identity, so a participant with ‘the’ is traditionally known as ‘definite’. …

When she meets her first love again, it is through a friend, who is also indefinite:

I met my first love again through a good friend.

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, introducing an 'indefinite' participant whose identity can not be presumed is neither participant identification nor textual reference. In terms of identification, the participant is not specified, since the indefinite article is a non-specific determiner.  In terms of reference, non-specific determiners do not serve as reference items because they do not present an identity as recoverable. Halliday & Hasan (1976: 33):

What is essential to every instance of reference whether endophoric (textual) or exophoric (situational) is that there is a presupposition that must be satisfied: the thing referred to has to be identifiable somehow.

On the other hand, the referent through which the identity of a reference item is recoverable can be marked as indefinite or definite, as demonstrated by the fact that the reference item he can refer to a singer or the singer.

Basic Choices In Identification

Martin & Rose (2007: 157):

In simple terms then, what we see here are a range of resources for introducing participants into a discourse and for keeping track of them once there. We can express this as a set of choices, first between introducing participants and tracking them; and second, within tracking, between pronouns, names, and entities with ‘the’. These choices are shown in Figure 5.1. (Note that this is not drawn as a system network, as we need to expand the discussion before we’re ready to draw the system for identification.)

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, 'introducing participants into a discourse' is a speaker projecting experiential meaning, whereas 'keeping track of them once there' is a listener (or text linguist) processing the experiential meanings projected by the speaker.

[2] To be clear, this confuses what speakers do (introducing participants) with what listeners do (tracking participants in the speaker's text) and presents the confusion as choices of the speaker.

[3] To be clear, this confuses reference items (pronouns, 'the'), which serve a textual function, with experiential meanings (names, entities).

It will be seen in the posts that follow that Martin's model of identification ('the semantics of reference') confuses the referent, as experiential meaning, with the reference item that makes a textually cohesive relation. This results in each reference chain involving relations between referents — as experiential meanings — rather than involving textually cohesive relations between reference items and their referents.

Two Basic Misunderstandings That Invalidate The System Of Identification

Martin & Rose (2007: 156):

In order to make sense of discourse, one thing we need is to be able to keep track of who or what is being talked about at any point. When we first start talking about somebody or something, we may name them, but then we often just identify them as she, he or it. By this means our listener/reader can keep track of exactly which person or thing we are talking about, i.e. which participant in the discourse. There are many other ways of introducing participants into a discourse, and keeping track of them as we go, that we will explore in this chapter.

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, Martin's system of identification confuses the instantiation of experiential potential by a speaker (talking about persons and things), with the comprehension strategies of a listener (making sense of discourse, keeping track of what is being said), and presents the confusion as the instantiation of a speaker's textual potential.

That is, it is the speaker who introduces participants, but it is the listener who has to keep track of them. Systemic potential is a model of what speakers can mean, not a model of how listeners understand.

Moreover, participants are construals of experience (experiential meanings), not textual statuses assigned to experiential or interpersonal meanings (textual meanings).  Introducing participants is introducing experiential meaning; tracking participants is tracking experiential meaning.

As will be seen in later posts, this metafunctional misunderstanding derives from confusing the textual meaning of referring with the experiential meaning of the referent.

The Textual Discourse Semantic System Of Identification

Martin & Rose (2007: 155):

Identification is concerned with tracking participants — with introducing people and things into a discourse and keeping track of them once there. These are textual resources, concerned with how discourse makes sense to the reader by keeping track of identities.

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, Martin (1992: 93) glosses identification as 'reference as semantic choice', and it is indeed Halliday & Hasan's (1976) grammatical system of cohesive reference, misunderstood and rebranded by as discourse semantics. (Evidence here.)

The name of the system derives from a second intellectual source, the participant identification of the Hartford stratificationalists (Martin 1992: 95), which, as the term 'participant' makes clear, is concerned with experiential meaning, not textual meaning. It will also be seen in later posts that Martin's system of identification additionally confuses (non-structural) textual reference with the (structural) interpersonal deixis of the nominal group.