Comparative Reference

Martin & Rose (2007: 167):

Now that we’ve looked at how various things are identified (concrete objects, abstractions, institutions, and things that people say) we need to look at ways that these things can be compared. Helena uses several comparative references in some parts of her story:

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.

She begins by presenting the struggle as though we all know what she means, and then refers to it as the same. Later she presents what white people already had as the best, and identifies what they still wanted as better. She doesn’t need to say what is better, because words like better and best are resources for comparative reference, like same, other, else.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the function of reference — personal and demonstrative co-reference — is not simply to identify "things", since this is an experiential relation that can be achieved in many ways, most obviously through identifying process clauses. What makes reference a textual resource is its function of creating cohesion in the text by presuming information from the text itself.

[2] Likewise, the function of comparative reference is not simply to compare "things" in the construal of experiential meaning, but to create cohesion in the text by presuming information from the text itself. Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 632-3):

Whereas personals and demonstratives, when used anaphorically, set up a relation of co-reference, whereby the same entity is referred to over again, comparatives set up a relation of contrast. In comparative reference, the reference item still signals ‘you know which’; not because the same entity is being referred to over again but rather because there is a frame of reference – something by reference to which what I am now talking about is the same or different, like or unlike, equal or unequal, more or less. Comparative reference items function in nominal and adverbial groups; and the comparison is made with reference either to general features of identity, similarity and difference or to particular features of quality and quantity.

[3] To be clear, words like best are superlatives, not comparatives, and do not make comparative reference; see [2] above.  (The the of the best is homophoric (self-referencing), which is a type of exophoric reference, and so: not textually cohesive.)

[4] To be clear, in SFL Theory, the reference function of the in the struggle — if not anaphoric to earlier in the text — is homophoric, and so: not textually cohesive.

[5] To be clear, the same does not refer to the struggle. This is to treat comparative reference as if it were co-reference; see [2] above.

[6] To be clear, the comparison made by the comparative reference item better is with the best — that is, the author says that white people wanted, and got, better than the best.  Here, the best is the frame of reference by which the reference item better makes a comparison.