The Apparent Anomaly Of Using Presuming Reference For First Mentions Of People

Martin & Rose (2007: 162-3):

Another apparent anomaly is the use of what looks like presuming reference the first time a character is mentioned. Some examples of this include the use of ‘the’, and a proper name, for first mentions:

He was popular with all the 'Boer' Afrikaners.
I can understand if Mr F. W. de Klerk says

What’s going on here is that Helena assumes that her readers will know who she’s talking about. The identity of the Boer Afrikaners will obviously be known to a South African audience, and the same for the name of a former prime minister. The point here is that speakers/writers make assumptions on the go about what listeners/readers can and can’t be expected to know. If someone's identity is as good as given then presuming reference is used, even where that character hasn’t been mentioned before.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, in SFL Theory, this is known as the homophoric reference (Halliday & Hasan 1976: 71), which is exophoric reference that is not dependent on the specific situation of the text. Like all exophoric reference, it is not textually cohesive.

[2] To be clear, proper names reference people in the sense of ideational denotation only, and lack reference items whose identities are resolved through textual relations with referents.

[3] To be clear, the so-called "anomaly" here is the use of a specific nominal group (presuming reference) for the first mention of a person — anomalous because it contradicts the authors' model that non-specific nominal groups (presenting reference) are deployed for the first mention of a person.

However, there are fundamental problems with both the authors' model and their explanation of the apparent anomaly. On the first point, non-specific nominal groups — such as a carpenter and someone — do not include reference items that present recoverable identities; non-specific nominal groups only 'reference' in the sense of ideational denotation (realising participants).

On the second point, exophoric the is not the only resource of presuming reference; Martin & Rose additionally list the following items: this, that, I, me, you, he, she, it, we, us, they, them. That is, every single first mention of the speaker as I is also an anomaly, on the authors' model, since it deploys presuming reference instead of presenting reference.