Mistaking Post-Deictics And Numbering Systems For Reference Items

Martin & Rose (2007: 169-70):

As we noted in section 5.2, some tracking devices tell us where to look for presumed information. When we read the said period we look back in the preceding text to find the time referred to:

gross violations of human rights committed during the period from 1 March 1960 to the cut-off date contemplated in the Constitution
acts associated with a political objective committed in the course of the conflicts of the past during the said period

We may also be given instructions to look forward, although this is less common in most registers, except in legal and administrative discourse. For example, at the beginning of the Act the following Act refers forward to the Act itself that follows:

It is hereby notified that the President has assented to the following Act which is hereby published for general information:
ACT
To provide for the investigation and the establishment of as complete a picture as possible of the nature, causes and extent of gross violations of human …

Legal and administrative discourse also depends quite a lot on its numbering system for forward reference. This allows specific connections to be made to following discourse:

1. (1) In this Act, unless the context otherwise indicates -
(i) "act associated with a political objective" has the meaning ascribed thereto in section 20(2) and (3)

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, in SFL Theory, reference is not concerned with "tracking participants". The textual function of reference is to create cohesion in the text by presuming information that is recoverable from elsewhere in the text itself. Speakers do not need to "keep track" of participants, since they already know who they are talking about, and if speakers wanted to "track" participants for listeners, there are far more efficient ways of doing so than deploying potentially ambiguous reference items.

[2] To be clear, the only reference item in the said period is the demonstrative the. In this instance the reference is resolved by the post-Deictic within the nominal group — 'which period? the said period' — and so exemplifies structural cataphora, which does not function cohesively.

[3] To be clear, the only reference item in the following Act is the demonstrative the. In this instance the reference is again resolved by the post-Deictic within the nominal group — 'which Act? the following Act' — and so again exemplifies structural cataphora, which does not function cohesively.

[4] As previously explained, such numbering systems do not refer, since they do not include a reference item that presumes information.