Problems With The Authors' Speech Function System

 Martin & Rose (2007: 225, 226):

This account gives us a speech function system comprising the basic options displayed in Figure 7.1.

Blogger Comments:

The most obvious problems with the authors' network are as follows:

1. There is no entry condition;
2. The minor speech functions are split ('express self' vs 'attending'), with the latter grouped with major speech functions ('negotiating');
3. The minor speech function 'alarm' is not accounted for;
4. The INITIATING ROLE system ('giving' vs 'demanding') is not named;
5. The COMMODITY system ('information' vs 'goods-&-services') is not named; but most importantly,
6. The INITIATING ROLE system ('giving' vs 'demanding') appears six times instead of once.

A competently organised network is provided by Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 136):

Misrepresenting Halliday's Minor Speech Functions As The Authors' Ideas

Martin & Rose (2007: 224, 225):

Minimally, we need five more speech acts to complete the picture. Two are concerned with greeting and leave-taking (the hellos and good-byes framing conversations as people come and go, phone up and sign off). We can refer to these as greeting and response to greeting moves. …

Then there is the question of getting people’s attention once they are there - call and response to call. …

Finally we need to consider outbursts of appraisal, such as Helena’s Dammit! in the interpretation stage of her exemplum. … As explosions of personal affect, exclamations are not really negotiable — so we very seldom need to recognise a responding move.

Blogger Comments:

This is misleading, because here Martin & Rose misrepresent Halliday's minor speech functions as their own theorising. Halliday (1994: 95-6):

As can be seen from the above, Martin & Rose fail to include Halliday's minor speech function 'alarm' and its two sub-types: 'warning' and 'appeal'.

Misrepresenting Halliday's SPEECH FUNCTION As The Authors' System

Martin & Rose (2007: 224):

These three oppositions are summarised and exemplified in Table 7.2. They give rise to eight speech acts, which form the heart of the discourse semantic system we’ll refer to as SPEECH FUNCTION.

Blogger Comments:

Here Martin & Rose go beyond not acknowledging Halliday as the source of "their" ideas to actually presenting Halliday's SPEECH FUNCTION as their idea. Cf Halliday (1985: 69):

Misrepresenting Halliday's 'Role In Exchange' As The Authors' Ideas

Martin & Rose (2007: 223-4):

The third parameter to consider is that of giving vs demanding. This opposes statements to questions as far as information is concerned, and offers to commands for goods-and-services:

 

Blogger Comments:

Here again there is no acknowledgement that this is Halliday's theorising, and the trusting reader is left with the impression that this is the work of Martin & Rose. Cf Halliday (1985: 69):

Misrepresenting Halliday's Ideas As The Authors' Ideas

Martin & Rose (2007: 223):

Based on the examples introduced above we can extract three basic parameters of negotiation — what it is we are negotiating, whether we are giving or demanding it, and whether a move initiates the exchange or responds. First, there is the question of what we are negotiating — information or goods-and-services. Note, as illustrated below, that when negotiating information we expect a verbal response (or gesture), whereas when negotiating goods-and-services we expect action.

These examples also illustrate a second parameter — the complementarity of initiating and responding moves in dialogue. Compliant responding moves may be quite elliptical, since the content being negotiated is easily recovered from the initiating move; and with goods-and-services transactions, language is in any case an optional accompaniment to behaviour (unless we are promising future action).

Blogger Comments:

Here Martin & Rose continue to present Halliday's ideas as if they were their own. Cf Halliday (1985: 68-9):

Misrepresenting Halliday's SPEECH FUNCTION As The Authors' Model

Martin & Rose (2007: 222-3):

We’ll begin with our model of kinds of moves, focusing initially on statements, questions, offers and commands and compliant responses to them, as set out in Table 7.1.

Blogger Comments:

This is very misleading indeed. As well as failing to acknowledge Halliday as the intellectual source of the system of SPEECH FUNCTION, Martin & Rose here explicitly misrepresent it as their own model. Cf Halliday (1985: 69):

The Intellectual Source Of Martin's NEGOTIATION

Martin & Rose (2007: 221-2):

NEGOTIATION provides resources for taking up speech roles in conversation — making statements, asking questions, offering services and demanding goods. … 

As we can see, each statement, question, offer and command positions people to respond — by acknowledging, answering, accepting and complying. So the moves in conversation tend to come in pairs — ‘adjacency pairs’ as conversation analysts have called them. … 

So responses may be compliant or they may not. Summing up, there are three dimensions we need to consider in dialogue — the kind of moves that speakers make, how they are sequenced, and what happens when things don’t work out as smoothly as planned.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the discourse semantic system of NEGOTIATION is Martin's (1992) rebranding of Halliday's (1985: 69) semantic system of SPEECH FUNCTION. There is no acknowledgement, anywhere in this chapter, that the source of these ideas is Halliday. Cf Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 136):

[2] To be clear, this confuses speech functions (statement, question, offer) with the systemic features that specify them (goods, services and demand). Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 136):

[3] Cf. Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 137):

Negotiating Feelings And Ideational Meanings

Martin & Rose (2007: 220):

The three principal texts we have used in the book up to now were essentially monologues. At certain points however both Helena and Tutu became more conversational. Helena, for example, talks to God, asking a series of questions about her husband’s disintegration and exclaiming about how she feels:

'God, what's happening? What's wrong with him? Could he have changed so much? Is he going mad? I can't handle the man anymore! But I can't get out. He's going to haunt me for the rest of my life if I leave him. Why, God?'

And Tutu addresses his readers with questions about the integrity of the Truth Commission:

Can it ever be right for someone who had committed the most gruesome atrocities to be allowed to get off scot-free, simply by confessing what he or she has done? Are the critics right; was the Truth and Reconciliation process immoral?... So is amnesty being given at the cost of justice being done?

Helena doesn’t get an answer from God, and Tutu has to answer his own questions in the argument that follows. So a conversation never really develops. But in spoken discourse, both the feelings we discussed in Chapter 2 and the ideational meanings we presented in Chapter 3 are indeed negotiated between speakers. The system of resources that enables this to-and-fro of dialogue is called NEGOTIATION.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, a dialogue involves a conversation between two or more speakers. This can occur at different orders of experience. For example, the dialogue may be first-order experience: people talking to each other, or second-order experience: people in a text talking to each other. 

(Tutu's questions are, of course, rhetorical questions.)

[2] To be clear, what people negotiate are interpersonal meanings: propositions and proposals. The mistaken notion that ideational meanings are negotiated derives, in part, from Martin's (1992: 391, 488) misunderstanding of metafunctions as interacting modules.

Discourse Phases (Semantics) Within Generic Stages (Context)

Martin & Rose (2007: 218):

The key point here is that co-patterning of this kind is all we need to recognise a distinct discourse phase. The generic stages of an exemplum (Orientation, Incident, Interpretation) are recurrent enough in the culture to be highly predictable. They are predicted by the genre itself. But phases within such generic stages, such as the ‘repercussions’ phase here, are much more variable. It is the co-patterning of discourse features that enables us to recognise a distinct phase.

 

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, in Martin's model, genre is two levels of symbolic abstraction (strata) above discourse semantics, and yet here discourse phases are presented as components of generic stages; that is, the two are presented as being on the same level of symbolic abstraction. This theoretical inconsistency arises from Martin's (1992: 391, 488) misunderstanding of strata as modules, all of which — including phonology and cultural context — are misunderstood as levels of linguistic meaning.

Moreover, Martin models genre (text type) as context, instead of language, despite the fact that it is concerned with varieties of language and variation in language structure, and despite the fact he models instances of genre as instances of language (texts), instead of instances of context (situations).

Packaging Discourse Through Explicit And Implicit "Scaffolding" And "Grammaticalising" Periodicity As Clause Complexing

Martin & Rose (2007: 215):

As we’ve seen, discourse gets packaged in various ways. Explicit scaffolding involves the erection of a hierarchy of periodicity beyond the clause, with layers of Theme and News telling us where we’re coming from and where we’re going to. With serial expansion there’s a change of gears from one discourse phase to the next, without any explicit scaffolding of the change. In some kinds of discourse, such as legislation, explicitness is in a sense pushed to its limits by (i) grammaticalising as much hierarchy as possible within very complex sentences and/or (ii) naming sections of the text numerically and/or alphabetically, and/or providing them with headings. Many texts involve some combination of all these resources for phasing information into digestible chunks.

 

Blogger Comments:

[1] As we've seen, the authors' 'hierarchy of periodicity' is writing pedagogy masquerading as linguistic theory; it does not apply to any texts that don't conform these proposals for how to write, or to any texts that are spoken or signed. Moreover, the model falsely assumes that New information is never thematic, and confuses textual status (Theme, New) with textual transitions made through (implicit) appositive and summative elaboration ("predicting" and "distilling").

[2] As we've seen, in terms of SFL Theory, the authors' 'serial expansion' is concerned with textual transitions made through (implicit) relations other than elaboration (extension or enhancement).

[3] As we've seen, Martin & Rose misrepresent grammaticalisation — a shift in function from lexical to grammatical — as a shift in function from the discourse semantic stratum to the grammatical stratum. To be clear, whatever has a discourse semantic function also has a grammatical function, since strata are levels of symbolic abstraction, so the notion of a function shifting from one stratum to another is nonsensical. Moreover, the authors' claim is that their 'hierarchy of periodicity' (textual semantics) and clause complexing (logical grammar) perform the same function (since the latter is said to replace the former in some texts).

The "Grammaticalisation" Of Periodicity

Martin & Rose (2007: 214):

In summary then, where hierarchy of periodicity is used across many registers to orchestrate information flow, in the Act this packaging is as far as possible grammaticalised. The Act uses complex sentences where other registers would use introductions, topic sentences and paragraphs.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the only registers in which the authors' hierarchy of periodicity might be said to be used are those of written mode where writers conform to principles of writing pedagogy such as introductory paragraph (rebranded "macroTheme"), topic sentence (rebranded "hyperTheme"), paragraph summary (rebranded "hyperNew") and text summary (rebranded "macroNew"). Writing pedagogy is not linguistic theory, and spoken language does not conform to its principles.

[2] This misunderstands both grammaticalisation and stratification. To be clear, grammaticalisation is a shift in function from the lexical zone of lexicogrammar to the grammatical zone — just as lexicalisation is a shift in function from the grammatical zone of lexicogrammar to the lexical zone. Grammaticalisation cannot refer to a shift in function from semantics to grammar because semantics and grammar are different levels of abstraction of the same phenomenon: the content plane of language. It is therefore nonsensical to claim that a function can shift from semantics (Value) to grammar (Token). Again, this reflects the authors' mistaken view that strata are modules.

[3] To be clear, the "complex sentences" in the Act are clause complexes, in terms of lexicogrammar, and sequences, in terms of semantics. But, because the text makes extensive use of ideational metaphor, its sequences are incongruently realised as clauses, rather than congruently as clause complexes.

"The Grammar Runs Out Of Steam And Discourse Semantics Takes Over"

Martin & Rose (2007: 210, 211, 212):

The basic strategy the Act uses to phase information is to make grammar do as much work as possible, that is to use the grammar within sentences to do work that would normally be done by discourse strategies in texts. …

In a sense what we are looking at here is an exploration of the limits of grammar: how far can we push grammar before it runs out of steam and discourse semantics takes over. A peculiar kind of grammarian’s dream, or legislative nightmare, depending on our attitude to discourse of this kind. …

Discourse semantics, hierarchy of periodicity to be precise, takes over from grammar as the packaging device for this bundle of information.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This continues the misunderstanding of strata as modules, expressed in Martin (1992: 391, 488). To be clear, in the architecture of SFL Theory, grammar (Token) and semantics (Value) are different levels of symbolic abstraction of the same phenomenon: the content plane of language. To say that 'the grammar runs out of steam and discourse semantics takes over' is analogous to saying 'an actress (Token) runs out of steam and the rôle she is playing (Value) takes over'.

[2] To be clear, as previously demonstrated, the authors' hierarchy of periodicity is a confusion of writing pedagogy — misrepresented as linguistic theory — and implicit elaborating relations between so-called higher level Themes and the following text (unidentified 'higher level Rhemes'), and between so-called higher level News and the preceding text (unidentified 'higher level Givens').

"Catalysing Symbiosis"

Martin & Rose (2007: 209):

Perhaps what we can learn from discourse of this kind is the significance of interaction among discourse systems. Conjunction, identification, ideation and periodicity are all interfacing in various ways to scaffold the argument and grammatical metaphor is catalysing this symbiosis at every turn. For most of us, a little discourse analysis wouldn’t hurt, when first learning to access texture of this kind.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the notion of interaction between metafunctional systems continues the misunderstanding of metafunctions (and strata) as interacting modules in Martin (1992: 391, 488). The architecture of SFL Theory is relational, not modular. See the critiques here, and the clarification here.

[2] To be clear, if discourse semantic systems are scaffolding the argument, the question arises as to which systems are making the argument that they are scaffolding.

[3] To be clear, Martin & Rose have not demonstrated how grammatical metaphor catalyses anything. The authors have not unpacked any ideational metaphors in order to explain the nature of metaphor and how it functions; they have merely identified nominalised words in a text.

[4] To be clear, in SFL Theory, it is the grammar that is the resource for discourse analysis.

[5] To be clear, in SFL Theory, texture is created by the resources of the textual metafunction; see Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 650ff).