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.
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[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').
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