Misrepresenting Halliday's Speech Function As The Authors' Creation

Martin & Rose (2007: 227):

In the previous section we proposed an inventory of 13 basic speech acts; we now need to think about how to distinguish them from one another when analysing conversation. One useful set of markers includes please, kindly, ta, thanks, thankyou, OK, alright, no worries, you're welcome, not a problem, which normally indicate moves concerning goods-and-services. Here Ernest pleads with Coetzee to stay and talk to his parents (until the comrades can get there to kill him):

And Hendrick orders wine for dinner with Coetzee and his family:

Where such markers are not present, we can check to see if they could have been (adding for example please to Hendrik’s command and alright to verbalise Sannie’s response to her father below):

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is misleading. Once again Martin & Rose are misrepresenting Halliday's major and minor speech functions (minus 'alarms') as their own creation.

[2] To be clear, the SFL way to identify speech functions in a text is to take the view 'from above' (the meaning being realised). This means using the semantic system of which they are instances. For example, in the case of major speech functions (realised by major clauses):

• if information is given, then it is a statement;
• if information is demanded, then it is a question;
• if goods-&-services are given, then it is an offer;
• if goods-&-services are demanded, then it is a command.

[3] To be clear, contrary to SFL Theory, here Martin & Rose advocate taking the view 'from below' (how meaning is realised) instead of the view 'from above' (the meaning being realised).