Misunderstanding The Cline From 'Language In Action' To 'Language In Reflection'

Martin & Rose (2007: 300):

This range of mode variation is sometimes discussed as a cline from language in action to language as reflection. We’ve been able to illustrate the middle and reflective end of this continuum here, since our written genres ranged along this part of the scale. For texts in which language plays a smaller role in what is going on we’d need to look at spoken language accompanying activity, for example [a] running commentary on a sporting event or parade, or pushing further, the things people manage to say when most of their directed consciousness is taken up with intense physical activity (playing sport, hard physical labour, rock climbing, dancing and so on). Here, for example, is an exchange in which a teacher directs a learner without naming any of the things or places he is acting on, so that the activity is not interpretable without being there (see Rose 2001a and b, 2006a for this exchange in the original Pitjantjatjara):

Learner: Here?

Teacher: - No, this is no good. It's over there. Dig on the far side.

Learner: - Here?

Teacher: - Yes, there.

Teacher: - See there?

Learner: -Aha!

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[1] To be clear, the unacknowledged source here is Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 354):

There is an important variable here, of course, that we have already referred to as the cline from 'language in reflection' to 'language in action'. In situations of the ‘language in action’ kind, where the discourse is a relatively minor component of the total activity, the grammar and the semantics are obviously less constructive of the whole than in a ‘reflection’ context …

This, in turn, derives from Hasan (1989 [1985]: 58), whose mode system, language rôle, distinguishes between language as 'constitutive' and language as 'ancillary'.

[2] To be clear, in SFL Theory, language as reflection refers to the ideational metafunction. Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 29-30):

At the same time, whenever we use language there is always something else going on. While construing, language is always also enacting: enacting our personal and social relationships with the other people around us. The clause of the grammar is not only a figure, representing some process – some doing or happening, saying or sensing, being or having – together with its various participants and circumstances; it is also a proposition, or a proposal, whereby we inform or question, give an order or make an offer, and express our appraisal of and attitude towards whoever we are addressing and what we are talking about. This kind of meaning is more active: if the ideational function of the grammar is ‘language as reflection’, this is ‘language as action’. We call it the interpersonal metafunction, to suggest that it is both interactive and personal.

[3] This is misleading, because it is untrue. In this discussion, Martin & Rose have only presented texts whose rhetorical mode is at "the reflective end of this continuum". As previous posts have demonstrated, in discussing mode, which they misconstrue as a system of register, Martin & Rose have repeatedly confused the material environment of text production with the ideational meaning of the text.

[4] To be clear, this misunderstands the notion of 'language in action'/'language as ancillary'. A running commentary on a sporting event or parade is 'language in reflection/'language as constitutive', since the language of the commentator is not ancillary to the sporting event or parade, given that these activities unfold independently of — and are not constructed by — the language of the commentator. Instead, the language of the commentator is used to reflect on these activities. Once again, Martin & Rose have confused the material environment experienced by the speaker with the ideational meaning of the text projected by the speaker. As previously observed, Martin & Rose have enormous difficulty in distinguishing different orders of experience: the material domain of speakers (phenomena) versus the semiotic domain that speakers project in texts (metaphenomena).

[5] To be clear, this is only valid in instances where language contributes the unfolding of the activity. For example, consider the case of two people conversing while dancing. If the language of the dancers is the issuing of dance-step instructions by a teacher to a beginner, then the language can be said to play an ancillary rôle ('language in action') in the unfolding of the activity of dancing. 

However, if the language of the dancers is a discussion of recent political events, then the language plays neither an ancillary rôle ('language in action') nor a constitutive rôle ('language in reflection') in the unfolding of the activity of dancing. Instead, their language is constitutive ('language in reflection') of the unfolding of an activity other than dancing: a discussion of recent political events.

[6] To be clear, this is indeed a valid illustration of 'language in action'/'language as ancillary'.