Problems With The Authors' Notion Of Context-Dependency

Martin & Rose (2007: 298):

Let’s start with the orientation to goings on. In Vincent Lingiari’s speech (Lingiari 1986), for example, there are several exophoric references to people, places and things which are materially present at the hand-over ceremony: chains initiated by the important white men (Whites), us (Aboriginals), this land, today and arguably here (if not taken as anaphoric to this land). Texts of this kind can be characterised as context dependent, since we can’t process the participant identification without information from the situation (things we see from being there or that we read through images later on):

The important White men are giving us this land ceremonially, ceremonially they are giving it to us. It belonged to the Whites, but today it is in the hands of us Aboriginals all around here. Let us live happily together as mates, let us not make it hard for each other.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, for Martin & Rose, 'orientation to goings on' (orientation to field) is a system of mode, which is the textual dimension of their register. In SFL Theory, however, mode is a system of culture not register, and 'orientation to field' corresponds to the authors' model of genre, not register; Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 34):

(iii) rhetorical mode: the orientation of the text towards field (e.g. informative, didactic, explanatory, explicatory) or tenor (e.g. persuasive, exhortatory, hortatory, polemic);

[2] To be clear, exophoric references in a text relate second-order experience (the metaphenomenal domain of language) to first-order experience (the phenomenal domain within which speakers project language). 

Context, on the other hand, whether understood as culture (SFL Theory) or misunderstood as register (Martin & Rose), is second-order experience, since it is construed by language. 

That is, here Martin & Rose confuse two distinct orders of experience: the phenomenal domain of speakers, with the metaphenomenal domain (context) that is realised in language. This is a very serious misunderstanding indeed.

[3] To be clear, since Martin & Rose misconstrue context as register, their unwitting claim here is that such texts are register-dependent, despite the fact that they model language as the realisation of register.

[4] To be clear, the authors' reason for unwittingly claiming that such texts are register-dependent is that the resolution of exophoric reference depends on the first-order material setting of the text, which they misconstrue as the second-order semiotic situation, even though they have previously replaced this SFL model of context with their register.

In short, these complex multidimensional misunderstandings arise because Martin & Rose confuse three different meanings of context:

• context as register (their model),
• context as culture construed by language (SFL Theory), and
• context as material setting of the speech event.