Misunderstanding Field

Martin & Rose (2007: 306-7):

This brings us to the final register variable, field, which is concerned with generalising across genres according to the domestic or institutional activity that is going on. By definition a field is a set of activity sequences that are oriented to some global purpose within the institutions of family, local community or society as a whole. The activity sequences, the figures in each step of a sequence, and their taxonomies of participants create expectations for the unfolding field of a discourse. On this basis, when identifying fields we need to consider expectations about what is going on … 

 

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, in SFL Theory, 'field' is the ideational dimension of culture, whereas register is a functional variety of language, modelled as a point of variation on the cline of instantiation.

Martin & Rose, on the other hand, misunderstand cultural context as register, while simultaneously claiming that their context is instantiated as text, which is an instance of language, not of context. In discussing field, the authors most often misconstrue it as the ideational semantics of a text, as demonstrated below, and previously on this blog, and in the critique of Martin (1992) here.

[2] To be clear, in SFL Theory, field is not concerned with generalising across text types (genres) according to the "institutional activity that is going on". On the contrary, field is a means of differentiating text types (genres) according to the situation types they realise.

In the stratification model of Martin & Rose, on the other hand, where register realises genre, field is the ideational realisation of genre. That is, even on their own model, field cannot be said to "generalise across genres", because a metafunctional system of a lower stratum (e.g. phonology) does not generalise across a higher stratum (e.g. lexicogrammar).

[3] To be clear, in SFL Theory, field is not "by definition" a set of activity sequences, no matter how they are "oriented". This is because, for Martin & Rose, activity sequences — along with figures and participant taxonomies — are located in the discourse semantic stratum of language: the experiential system of IDEATION. That is, by defining their register (context) system of field in terms of a discourse semantic (language) system, Martin & Rose are not only inconsistent with SFL Theory, they are also inconsistent in terms of their own model.

[4] To be clear, if activity sequences, figures and participant taxonomies are located on the discourse semantic stratum, as in the authors' model, then what unfolds (in logogenesis) is the experiential meaning of a text, not the field of its context. Incidentally, it might be asked why logical meaning, Martin's system of conjunction, is excluded from this misunderstanding of field.

[5] To be clear, in SFL Theory, identifying the field of a text is identifying the ideational dimension of the culture that the text construes.

[6] To be clear, the expectations of a listener are not criterial in identifying the field of a speaker's text, since field classifies the cultural situation, not the mental states of a listener.