Problems With The System Network Of Ideational Meanings In Images

 Martin & Rose (2007: 325):

A very general outline of options for ideational meanings in images is given in Figure 9.10.

Blogger Comments:

As previously demonstrated, these systems model textual meaning, not ideational meaning. On the one hand, it is the textual metafunction that focuses on phenomena, and on the other hand, it is the textual metafunction at the level of context, mode, that is distinguishes the channel of 'construal'. That is, the authors' network is theoretically inconsistent in terms of both metafunction and plane of symbolic abstraction.

With regard to the wiring of the network, the claim is that entity-focused images either classify entities (e.g. 'boy') or present them as composed of parts (eg. 'head', 'fist' etc.), but not both.

With regard to the argument on which the network is based, as previously demonstrated, Martin & Rose have not provided an instance of a complex activity, and have not provided a consistent theoretical argument for their inclusion of the term 'indexical'.

The Authors' Inconsistent Use Of Peirce's 'Iconic', 'Indexical' And 'Symbolic'

Martin & Rose (2007: 325, 333n):

Beyond this is the manner in which they are construed. Photos and realistic drawings can depict entities and activities iconically; there is a direct visual relation between the image and the category it construes. In contrast, images such as flags or diagrams construe their categories symbolically; the viewer must know the symbol to recognise its meaning. 

In between are images that are neither iconic nor symbolic, but indicate categories by one or more criteria; an example is the relation between the crowd, the dignitaries on the stage, and the flag, which indicate the categories of the people, their leaders and the nation by their relative positions — bottom, top and middle. In Peirce’s 1955 terms, this kind of visual construal is indexical.⁷ 

⁷ Previous efforts to interpret ideational and interpersonal meanings in visual images have been based on analogies with grammatical categories of process types, mood and modality (e.g. Kress and van Leeuwen 1996, O’Toole 1994, Unsworth 2001) rather than discourse semantics. In keeping with the discourse oriented approach here, and to keep labels manageable, we have used the same terms as for verbal texts wherever possible. For example, where Kress and van Leeuwen use the cryptic terms ‘overt/covert’, we use ‘explicit/implicit’; and where they use polysemous terms ‘concrete/abstract’, we have found the semiotic terms ‘iconic/indexical/symbolic’ less ambiguous.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, in SFL Theory, "the manner in which they are construed" is modelled as channel, a system within MODE, the textual dimension of the context (culture); see Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 34). It will be seen in the following post that Martin & Rose misconstrue this as an ideational system at the level of discourse semantics.

[2] To put this in terms of SFL Theory, for such images, whose graphic channels might be subcategorised as photographic and pictographic, there is a natural (non-arbitrary) relation between their content and expression.

[3] To put this in terms of SFL Theory, for such images, whose graphic channel might be subcategorised as ideographic, there is a non-natural (conventional) relation between their content and expression.

[4] To put this in terms of SFL Theory, unlike the preceding characterisations of 'iconic' and 'symbolic' images, this characterisation of 'indexical' images is not concerned with a relation between content and expression, but with a relation between levels of symbolic abstraction within the content of the image:

That is, Martin & Rose reconstrue the meanings that are 'iconically' realised in the image as metaphorical symbols of a higher level, more congruent meaning.

To be clear, in order to be theoretically consistent with their characterisation of 'iconic' and 'symbolic' images, the authors need to demonstrate an indexical relation between the content of the image (its meanings) and the expression of the image (its ink patterns).

[5] To be clear, all the terms — iconic, symbolic and indexical — derive from the semiotics of Peirce, a model that is epistemologically inconsistent with SFL Theory. Peirce (1955: 102-3):

According to the second trichotomy, a Sign may be termed an Icon, an Index, or a Symbol. 

An Icon is a sign which refers to the Object that it denotes merely by virtue of characters of its own, and which it possesses, just the same, whether any such Object actually exists or not. It is true that unless there really is such an Object, the Icon does not act as a sign ; but this has nothing to do with its character as a sign. Anything whatever, be it quality, existent individual, or law, is an Icon of anything, in so far as it is like that thing and used as a sign of it. 

An Index is a sign which refers to the Object that it denotes by virtue of being really affected by that Object. It cannot, therefore, be a Qualisign, because qualities are whatever they are independently of anything else. In so far as the Index is affected by the Object, it necessarily has some Quality in common with the Object, and it is in respect to these that it refers to the Object. It does, therefore, involve a sort of Icon, although an Icon of a peculiar kind ; and it is not the mere resemblance of its Object, even in these respects which makes it a sign, but it is the actual modification of it by the Object. 

A Symbol is a sign which refers to the Object that it denotes by virtue of a law, usually an association of general ideas, which operates to cause the Symbol to be interpreted as referring to that Object. It is thus itself a general type or law, that is, is a Legisign. As such it acts through a Replica. Not only is it general itself, but the Object to which it refers is of a general nature. Now that which is general has its being in the instances which it will determine. There must, therefore, be existent instances of what the Symbol denotes, although we must here understand by " existent," existent in the possibly imaginary universe to which the Symbol refers. The Symbol will indirectly, through the association or other law, be affected by those instances ; and thus the Symbol will involve a sort of Index, although an Index of a peculiar kind. It will not, however, be by any means true that the slight effect upon the Symbol of those instances accounts for the significant character of the Symbol.

[6] Firstly, the content plane of images is not stratified into semantics and grammar, so the discourse semantic vs grammatical distinction does not apply. Crucially, if images did have a grammar, it would be possible to read them aloud — to verbally project locutions — as is possible for written texts.

Secondly, neither of the pretexts for relabelling Kress & van Leeuwen's original terms withstands close scrutiny. On the one hand, the original distinction 'overt/covert' is simpler, not more "cryptic", than 'explicit/implicit'. On the other hand, the original distinction 'concrete/abstract' is not ambiguous in this context, but, more importantly, it is consistent with SFL Theory, whereas Peirce's 'iconic/indexical/symbolic' distinctions are not.

Moreover, rebranding other people's work to get credit for their ideas is Martin's modus operandi, as demonstrated on this blog, as well as on other blogs here and here. For example, Martin (1992) rebrands Halliday's speech function as his negotiation, rebrands Halliday & Hasan's (1976) cohesion as his discourse semantics, rebranding their cohesive reference as his identification, their lexical cohesion as his ideation, and their cohesive conjunction as his conjunction (now 'connexion').

More recently, Martin and his colleagues have rebranded Cléirigh's model of gestural and postural semiosis as their model of paralanguage, incongruously rebranding linguistic body language as "sonovergent" paralanguage, and epilinguistic body language as "semovergent" paralanguage, on the pretext that the (wrongly conceived) meaning of these invented words is more transparent. Evidence here.

The Authors' Analysis Of An 'Activity-Focused' Image

 Martin & Rose (2007: 323, 325):

The inauguration photo construes a simple activity, in which the crowd is looking up to the stage and across to the left, underneath a huge flag. Within this activity however, the image could also be interpreted as implicitly classifying the ordinary people in the lower foreground, separate from the dignitaries above them on the stage. The central flag can then be interpreted as mediating these categories, representing the superordinate category of the nation. The flag itself is a compositional image, in which the categories of South African peoples and histories that it symbolises are implicit. That is, the red, white and blue refer to the pre-apartheid era British flag, and black, green and yellow to the flag of the African National Congress, all converging from the past towards the future.

In sum, these photos illustrate the four ideational categories we have suggested for images: classifying or compositional entities, and simple or complex activities.

 

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the claim here is that this photograph is 'activity-focused' (on 'looking') rather than 'entity-focused'. However, Martin & Rose provide no rationâle, either in terms of content or expression, for this claim that it is the activity of looking that is under focus.

It might be alternatively argued that the photograph is 'entity-focused', since its most salient element is the new South African flag which is highly relevant to the represented occasion. Moreover, the authors themselves gloss the image (p323) as an entity, not an activity: 'new South African flag, in the crowd, at the inauguration'.

[2] To be clear, this demonstrates the arbitrariness of the authors' framework. On the one hand, having classified the photograph as 'activity-focused', Martin & Rose demonstrate that it can be just as easily classified as 'entity-focused'. On the other hand, their interpretation of the image as classifying 'ordinary people' as lower and separate from the dignitaries 'above' runs counter to the new social equality that the occasion celebrated. 

Alternatively, the photograph can be analysed, in terms of the textual metafunction, as foregrounding (highlighting) the crowd and backgrounding the dignitaries, which is more in keeping with the celebration of the liberation of the powerless from the powerful.

[3] Trivially, this mistakes meronymy for hyponymy. To be clear, 'nation' is not a superordinate ('hypernym') of 'ordinary people' or 'dignitaries' because these latter are not subtypes (elaboration: hyponymy) of 'nation'. On the other hand, 'nation' can be interpreted as comprising (extension: meronymy) both 'ordinary people' and 'dignitaries'.

[4] To be clear, unknown to Martin & Rose, in pointing out the relevance of the flag to the occasion, they have provided a cogent argument for interpreting the flag as the element under focus, and for interpreting the photograph as 'entity-focused', rather than 'activity-focused', in their framework.

[5] To be clear, Martin & Rose have not illustrated their notion of complex activities, and their simple activities were those of saluting ('entity-focused' image) and looking ('activity-focused' image). Moreover, their 'classifying' is merely the identification of a depicted entity, and 'compositional' merely acknowledges the fact that entities have parts.

The Authors' Analysis Of An 'Entity-Focused' Image

 Martin & Rose (2007: 323, 324-5):

In this framework, the photo of the young boy is a classifying image. In nuclear terms, we have a young black boy (central), with his hand raised in a fist (nuclear), in front of a crowd (peripheral). But from the perspective of field, each of these elements has at least two possible referents. The boy at once represents the past roles of black youth in the anti-apartheid resistance, and their future lives in a free South Africa. His ‘black power’ salute evokes both the schoolchildren’s historical protests against the regime, and the celebration of Inauguration Day. In his 1995 edition, Mandela refers to this gesture as the Afrika salute (in photos between pp402-3), underlining its function in indigenous solidarity. And the boy can be construed both as a member of the crowd, and as its embodiment — a leader in other words, implying a connection with Mandela. 

The potential ambiguity of visual images is part of their power: their interpretation is left relatively open to the viewer, widening their appeal, and their multiple interpretations can map onto each other in the manner of metaphors, to evoke more general or abstract categories than the simple images they depict (cf. the discussion of grammatical metaphor and mode, in section 9.1 above).

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the claim here is that this photograph is a classifying image because it is 'entity-focused' rather than 'activity-focused'. However, Martin & Rose provide no rationâle, either in terms of content or expression, for this claim. It might be alternatively argued that the photograph is 'activity-focused', since the 'Afrika salute' is highly relevant to the represented event, as well as being what chiefly distinguishes this image of a boy from other images of boys.

[2] To be clear, this is not an argument for the claim that the photograph is 'entity-focused' because it analyses its content in terms of ideational meaning (nuclearity) rather than textual meaning (focus); see previous post. Moreover, the analysis, which interprets the entity as if it were a nominal group, is inconsistent with the authors' own model (p98):

If this model is applied to the authors' verbal description of the photograph, then black boy is the centre (Classifier Thing), young is nuclear (Epithet), and both with his hand raised in a fist and in front of a crowd are peripheral (Qualifier).

[3] To be clear, in SFL Theory, such "referents" are Values that are realised symbolically by Tokens.

[4] To be clear, these reinterpretations of the meanings of the photograph, the boy and his raised fist, are reconstruals of them as metaphorical realisations of a higher level, more congruent meaning; see Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 272, 289).

[5] This is a non-sequitur. If the boy "embodies" the crowd, then he "embodies" the opposite of a leader. As such, the photograph does not imply a connection with Mandela in this sense.

[6] Trivially, this ambiguity could also narrow the appeal of an image to viewers, as when one possible meaning of an image is interpreted as offensive to some members of a community.

Mistaking Textual Meaning For Ideational Meaning

Martin & Rose (2007: 323-4):

In ideational terms developed in Chapter 3 above, the primary focus of a visual image is either on entities or on activities. Entity-focused images either classify them or compose their parts; activity-focused images construe either a single activity (simple) or an activity sequence (complex). As we discussed for genres in Chapter 8, images may also have secondary foci realised by their elements.

Blogger Comments:

[1] Here Martin & Rose mistake textual meaning for ideational meaning. To be clear, it is the textual metafunction, not the ideational metafunction, that is concerned with the focus of information, the highlighting of ideational (or interpersonal) meaning.

[2] To be clear, these are all bare assertions, unsupported by argument, and their validity will be assessed in the text analyses that follow. For the moment it can be noted that the authors make no acknowledgement of the distinction between content and expression, nor of how the textual focus on one type of ideational meaning, rather than another, is expressed.

[3] To be clear, in terms of SFL Theory, this misconstrues the relation between textual meaning ('foci') and ideational meaning ('elements') as realisation, despite the fact that both are of the same level of symbolic abstraction (meaning). (Realisation is the relation between different levels of symbolic abstraction.)

Confusing Material And Semiotic Phenomena In Misunderstanding Context

Martin & Rose (2007: 321-2):

In our discussion of mode above we talked about the way in which the exophoric references in Vincent Lingiari’s speech made it ‘context dependent’ — dependent on our being there or on reading images of what was going on. Another way of putting this would be to say that more than one modality was involved, using the term modality here in the sense of a modality of communication such as language, music, image or action. To understand Lingiari, in other words, we need to process language in relation to image, or language in relation to action. There are two modalities co-articulating what is going on. In register terms what this suggests is that we need to expand our conception of mode to embrace multimodal discourse analysis (hereafter MDA). This entails moving beyond linguistics into social semiotics and taking into account as many modalities of communication as we can systematically describe.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, Martin & Rose model context as register and genre (varieties of language), but here contradict their own model by using 'context' to mean both the first-order material setting ("being there") and the second-order co-text (images).

[2] To be clear, by 'action' here, Martin & Rose mean the material setting. That is, they misconstrue first-order material experience (phenomena) as second-order semiotic experience (metaphenomena). Meanings projected from the material setting are another matter.

[3] To be clear, despite conventional opinion, music itself — unlike musical theory, notation and lyrics — is not a semiotic system. If it were, it would have long been possible to construct system networks of the meaning contrasts realised by sound contrasts. Instead, as a perceptual phenomenon, music potentially induces mental processes of emotion, desire and cognition.

[4] To be clear, inconsistent with the opening sentence, here Martin & Rose return to their own model of context, which misconstrues culture as functional varieties of language (registers).

[5] Trivially, SFL Theory models language as a social semiotic system. That is, the linguistics deployed by Martin & Rose is already within social semiotics.

Misconstruing The Relation Between Semogenesis And Language As Projection

 Martin & Rose (2007: 320-21):

Along these lines, configuring language, register and genre as system amounts to mapping the reservoir of meanings available to interlocutors within discourse formations. Systems of language, register and genre are immanent as a result of the meanings that have been or could have been made by interlocutors in the past and are still relevant. Of these meanings, repertoires are distributed across subjects according to their socialisation. And of these meanings, arrays of choices are negotiated through unfolding text. This notion of time giving value to meaning is outlined in Figure 9.8. … Halliday’s (1994) ⍺ ’ꞵ notation for the projecting relation between clauses has been borrowed to represent the idea of time giving value to meaning. This represents one of the senses in which history (i.e. semogenesis) gives meaning to synchronic (albeit always changing) semiosis, since where we are in all three kinds of time is what sets the relevant valeur — the ways in which meanings are opposed to one another and thus have value in the system.

 

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, 'along these lines' refers to the authors' (quite bizarre) misunderstanding that semogenesis projects "language, register and genre"; see the clarifying critiques in the immediately preceding post.

[2] To be clear, this purports to characterise the authors' misunderstanding that phylogenesis projects "language, register and genre" (Figure 9.8). Instead, it identifies the authors' misunderstanding of phylogenesis with their misunderstanding of language — more specifically: it decodes their misunderstanding of language by reference to their misunderstanding of phylogenesis:

[3] To be clear, this misunderstands the meaning of the term 'immanent' in linguistics, where it refers to the epistemological assumption that meaning is 'something that is constructed in, and so is part of, language itself' (Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 416).

[4] To be clear, this purports to characterise the authors' misunderstanding that ontogenesis projects "language, register and genre" (Figure 9.8). Instead, it merely makes the observation that the ontogenesis of meaning varies according to social factors.

[5] To be clear, this purports to characterise the authors' misunderstanding that logogenesis projects "language, register and genre" (Figure 9.8). Instead, it misconstrues the instantiation of potential in text (logogenesis) as the negotiation of meaning in text (Martin's interpersonal discourse semantics).

[6] To be clear, this purports to characterise the authors' general misunderstanding that semogenesis projects "language, register and genre" (Figure 9.8). Instead, it confuses the process of semogenesis with the temporal dimension along which the process unfolds, and misconstrues the temporal dimension as assigning "value" to meaning ("language, register and genre"):

[7] Trivially, it is not where we are in time that sets the "relevant valeur". Time is the dimension along which the logogenesis, ontogenesis and phylogenesis of the system of meaning contrasts unfolds.

[8] As the gloss of 'projection' as 'means' in Figure 9.8 demonstrates, Martin & Rose confuse projection with verbal (and identifying) Processes.

Seriously Misunderstanding Projection

Martin & Rose (2007: 319-20):

In Chapters 2 and 3 we described how processes of saying and sensing can project locutions (what is said) or ideas (what is sensed), and also attribute the source of saying or sensing, as well as locating it in time. So if we say Bakhtin argued that creativity depends on mastery of the genre, then the projecting clause Bakhtin argued:

• projects the locution that creativity depends on mastery of the genre, through the process argue
• places the saying in the past (argued) with respect to if we say
• sources the locution to Bakhtin.

The projecting clause in other words provides a frame for interpreting its projection. By analogy, we can argue that genesis projects language, register and genre by conditioning the semantic oppositions that hold sway at one or another point of time, with respect to the unfolding of a text, with respect to interlocutors’ subjectivities and with respect to the meanings at risk in the relevant discourse formations. 

Blogger Comments:

[1] As previously noted, the logico-semantic relation of projection does not feature in the authors' model of logical discourse semantics: conjunction. This is because Martin's model derives from Halliday & Hasan (1976), where conjunction is a non-structural (cohesive) relation, and projection is not a cohesive relation.

[2] To be clear, this misunderstanding seriously misrepresents projection. The projecting clause construes the first-order symbolic processing that brings the second-order projected clause into symbolic existence; see, e.g. Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 110, 129). Importantly, only mental and verbal processes project, and projection is a relation between two different orders of experience.

[3] To be clear, this analogy seriously misunderstands semogenesis and projection. Logogenesis, ontogenesis and phylogenesis do not project language — and register and genre are (varieties) of language, not distinct from it. Instead, mental and verbal processes project the content plane of language. In contrast, logogenesis is the instantiation of the linguistic system in text, ontogenesis is the development of the linguistic system — not just "interlocutors' social subjectivities" — in the individual, and phylogenesis is the evolution of the linguistic system — not just "discourse formations" — in the species.

Reductive Glosses Of Semogenesis

Martin & Rose (2007: 319):

Read from the perspective of critical theory, phylogenesis might be glossed in terms of a concern with the evolution of discourse formations (as explored in Fairclough (1995)), ontogenesis with the development of social subjectivities (e.g. Walkerdine and Lucey (1989)) and logogenesis with the de/naturalisation of reading positions (e.g. Cranny-Francis (1996)). Glossing with respect to Bernstein (1996), phylogenesis is concerned with changes in a culture’s reservoir of meanings, ontogenesis with the development of individual repertoires (i.e. coding orientations); logogenesis is concerned with what in SFL is referred to as the instantiation of system in text (or 'process’ for a more dynamic perspective). These perspectives are illustrated in Figure 9.7.

 Blogger Comments:

To be clear, in SFL Theory, 'phylogenesis' refers to the evolution of the system in the species, 'ontogenesis' refers to the development of the system in the individual, and 'logogenesis' refers to the instantiation of the system in the text (Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 17-8).

[1] This reduces (the phylogenesis of) language to (the phylogenesis of) an aspect of the semantic stratum of language.

[Foucault's] term discursive formation identifies and describes written and spoken statements with semantic relations that produce discourses.

[2] This reduces (the ontogenesis of) language to (the ontogenesis of) one metafunction: the interpersonal enactment of intersubjective relations.

[3] This confuses the logogenesis of texts with critiques of the meanings of texts.

[4] To be clear, this wording invites the confusion of language with culture that pervades the work of Martin & Rose (e.g. confusing language variants, register and genre, with culture).

[5] This reduces (the ontogenesis of) language to (the ontogenesis of) socially-correlated variants.

[6] To be clear, the instantiation of the system is a dynamic process.

Misunderstanding Semogenesis, Confusing Culture With Language, And Confusing Social With Sociosemiotic

Martin & Rose (2007: 318):

In a model of this kind, phylogenesis provides the environment for ontogenesis which in turn provides the environment for logogenesis. In other words, where a culture has arrived in its evolution provides the social context for the linguistic development of the individual, and the point an individual is at in their development provides resources for the instantiation of unfolding texts, illustrated in Figure 9.6. 

Conversely, logogenesis provides the material (i.e. semiotic goods) for ontogenesis, which in turn provides the material for phylogenesis; in other words, texts provide the means through which individuals interact to learn the system. And it is through the heteroglossic aggregation of individual systems (that are always already social systems), through the changing voices of us all, that the semiotic trajectory of a culture evolves. Language change in this model is read in terms of an expanding meaning potential, a key feature of semiotic systems as they adapt to new discursive and material environments.

 
Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, this is a restatement of Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 18):

[2] To be clear, this misunderstands the previous sentence (Halliday's model), once again confusing culture with language. As Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 18) explain:

Following the downward arrow, the system of the language (the meaning potential of the species) provides the environment in which the individual's meaning emerges;

[3] To be clear, Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 18) add the missing elements from the authors' gloss:

… the meaning potential of the individual provides the environment within which the meaning of the text emerges.

[4] To be clear, ontogenesis is the coming into being of the meaning potential of the individual; that is, the coming into being of the individual as meaner. Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 18):

the individual's (transfinite) meaning potential is constructed out of (finite) instances of text;

[5] To be clear, this confuses two misunderstandings. On the one hand, yet again Martin & Rose confuse language with culture: the model is concerned with the phylogenesis of language. On the other hand, phylogenesis is fed by the instances of meaners, not by "the aggregation of individual systems", since systems are potential, not actual. Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 18):

the (transfinite) meaning potential of the species is constructed out of (finite) instances of individual 'meaners'.

[6] To be clear, here Martin & Rose confuse semiotic systems, of the subtype 'social', with social systems. In SFL Theory, social systems do not involve the exchange of symbolic value, and so are not semiotic systems. Social systems include those social insect colonies where the values exchanged, as through pheromones, are not symbolic. Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 509):

A biological system is a physical system with the added component of "life"; it is a living physical system. In comparable terms, a social system is a biological system with the added component of "value" …. A semiotic system, then, is a social system with the added component of "meaning". Meaning can be thought of (and was thought of by Saussure) as just a kind of social value; but it is value in a significantly different sense — value that is construed symbolically. … Semiotic systems are social systems where value has been further transformed into meaning.

[7] Cf Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 18):

These are the three major processes of semohistory, by which meanings are continually created, transmitted, recreated, extended and changed.

Seriously Misunderstanding Instantiation, Stratification, Ontogenesis & Phylogenesis

Martin & Rose (2007: 317-8, 333n):

The play of genres and their recontextualisations around issues draws attention to the crucial role of change in ideological analysis. For the distribution of power in a culture is never more than metastable; in order for power relations to remain stable over time, they must continually adapt to change: there has to be both inertia and change for life to carry on. Halliday and Matthiessen (Halliday 1992, 1993; Halliday and Matthiessen 1999) have developed a comprehensive outline of social semiotic change which is highly relevant here. For relatively short time frames such as that involved in the unfolding of a text, they suggest the term ‘logogenesis’ (the perspective we've been foregrounding in this book); for the longer time frame of the development of language in the individual, they use the term ‘ontogenesis' (Painter 1984, 1998); and for maximum time depth, ‘phylogenesis’ (as in Halliday’s reading of the history of scientific English in Halliday and Martin (1993)). A good example is Mandela’s Meaning of Freedom recount, which unfolds in a spiral texture that maps out his development as a political leader (ontogenesis) in the context of major cultural shifts in post-colonial history (phylogenesis). This trinocular framework is summarised as follows.

⁶ The term ‘instantiation’ refers to texts as instances of the semiotic system of a culture, i.e. the language system is instantiated in texts.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, on the authors' model, genres cannot be recontextualised, because genre is the highest level of context. That is, genre is a context without a context.

[2] To be clear, here the authors continue their previous confusion of power with ideology — the latter being neither defined nor exemplified.

[3] To be clear, Halliday's model is concerned with socio-semiotic systems; that is, semiotic systems that are social, as opposed to, for example, somatic. Halliday and Matthiessen (1999: 18):

These are the three major processes of semohistory, by which meanings at continually created, transmitted, recreated, extended and changed. Each one provides the environment within which the 'next' takes place, in the order in which we have presented them; and, conversely, each one provides the material out of which the previous one is constructed: see Figure 1-6.

[4] To be clear, logogenesis, ontogenesis and phylogenesis refer specifically to semogenic processes, not to other processes whose duration coincides with these three time frames.

[5] To be clear, this seriously misunderstands the three semogenic processes, confusing them with the ideational content of a text. In this particular case, logogenesis describes the unfolding of Mandela's text; ontogenesis would describe the development of the languages, Xhosa and English, in Mandela himself; and phylogenesis would describe the evolution of Mandela's languages, Xhosa and English, in the human species.

[6] To be clear, this is potentially misleading. Ontogenesis is the development of a semiotic system in the individual, and phylogenesis is the evolution of a semiotic system in the species.

[7] To be clear, this misunderstands instantiation and stratification. Texts are instances of language, not culture. In SFL Theory, culture is modelled as a semiotic system that is realised by language. That is, culture and language are different levels of symbolic abstraction. An instance of the culture is a situation; that is, culture is instantiated as situations, not texts. The confusion of culture with language pervades Martin's model, as demonstrated by his modelling varieties of language, register/genre, as culture instead of language.

Martin's Model For Exploring Political Change

Martin & Rose (2007: 316):

We’ll leave a detailed ideological analysis of the texts we’ve been considering to people better positioned than we are to take up the challenge. There are just too many South African intertexts we don’t share for us to pronounce on what exactly is going on, especially in such a volatile site of political change. Martin (1985) suggests a model for exploring political change involving two dimensions: left/right and protagonist/antagonist. On the left are people with power to gain, and on the right are people with power to lose. Protagonists are people attempting to resolve issues, while antagonists are people attempting to create issues. On the basis of these oppositions we can establish a power profile for players and their texts around various issues, as outlined in Figure 9.4.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, Martin & Rose have not defined what they mean by 'ideology', nor located it within the architecture of SFL Theory.

[2] To be clear, ideology is entirely absent from this model. It is merely concerned with social action — not unlike the type found within, and between, social insect colonies.

[3] To be clear, this model locates left-wing, centrist and right-wing opposition parties on the left, and left-wing, centrist and right-wing parties in government on the right.

[4] To be clear, this simplistically reduces all political action to merely either creating or resolving issues.

[5] To be clear, the design of this figure is incoherent, not least because 'power' does not lie between 'people with power to lose' and 'people with power to gain', nor between 'antagonist' and 'protagonist'.

Academic Power Struggles

Martin & Rose (2007: 315):

Pushing this a step further, we are suggesting that the main focus of CDA work has been on hegemony, on exposing power as it naturalises itself in discourse, and thus feeling in some sense part of the struggle against it. (We might characterise this as a trajectory of analysis flowing through Marx, Gramsci and Althusser.) Janks and Ivanic’s (1992) salutary work on emancipatory discourse strikes us as the exceptional in its orientation to texts that make the world a better place, confirming this trend. We are arguing that we need a complementary focus on community, taking into account how people get together and make room for themselves in the world in ways that redistribute power without necessarily struggling against it. (Gore’s (1993) discussion of Foucault in relation to notions of empowerment in critical and feminist pedagogy are relevant here, especially in relation to the de-demonisation of power.)

 

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, academics writing papers for other like-minded academics is part of the struggle against power in the same way that two workmates talking in a pub about their unfair boss is part of a struggle against power.

[2] To be clear, texts alone do not make the world a better place. Texts can make people feel that the world is a better place, and/or encourage people to act to try and make the world a better place.

[3] To be clear, this is sociology, not linguistics.

[4] As Bertrand Russell observed in The History Of Western Philosophy, social power is power over each other.

∞

The People's Front Of Systemics