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.