Enhancing Image-Text Relations

 Martin & Rose (2007: 323, 328-9):

The left-right axis of the page, the vectors in the inauguration-flag image, and its relations with preceding text, combine to construct an indexical temporal sequence. The gaze of people in the crowd is up to the stage and across to the left. Implicit in these gazes is the inauguration ceremony they are watching, and its central protagonist, Mandela. And their gaze is also towards Mandela’s life story that lies to the left of the image. These vectors realise implicit identification, all pointing anaphorically to ‘him’, Mandela. But Mandela himself is not in the picture. Counterbalancing this up and leftward gaze is the powerful vector in the flag, which points down and right towards the people who surround it, cataphorically identifying ‘them’. In sum, the layout and images indexically construe a complex activity sequence, in which not only apartheid belongs to the past, but also the struggle against it, and Mandela’s own life story. In contrast the future belongs to the people.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is misleading, because it is not true. The two photographs construe the same temporal location — that of the inauguration of Mandela as President — but the text, an excerpt from the Meaning of Freedom text (reproduced below) is not located in time relative to the inauguration.

[2] This is misleading, because it is not true. The gaze of the crowd in the right-hand photograph is towards the background in the image, not left to the adjacent text.

[3] To be clear, this confuses paying attention (looking at phenomena) with directing the attention of others (pointing at phenomena).

[4] To be clear, this "powerful vector in the flag" is directed only to one anonymous head, in the foreground of the photograph. That is, every other person in the crowd is excluded by this vector.

[5] As demonstrated above, this conclusion is not warranted by the authors' analyses. The 'activity sequence' is confined to the text, and the two photographs, both of the same occasion, are not related temporally to the text.

∞

Meaning of Freedom

I was not born with a hunger to be free. I was born free - free in every way that I could know. Free to run in the fields near my mother's hut, free to swim in the clear stream that ran through my village, free to roast mealies under the stars and ride the broad backs of slow^moving bulls, As long as I obeyed my father and abided by the customs of my tribe, I was not troubled by the laws of man or God.

It was only when ! began to learn that my boyhood freedom was an illusion, when I discovered as a young man that my freedom had already been taken from me, that I began to hunger for it.

At first, as a student, I wanted freedom only for myself, the transitory freedoms of being able to stay out at night, read what I pleased and go where i chose. Later, as a young man in Johannesburg, I yearned for the basic and honourable freedoms of achieving my potential, of earning my keep, of marrying and having a family - the freedom not to be obstructed in a lawful life.

But then i slowly saw that not only was I not free, but my brothers and sisters were not free.

I saw that it was not just my freedom that was curtailed, but the freedom of everyone who looked like I did. That is when I joined the African National Congress and that is when the hunger for my own freedom became the greater hunger for the freedom of my people. It was this desire for the freedom of my people to live their lives with dignity and self-respect that animated my life, that transformed a frightened young man into a bold one, that drove a law-abiding attorney to become a criminal that turned a family-loving husband into a man without a home, that forced a life-loving man to live like a monk. I am no more virtuous or self-sacrificing than the next man, but I found that 1 could not even enjoy the poor and limited freedoms I was allowed when I knew my people were not free.

Freedom is indivisible; the chains on any one of my people were the chains on all of them, the chains on all of my people were the chains on me. 

It was during those long and lonely years that my hunger for the freedom of my own people became a hunger for the freedom of all people, white and black. 

I knew as well as I knew anything that the oppressor must be liberated just as surely as the oppressed. A man who takes away another man's freedom is a prisoner of hatred, he is locked behind the bars of prejudice and narrow-mindedness. I am not truly free if I am taking away someone else’s freedom, just as surely as I am not free when my freedom is taken from me. 

The oppressed and the oppressor alike are robbed of their humanity.

When I walked out of prison, that was my mission, to liberate the oppressed and the oppressor both. 

Some say that has now been achieved. But I know that this is not the case. The truth is that we are not yet free; we have merely achieved the freedom to be free, the right not to be oppressed. We have not taken the final step of our journey, but the first step on a longer and even more difficult road. For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.

The true test of our devotion to freedom is just beginning. 

I have walked that long road to freedom. I have tried not to falter; I have made missteps along the way. But I have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb. I have taken a moment here to rest, to steal a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back on the distance I have come. But I can only rest for a moment, for with freedom come responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not yet ended.

(Mandela 1995: 746-51)

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.

Cherry-Picking The Data

Martin & Rose (2007: 263):

As with larger segments in written texts discussed above, formatting can be a useful starting point, but now it is the paragraphing that can help to indicate the phases in which the field unfolds. As paragraphing tends to coincide with the hierarchy of periodicity, we can adjust and expand the information that paragraphing gives us by looking at what is presented as hyperThemes and hyperNews. For example, what is presented first in each paragraph of the Inauguration Day recount are times that scaffold the activity sequence of the day’s events and of Mandela’s speech:

The day’s activity sequence is concluded in the hyperNew of the second last paragraph, with Finally..., and is then reoriented in the last paragraph, beginning with The day…

The global scaffolding resource here is sequence in time, expressed as external conjunctions and temporal circumstances.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, in SFL Theory, 'field' refers to the ideational dimension of the culture modelled as a semiotic system. Here Martin & Rose unwittingly use it to refer to the ideational semantics of a text as it unfolds in logogenesis.

[2] To be clear, as previously explained, Martin's hyperTheme and hyperNew are his rebrandings of topic sentence (of a paragraph) and paragraph summary from the field of writing pedagogy. Writing pedagogy is concerned with proposals on how to write, whereas linguistic theory is concerned with propositions that model language.

[3] To be clear, what is actually presented first in each paragraph of the Inauguration Day recount are:

10 May
The ceremonies
On that lovely autumn day
Today
We who were outlaws not so long ago
We
Never, never, and never again
Let freedom
A few moments later
The day

That is, Martin & Rose have cherry-picked the six instances that support their analysis, and ignored the four instances that do not.

[4] See, for example, Activity Sequences: A Cornucopia Of Theoretical Inconsistencies.

[5] To be clear, this is inconsistent with both the source meaning of hyperNew as paragraph summary, and with the authors' notion of hyperNew distilling what had preceded it (p195-6), since this clause realises meaning that had not previously been mentioned:

Finally a chevron of impala jets left a smoke trail of the black, red, green, blue and gold of the new South African flag.

[6] Trivially, none of the six temporal Themes are conjunctions, and two — the first and last — are participants, not circumstances.

Unpacking Grammatical Metaphor: "Conjunction" As Circumstance

Martin & Rose (2007: 150):

Another common motif in abstract or technical writing is to present a logical relation as a circumstance:

Is      amnesty       being given     at the cost of justice being done?
         Medium      Process           Circumstance (accompaniment)

The logical meaning of at the cost of is concessive purpose (‘without’), giving the following sequence:

Is amnesty being given
without justice being done?

Again this strategy enables a sequence of two activities to be packaged as a single figure, with amnesty as one chunk of information and justice being done as another.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, this is not a circumstance of Accompaniment, since it does not construe amnesty and the cost of justice being done as joint participants in the process is being given; see Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 324). Instead, at the cost of justice being done — like without justice being done — is a dependent non-finite clause:

is	amnesty	being given	at the cost of	justice	being done
			without
α			× β
Pro-	Medium	-cess		Medium	Process

[2] To be clear, interpreting at the cost of as marking purpose (enhancement) flatly contradicts the previous interpretation of it as marking accompaniment (extension). In SFL Theory, the relation between the two clauses is concessive condition: if P ('amnesty is being given') then contrary to expectation Q ('justice is not being done').

[3] To be clear, since this is a clause complex realising a sequence of two figures, it is not a metaphorical rendering of a sequence of two figures as a single figure.

The Function Of Logical Metaphor Oriented To Periodicity

Martin & Rose (2014: 149):

On the other hand, logical metaphors combine with experiential metaphors to package activity sequences as manageable chunks of information. This function of logical metaphor is oriented to periodicity. For example, this figure is one step in the argument that Tutu is advancing:

The Act required that
the application should be dealt with in a public hearing
unless such a hearing was likely to lead to a miscarriage of justice
(for instance, where witnesses were too intimidated to testify in open session).

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, it is the textual metafunction that deploys ideational metaphor to provide alternative groupings of quanta of information. Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 401, 413):

But ideational grammatical metaphors typically have a discourse function of this kind; they are as it were pressed into service by the textual metafunction, to provide alternative groupings of quanta of information.

… the textual metafunction is a powerful part of the explanation of ideational metaphor: ideational meaning is reconstrued in such a way that it suits textual organisation when meanings are being distributed in text. 

[2] As will be seen, 'periodicity' is a confusion of writing pedagogy with SFL Theory, specifically: the textual grammatical systems of THEME and INFORMATION, both misunderstood and rebranded as discourse semantics.

[3] This misunderstands the text. Tutu is not advancing an argument; he is merely reporting what the Act stipulated.

Unpacking Grammatical Metaphor: "Conjunction" As Process

Martin & Rose (2007: 149):

A common motif in abstract or technical writing is to present a consequential conjunction as a process:

This strategy compresses a sequence of two activities into a single figure, by means of experiential and logical metaphors. Experientially, the Agent and Medium stand for activities (‘hearing an application’ and ‘miscarrying justice’) that are reconstrued as things (a hearing, a miscarriage). Logically, there is a relation of consequence between these activities (‘if…then’), which is reconstrued as a process (is likely to lead to). We can unpack such a sequence as a sequence of two figures related by conjunctions:

if such a hearing happens
then justice will be miscarried.

However the logical metaphor of ‘relation as process’ incorporates more than simply consequence. For one thing, the probability of the result is graded as likely to lead to (in contrast to high probability will certainly lead to or low probability will possibly lead to). And the necessity of the consequence is also graded lexically as lead to (in contrast to the stronger result in or weaker associated with).

So one of the reasons that writers use logical metaphors for conjunctions is that they can grade their evaluation of relations between events or arguments. This is a crucial resource for reasoning in fields such as science or politics, in which it is important not to overstate causal relations until sufficient evidence has been accumulated. This function of logical metaphors is oriented to engagement of the reader.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, in terms of SFL Theory, in this instance, a sequence of two figures is metaphorically reconstrued as a single figure. See the earlier post: Activity Sequences: A Cornucopia Of Theoretical Inconsistencies.

[2] To be clear, here Martin & Rose misrepresent the transitivity of the identifying clause through accidentally misconstruing it as encoding instead of decoding. The clause is clearly decoding because the Value, a miscarriage of justice, is New information, and therefore Identifier:

Such a hearing	is	likely	to lead to	a miscarriage of justice
Medium Identified Token	Process:		relational: circumstantial: cause	Range Identifier Value
Subject	Finite	Adjunct	Predicator	Complement
Mood			Residue

As a result, the authors misconstrue the Medium as Agent and the Range as Medium — in addition to misconstruing the mood Adjunct as a component of the Process.

[3] To be clear, the expansion relation in the metaphorical clause is causal, not conditional, because a miscarriage of justice is construed as the likely result of such a hearing. It is therefore invalid to unpack the metaphor as a conditional relation.

[4] To be clear, the potential for modal assessment is afforded by both the congruent and metaphorical realisations, and as such, it is not a reason why writers use ideational metaphor. This misunderstanding appears to arise from Martin & Rose misconstruing the mood Adjunct likely as a component of the metaphorical Process.

[5] To be clear, lead to and result in both (equally) construe a causal relation, whereas associated with does not. See, for example, correlation does not imply causation.

[6] To be clear, it is the interpersonal system of modal assessment (e.g. likely) that serves such functions, not ideational metaphor, since it is the interpersonal metafunction that is concerned with enacting intersubjective relations, such as those between writer and reader.

The Discourse Semantic System Of External Conjunction

Martin & Rose (2007: 122):

External conjunction is concerned with logically organising a field as sequences of activities. For each general type of external conjunction - addition, comparison, time, consequence - there are two or more sub-types, summarised in Table 4.2.

 

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, in SFL Theory, external conjunction is concerned with relating text segments in their experiential guise.  Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 611):

As we have seen, elaborating, extending and enhancing conjunctions mark relations between semantic domains, i.e. between text segments. These text segments are simultaneously ideational and interpersonal; they construe experience as meaning, e.g. an episode in a narrative or a recount, and they enact roles and relations, e.g. an exchange in a conversation or consultation, or an argument in an exposition. Relations link text segments either in their ideational guise or in their interpersonal guise: they relate either chunks of experience or chunks of interaction. … Relations between representations of segments of experience are called external relations, and conjunctions marking such relations are called external conjunctions. … Relations linking text segments in their interpersonal guise are called internal relations – internal to the text as a speech event, and conjunctions marking such relations are called internal conjunctions.

[2] To be clear, in SFL Theory, external conjunction is a non-structural grammatical system of the textual metafunction that deploys the resource of expansion to create cohesive relations between portions of text.  Martin & Rose combine the textual system of conjunction and the logical system of clause complexing and rebrand it as discourse semantics instead of grammar, without providing evidence as to why it constitutes a higher level of symbolic abstraction.

[3] To be clear, in SFL Theory, field is the ideational dimension of context, the culture construed as a semiotic system.  Since sequences of activities are here construed as discourse semantic rather than context (contrā Martin 1992), field and activity sequences lie on different levels of symbolic abstraction and, as such, different levels of semiotic organisation.

[4] To be clear, the omissions and misunderstandings in the authors' model of external conjunction can be made evident by comparing it with the SFL model below (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 612):

For example, Martin & Rose:

• do not organise their system in terms of the three most general subtypes of expansion: elaboration, extension and enhancement, which are fractal types manifested across multiple domains (e.g. circumstances, relational processes, etc.);
• omit all 9 subtypes of elaborating relations;
• omit 4 of the 6 subtypes of extension;
• omit the enhancing relation of matter;
• misconstrue the adversative extending relation ('but') as a subtype of comparison (enhancing);
• misconstrue the manner subtype means as a relation of consequence (cause-condition).

Moreover, the logico-semantic relation of projection is entirely absent from the discourse semantic model of logical relations.

Conjunction: A Foretaste Of Some Of The Misunderstandings In Chapter 4

Martin & Rose (2007: 115):

Conjunction looks at interconnections between processes — adding, comparing, sequencing, or explaining them. These are logical meanings that link activities and messages in sequences.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, in this case, conjunction is Martin's (1992) confusion of two of Halliday's lexicogrammatical systems: cohesive conjunction (a non-structural system of the textual metafunction) and clause complexing (a structurally realised system of the logical metafunction) rebranded as logical discourse semantics.  Evidence here.  This confusion has since been rebranded as 'connexion' to differentiate from Halliday's original ideas.

[2] To be clear, only external conjunction is concerned with relations between processes.  Internal conjunction is concerned with relations between interpersonal functions internal to the speech event; see, for example, Halliday & Hasan (1976: 240) or Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 611-2).

[3] To be clear, in SFL theory, 'adding' is one type of extension, 'comparing' and temporal 'sequencing' are two types of enhancement, and 'explaining' could be either elaboration or enhancement. That is to say, Martin's misunderstanding of Halliday's system is not grounded on the three most general types of expansion — elaboration, extension and enhancement — and entirely omits projection.  One effect of this is to undermine grammatical metaphor, since Martin provides no congruent relations between semantics and grammar on which to identify metaphorical (incongruent) realisations.

[4] To be clear, the term 'activity' is here used to refer to meaning in texts, whereas elsewhere, inconsistently, it is used to refer to what those who produce texts are doing.

[5] To be clear, the term 'message' derives from Halliday's theory, and refers to the textual semantic unit realised as a clause.  Because cohesive conjunction is a textual system, it realises relations between textual units.

[6] To be clear, the term 'sequence' derives from Halliday's theory, and refers to the ideational semantic unit that is congruently realised as a clause complex.

∞

To be clear, in the previous chapter, Martin & Rose theorised 'activity sequences' and relations between 'activities' in 'sequences' as experiential rather than logical.

When A Sequence Of Activities Is Neither An Activity Sequence Nor A Series Of Events

Martin & Rose (2007: 106):

 

In this text, activities are taxonomically related by part or class; goannas are first classified as hunters, and the activities run, climb, swim are implicitly construed as components of hunting. But there is no implied series of events, rather the sequence is expected by the field of animal behaviours, and the descriptive report genre, so that feeding behaviours are expected by hunting behaviours, followed by breeding behaviours.

Blogger Comments:

Reminder:

All goannas are daytime hunters, They run, climb and swim well. Goannas hunt small mammals, birds and other reptiles, They also eat dead animals. Smaller goannas eat insects, spiders and worms. Male goannas fight with each other in the breeding season. Females lay between two and twelve eggs.

[1] As noted in the preceding post, the taxonomic relations between Processes that Martin & Rose propose in this analysis do not withstand close scrutiny.

[2] To be clear, Martin & Rose claim that this text involves 'activities' and a 'sequence', but not an 'activity sequence' on the grounds that there is no implied 'series of events'.

[3] To be clear, goannas are classified as 'daytime hunters', and this class membership is construed by the attributive clause.

[4] To be clear, this misunderstands the text.  The processes run, climb and swim are not construed as parts of 'hunting' any more than they are construed as parts of 'escaping predators'.  The point made in the text is that they do such things well.

[5] To be clear, fields and genres do not expect anything, because they are not conscious beings.  If this misleading metaphor is unpacked, then the claim is that people who are familiar with the field of animal behaviours and people who are familiar with report genres expect the sequence of activities — as opposed to an activity sequence or series of events — in the text.

While it may be true that people who are familiar with the field may have such expectations, it is less likely to be true of people who are merely familiar with report genres; but, more importantly, the expectations of readers are irrelevant to what the author of the text actually wrote.  Text analysis is the analysis of text.

[6] To be clear, the authors' claim here is that 'hunting behaviours' expect 'feeding behaviours' followed by 'breeding behaviours'.  A sympathetic unpacking of this incongruous metaphor might be that people who are familiar with the field of animal behaviour and people who are familiar with report genres expect the sequence — but not 'activity sequence' or 'series of events' — 'hunting, feeding, breeding'.

However, people who are actually familiar with animal behaviour know that most hunts are unsuccessful and are thus not followed by feeding, and that feeding is a frequent activity that is only rarely followed by breeding (during the mating season).

Making False Claims About Nuclear Relations

Martin & Rose (2007: 103):

Earlier we showed how nuclear relations can inform an analysis of taxonomic relations in an entity focused text. Here we combine analysis of activity sequences with nuclear relations, together with taxonomic relations between processes. Nuclear relations can show us the roles of people and things in activity sequences;

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is misleading, because it is untrue.  See the previous posts:

• Misrepresenting The Analytical Utility Of Nuclear Relations
• Misunderstanding Their Own Model Of Nuclear Relations
• Sample Nuclear Relations Analysis
• A Combined Taxonomic And Nuclear Relations Analysis

[2] This is misleading, because it is untrue.  Nuclear relations do not "show us the roles of people and things in activity sequences".  Nuclear relations in a clause, even when properly understood, only construe the degree of participation in a process.  The "roles of people and things" in an "activity" are construed by the clause transitivity, whose ergative functions the authors have relabelled as central, nuclear etc.  None of these labels identifies the rôle of a participant in a process.

Confusing What People Say With What People Do

Martin & Rose (2007: 102-3):

Within each phase we would expect activities to be related, as members of a wider set of activities, or as sub-parts of larger activities. For example, the activities meeting, relationship, marriage belong to a wider set of social interactions, and activities such as marriage can be broken down into smaller components, such as proposal, engagement, wedding, honeymoon and so on. And wedding in turn can be broken down into smaller component activities.

Blogger Comments:

Here again Martin & Rose confuse activities construed in phases of texts — what people say — with social activities — what (very conventional) people do — such as meeting, relationship, proposal, engagement, wedding, honeymoon.

Implication Sequences: Misunderstanding Theory And Misrepresenting Data

Martin & Rose (2007: 102):

In science fields, by contrast, the unmarked relation between events in a sequence is typically assumed to be cause and effect, so that each succeeding effect is implied by the preceding cause. For this reason such event series are known as implication sequences. An example is the following explanation of cycles of bushfires and regeneration in the Australian Mallee woodland. The implication sequence is predicted by the opening sentence, and each step of cause and effect unfolds without any explicit markers:

Regeneration of the Mallee depends on periodic fires.
Old mallee produces a build-up of very dry litter and the branches themselves are often festooned with streamers of bark inviting a flame up to the canopy of leaves loaded with volatile eucalyptus oil.
A dry electrical storm in summer is all that is needed to start a blaze,
which, with a very hot northerly wind behind it will race unchecked through the bush.
The next rains will bring an explosion of ground flora;
the summer grasses and forbs not able to compete under a mallee canopy, will break out in a riot of colour.
New shoots of mallee will spring from the lignotuber
and another cycle of succession will begin. (Corrigan 1991; 100)

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, anyone who assumes this is unfamiliar with science texts.  On the one hand, expansion relations other than 'cause' are not "marked", and on the other hand, in any case, texts in written mode, unless addressed to children, tend favour lexical density over grammatical intricacy, as Halliday has demonstrated.

[2] To be clear, an implication is the conclusion that can be drawn from something although it is not explicitly stated.  Here Martin & Rose confuse the causal relation between reason and result ('cause and effect') with the implicitness ('implied by') of such a relation.

[3] To be clear, in SFL theory, causal relations between "events" are manifestations of enhancement, a type of expansion.  When the relation obtains between units in a complex, it serves the logical metafunction.  When the relation obtains between units of different structures, as a feature of cohesive conjunction, it serves the textual metafunction.  Here, however, Martin & Rose present the relation, without supporting argument, as serving the experiential metafunction.

[4] To be clear, the opening sentence of the text does not predict what follows.  The reader can test the claim by reading the opening sentence and trying to predict everything that follows. Hindsight is not prediction.

[5] To be clear, the reason why there are no explicit markers of cause-effect relations between "events" in the text is that there are no cause-effect relations between "events" in the text, as the following table demonstrates:

Reason ("Cause")		Result ('Effect")
Regeneration of the Mallee depends on periodic fires	causes?	Old mallee produces a build-up of very dry litter and the branches themselves are often festooned with streamers of bark inviting a flame up to the canopy of leaves loaded with volatile eucalyptus oil
Old mallee produces a build-up of very dry litter and the branches themselves are often festooned with streamers of bark inviting a flame up to the canopy of leaves loaded with volatile eucalyptus oil	causes?	A dry electrical storm in summer is all that is needed to start a blaze
A dry electrical storm in summer is all that is needed to start a blaze	causes?	which, with a very hot northerly wind behind it will race unchecked through the bush
which, with a very hot northerly wind behind it will race unchecked through the bush	causes?	The next rains will bring an explosion of ground flora
The next rains will bring an explosion of ground flora	causes?	the summer grasses and forbs not able to compete under a mallee canopy, will break out in a riot of colour
the summer grasses and forbs not able to compete under a mallee canopy, will break out in a riot of colour	causes?	New shoots of mallee will spring from the lignotuber
New shoots of mallee will spring from the lignotuber	causes?	and another cycle of succession will begin