Problems With The System Of Interpersonal Meanings In Images

 Martin & Rose (2007: 326, 327):

In sum, the two photos illustrate options in attitude, engagement and graduation, set out in Figure 9.11.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, as demonstrated in previous posts, none of these applications of ATTITUDE features survives close scrutiny.

• The authors' application of affect misrepresented ideational construals of emotion as interpersonal assessments using emotion (affect). 
• The authors' application of appreciation confused ideational construals in a photograph with the appreciation of these by a viewer (the authors). 
• The authors' application of judgement involved reconstruing the boy in a photograph as a metaphor for Nelson Mandela, whom the authors judged as tenacious, and then incongruously transferring that judgement to the boy.

[2] To be clear, as observed in previous posts, the authors here misrepresent 'engagement' in the sense of Kress & van Leeuwen (1996) as 'engagement' in the appraisal sense.

[3] To be clear, Martin & Rose have not demonstrated three levels of graduation in images. As demonstrated in previous posts

• in exemplifying the graduation of appreciation, the authors confused scalable ideational qualities with the degree of their appreciation of them, and mistook textual prominence for interpersonal graduation, and
• in exemplifying the graduation of judgement, the authors interpreted the hand shape of the boy in a photograph as intensifying the tenacity they attributed to Mandela; see [1] above.

Applying Appreciation, Graduation And Engagement To The Inauguration-Flag Photograph

Martin & Rose (2007: 326, 327):

On the other hand the inauguration-flag photo invokes positive appreciation, including aspects of reaction, composition and valuation. With respect to terms exemplified in Table 2.10, the inauguration crowd appears imposing, exciting and dramatic, as does the huge flag, whose composition is both complex and unified, and which carries values that are at once profound, innovative and enduring. These values are amplified by the size and centrality of the flag, and the intensity of its colours. With respect to engagement, the people are facing directly away from the viewer, so we are obliquely invited to enter the scene in the direction they are facing.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, Martin & Rose are not identifying the meaning created by either the photographer or the boy in the photograph, but by specific viewers of the photograph (themselves). In doing so, they confuse ideational construals made by the photographer with interpersonal assessments made by the viewer.

[2] To be clear, here Martin & Rose confuse scalable aspects of the depicted flag with the degree (graduation) of their own appreciation. Moreover, to the extent that the foregrounding and centrality of the flag focuses attention on the flag, this is the "graduation" of textual meaning, not interpersonal meaning.

[3] To be clear, as previously observed, this is 'engagement' in the sense of Kress & van Leeuwen (1996), but misrepresented by Martin & Rose as 'engagement' in the appraisal sense.

Applying Judgement And Graduation To A Photograph

Martin & Rose (2007: 326):

In APPRAISAL terms, the photo of the boy invokes a positive judgement of tenacity that must be read in relation to the texts that surround him.  The protest against the regime construed by his raised fist reflects the tenacious resistance of Mandela and his comrades as recounted in the adjacent Freedom text.  The fist can then be read as amplifying his tenacity to the level of defiance (more so than if he had waved or saluted with an open hand).  This is a retrospective reading of his tenacity as defiance against the old regime;  on the other hand his tenacity can also be read prospectively as youthful determination in the nation’s hopes for the future. These are complementary readings as protest against the regime vs celebration of its overthrow, that are expanded by the texts above and below the photo — image-text relations that are discussed in the following section.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, Martin & Rose are not identifying the meaning created by either the photographer or the boy in the photograph, but by specific viewers of the photograph (themselves); see further below.

[2] To be clear, if the meaning of the image depends on the accompanying text, then the meaning is made by both semiotic systems, not by the image alone.

[3] To be clear, here Martin & Rose construe three levels of meaning within the image:

• the tenacious resistance of Mandela and his comrades, realised by
• the protest against the regime, realised by
• his raised fist.

More specifically, the middle level of meaning, the protest against the regime, is metaphorically encoded by reference to the lowest level, his raised fist, and the highest level, the tenacious resistance of Mandela and his comrades, is metaphorically decoded by reference to the middle level, the protest against the regime.

That is, the judgement of tenacity in this image of a boy is made on Mandela and his comrades by Martin & Rose.

[4] To be clear, here Martin & Rose have become confused by their levels of abstraction and incongruously transferred their judgement of the tenacity from Mandela and his comrades to the boy ('his tenacity') in the photograph. This is analogous to transferring a judgement of a movie character to the actor playing the rôle. With this confusion, they claim, without supporting argument, that the shape of the boy's hand is an amplification of his tenacity to the level of defiance, despite the fact that 'tenacity' means persistence, whereas 'defiance' means resistance.

[5] To be clear, here again Martin & Rose misattribute the tenacity they have ascribed to Mandela and his comrades to the boy ('his tenacity') in the photograph, and decode his tenacity by reference to youthful determination in the nation's hope for the future.

[6] To be clear, Halliday (1985: xvii) comments on discourse analysis seem apposite here:

A discourse analysis that is not based on grammar is not an analysis at all, but simply a running commentary on a text … the exercise remains a private one in which one explanation is as good or as bad as another.

[7] To be clear, as can be seen below, the texts above and below the photograph of the boy (p324) do not expand the meanings of the photograph, as interpreted by Martin & Rose:

'regimes' above photo of young boy

On the day of the inauguration I was overwhelmed with a sense of history. In the first decade of the twentieth century, a few years after the bitter Anglo-Boer war and before my own birth, the white-skinned peoples of South Africa patched up their differences and erected a system of racial domination against the dark-skinned peoples of their own land.

'effects' below photo of young boy

The structure they created formed the basis of one of the harshest, most inhumane, societies the world has ever known. Now, in the last decade of the twentieth century, and my own eighth decade as a man, that system has been overturned forever and replaced by one that recognised the rights and freedoms of all peoples regardless of the colour of their skin. (Mandela 1996: 202)

Applying Appraisal Theory To Images

Martin & Rose (2007: 325):

In terms of APPRAISAL developed in Chapter 2, images can inscribe feelings, for example with an image of a person crying or smiling, or invoke them with images that we respond to emotionally; they can invoke appreciation of things by the relative attractiveness of the object or scene presented; and they can invoke judgements of people, by means such as their activity, stance or facial expression. Engagement with the viewer can also be varied in images, for example by the gaze of depicted people looking directly at the viewer, obliquely to one side, or directly away from the viewer into the image. And of course feelings, appreciation and judgement can also be amplified and diminished.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, this is a basic misunderstanding that pervades work on APPRAISAL. The AFFECT system of APPRAISAL is concerned with interpersonal assessment through emotion, not with the ideational construal of emotion. The depiction of a person crying or smiling is an ideational construal of behavioural processes that manifest states of consciousness (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 302).

[2] To be clear, creating an image that induces an emotional response in the viewer is not a variation of creating an image that depicts an interpersonal assessment through emotion.

[3] To be clear, this blurs the distinction between an appreciative assessment made by the creator of an image and feelings of appreciation induced in a viewer by an image. This is analogous to blurring the distinction between what a speaker says and the reaction of the addressee to what is said.

[4] Again, this blurs the distinction between a judgemental assessment made by the creator of an image and judgements induced in a viewer by an image. Again, this is analogous to blurring the distinction between what a speaker says and the reaction of the addressee to what is said.

[5] To be clear, this misunderstands the APPRAISAL system of ENGAGEMENT, which is concerned with whether or not other points of view on propositions are acknowledged, how they are acknowledged, and to what rhetorical ends.  As Martin & White (2005: 92) explain:

[Engagement] is concerned with the linguistic resources by which speakers/writers adopt a stance towards to the value positions being referenced by the text and with respect to those they address … the different possibilities for this stance-taking which are made available by the language, … the rhetorical effects associated with these various positionings, and … what is at stake when one stance is chosen over another.

Martin & Rose, on the other hand, here misinterpret engagement as (metaphorically) realised by the behavioural stance of an entity of an image (metaphenomenon) relative to a viewer of the image (phenomenon). That is, this is 'engagement' in the sense of Kress & van Leeuwen (1996), but misrepresented by the authors as 'engagement' in the sense of Appraisal Theory.

Misrepresenting Synonymy And Attitude

Martin & Rose (2007: 86):

Synonyms
Synonyms are different lexical items that share similar experiential meanings. For example Tutu uses the synonyms public hearing and open session, which denote the same kind of event. Synonyms are often used by writers to avoid repetition. The meanings of synonyms also usually differ in some way, such as the contexts in which they are typically used. For example public hearing may be used in a general context, and most of us will recognise the kind of event it denotes, whereas open session may refer to various kinds of events - not just court hearings. Furthermore synonyms may also differ in the attitude they express. So public and open are neutral in attitude, whereas other synonyms for these items that express a stronger attitude could be exposed or naked.

Blogger Comments:

[1] As already explained, in contradiction of Martin & Rose's model of taxonomic relations, synonyms do not constitute taxonomies, since the relation between items, in each case, is one of elaborating identity, rather than elaborating attribution (hyponymic taxonomy) — the general sense of 'taxonomy' — or composition (meronymic taxonomy).

[2] To be clear, synonyms are words that have similar meaning, whether ideational, interpersonal or textual.  For example, lastly and finally can both realise similar textual meaning as conjunctive Adjuncts, and sadly and unfortunately can both realise similar interpersonal meaning as comment Adjuncts.

The reason Martin & Rose have singled out experiential meaning here is because they have misunderstood the textual function of synonymy in lexical cohesion as experiential discourse semantics.

[3] To be clear, the system of ATTITUDE is concerned with interpersonal assessment.  The words public, open, exposed or naked only realise features of the ATTITUDE system if they are used to make an assessment in terms of AFFECT, APPRECIATION or JUDGEMENT, and the relative intensity of the attitudinal assessment depends on both context and co-text.  Merely construing experience as public, open, exposed or naked does not necessarily constitute an interpersonal enactment of an assessment, as demonstrated by:

• public toilets
• open sandwich
• exposed rocks
• naked eye.

On The Implicit Coupling Of Field With Appreciation

Martin & Rose (2007: 70-1):

Further complicating this issue is the implicit coupling of field with appreciation (the evocation variable noted above). As with affect and judgement, ideational meanings can be used to appraise, even though explicitly evaluative lexis is avoided. It perhaps should be stressed again here that appraisal analysts do need to declare their reading position, in particular since the evaluation one makes of evocations depends on the institutional position one is reading from. For example, according to reading position, formal and functional linguists will evaluate terms in the following sets of oppositions in complementary ways with firm convictions about what the good guys and the bad guys should celebrate:

rule/resource :: cognitive/social :: acquisition/development :: syntagmatic/paradigmatic :: form/function :: language/parole :: system/process :: psychology&philosophy/socioiogy&anthropology :: cognitive/social :: theory/description :: intuition/corpus :: knowledge/meaning :: syntax/discourse :: pragmatics/context :: parsimony/extravagance :: cognitive/critical :: technicist/humanist :: truth/social action :: performance/instantiation :: categorical/probabilistic :: contradictory/complementary :: proof/exemplification :: reductive/comprehensive :: arbitrary/natural :: modular/fractal :: syntax&lexicon/lexicogrammar...

Blogger Comments:

[1] As pointed out in the previous post, the notion of "coupling" of field with appreciation betrays the authors' misunderstanding of strata and metafunctions as interacting modules of meaning (Martin 1992: 390); see, for example Misconstruing Strata And Metafunctions As Modules. 

[2] The notion that 'ideational meanings can be used to appraise' continues the misunderstanding of metafunctions as modules.  The implication here is that the terms that enact explicit appraisals, such as 'disorganised', do not also serve an ideational function.

To be clear, the ideational metafunction is language in its function of construing experience as meaning, whereas the interpersonal metafunction is language in its function of enacting intersubjective relations as meaning.  As an interpersonal system, appraisal is the enactment of intersubjective relations as meaning, not the use of "ideational" meanings to appraise. 

[3] This confuses the reading position of the discourse analyst with the appraisals enacted in a text — the latter being either those of the author, or those reported by the author to be those of instantial participants.

[4] These proportionalities actually disclose the reading position of Martin & Rose.  The following table sets out what the authors believe are appraised as positive by "the good guys and the bad guys":

What Formal Linguists Should Celebrate	What Functional Linguists Should Celebrate
rule	resource
cognitive	social
acquisition	development
syntagmatic	paradigmatic
form	function
language	parole
system	process
psychology & philosophy	socioiogy & anthropology
cognitive	social
theory	description
intuition	corpus
knowledge	meaning
syntax	discourse
pragmatics	context
parsimony	extravagance
cognitive	critical
technicist	humanist
truth	social action
performance	instantiation
categorical	probabilistic
contradictory	complementary
proof	exemplification
reductive	comprehensive
arbitrary	natural
modular	fractal
syntax & lexicon	lexicogrammar

On The "Coupling" Of Ideational And Interpersonal Meaning

Martin & Rose (2007: 70):

Of these dimensions, valuation is especially tied up with field, since the criteria for valuing a text/process are for the most part institutionally specific. But beyond this, since both judgement and appreciation are in a sense institutionalisations of feeling, all of the dimensions involved will prove sensitive to field. An example of this coupling of ideational and interpersonal meaning is presented in Table 2.11 for appreciations of research in the field of linguistics.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This confuses the appraised with the system of appraisal (appreciation).  It is the appreciated that varies according to the field being realised in language-as-register, not the means of appreciating.  This is shown by the fact that the terms of appreciation in Table 2.11 are not limited to a specialised field like linguistics, and by the fact that the positive and negative values of the terms are also not limited to a specialised field like linguistics.

[2] The reason the authors link 'institutionalisation' to 'field' is because Martin (1992: 180-1, 292, 527, 536) mistakenly identifies 'institution' with only the ideational dimension of context (misconstrued as register).  In SFL theory, on the other hand, 'institution' is 'situation type' viewed from the potential pole of the cline of instantiation, such that institution variation is realised by register variation.

[3] The notion of "this coupling of ideational and interpersonal meaning" — ideational context and interpersonal semantics — betrays the authors' misunderstanding of strata and metafunctions as interacting modules of meaning (Martin 1992: 390); see, for example Misconstruing Strata And Metafunctions As Modules. 

On Appreciation As The Evaluation Of Products And Performances

Martin & Rose (2007: 69-70):

Appreciation can be thought of as the institutionalisation of feeling, in the context of propositions (norms about how products and performances are valued). Like affect and judgement it has a positive and negative dimension corresponding to positive and negative evaluations of texts and processes (and natural phenomena). The system is organised around three variables: reaction, composition and valuation.  Reaction has to do with attention (reaction: impact) and the emotional impact it has on us with the degree to which the text/process in question captures our attention (reaction: impact) and the emotional impact it has on us (reaction: quality).  Composition has to do with our perceptions of proportionality (composition: balance) and detail (composition: complexity) in a text/process. Valuation has to do with our assessment of the social significance of the text/process.

Blogger Comments:

Here Martin & Rose limit appreciation to the assessment of 'products and performances', and 'texts and processes (and natural phenomena)', leading some to conclude that appreciation does not apply to humans or human behaviour, despite the fact that humans and behaviours can be assessed as

• 'surprising' (reaction: impact),
• 'dull' (reaction: quality),
• 'sloppy' (composition: balance),
• 'complicated' (composition: complexity) and 
• 'shallow' (valuation).

Confusing Orientation Distinctions With Judgement Distinctions

Martin & Rose (2007: 68-9):

The kinds of judgement speakers take up is very sensitive to their institutional position. For example only journalists with responsibility for writing editorials and other comment have a full range of judgmental resources at their disposal; reporters writing hard news that is meant to sound objective have to avoid explicit judgements completely (Iedema et al 1994; Martin and White 2005). The distinction between social esteem and social sanction in other words has important implications for the subjective or objective flavour of an appraiser's stance.

Blogger Comments:

This simply confuses two distinct dimensions of orientation:

• subjective vs objective, and
• explicit vs implicit

with the judgement distinction between social esteem and social sanction.

To be clear, none of the following three oppositions between social esteem and social sanction enacts the distinction between subjective and objective orientation:

• Trump is stupid (social esteem) vs Trump is dishonest (social sanction)
• I think Trump is stupid (social esteem) vs I think Trump is dishonest (social sanction)
• It is widely acknowledged that Trump is stupid (social esteem) vs It is widely acknowledged that Trump is dishonest (social sanction).