Misrepresenting Hasan's Model Of Generic Structure Potential

Martin & Rose (2007: 309):

Another perspective on the relationship between register and generic structure is proposed by Hasan and her colleagues, who model it on the ‘axial’ relationship between system and structure. In this model, obligatory elements of genre structure appear to be determined by field, and the presence of optional ones by tenor and mode. The question of relationships among genres is thus a question of the field, tenor and mode selections that genres do and do not share. 

This contrasts with the model developed by Martin (1992), where choices among genres form a system above and beyond field, tenor and mode networks at the level of register. 

Because field, tenor and mode remain relatively underspecified theoretical constructs in SFL, it is difficult to evaluate the relative strengths and weaknesses of these modelling strategies (inter-stratal vs axial realisation) at this stage. 

Martin’s model has certainly been influenced by our work in educational linguistics where mapping relationships among genres across disciplines has been a central concern (Martin 2001a, 2002a, b; Martin and Plum 1997). For further discussion see Matth[ie]ssen (1993), Martin (1999c, 2001d), Hasan (1995, 1999), Martin and Rose (2005, 2007).

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is misleading. Hasan's model of Generic Structure Potential (1985/9) is an unacknowledged source of Martin's model (1992). Without Hasan's prior work, Martin would have no model.

[2] This is misleading, because it misrepresents Hasan. Hasan's model is concerned with the relation between cultural context and semantics. More specifically, it proposes that potential semantic structures vary according to the contextual configurations of field, tenor and mode features that a genre (text type) realises.

[3] This is misleading, because it repeats the misunderstanding previously expressed in Martin (1992). Hasan does not relate the obligatoriness of elements to the metafunctional dimensions of context. For Hasan (1985/9: 62), the obligatory elements of text structure are the elements that define the genre (text type):

So, by implication, the obligatory elements define the genre to which a text belongs;

[4] To be clear, this only presents a contextual perspective on how genres (text types) are related in SFL Theory. From the perspective of language, text types (genres) are related to each other by the relative frequencies of selected semantic and lexicogrammatical features.

[5] For a detailed examination of the model of genre in Martin (1992), see the posts here.

[6] To be clear, the authors' genre system, which is not provided anywhere in this publication or Martin (1992), is a simple taxonomy of genre classifications — narrative, anecdote etc. — rather than a system network of conjunct and disjunct features that specify different genres. Moreover, on this model, genre choices are realised by field, tenor and mode choices, where, as previously demonstrated, field is confused with ideational semantics, and tenor is confused with social structure.

[7] To be clear, in SFL Theory, field, tenor and mode are specified as the metafunctional dimensions of the culture as a semiotic system. However, the degree of specification of these terms is not criterial in assessing the relative strengths of Hasan's model — properly understood — and Martin's model. Hasan's model is (largely) consistent with SFL Theory, whereas Martin's model is neither consistent with SFL Theory nor consistent with itself, as demonstrated in previous posts. Internal consistencies include modelling varieties of language (genre, register) as context, as opposed to language, and yet claiming that instances of context are instances of language (texts).

[8] To be clear, the work that Martin & Rose have done in educational linguistics is not evidence of the theoretical validity of Martin's model.

Problems With The Authors' Negotiation System Network

Martin & Rose (2007: 252-3):

Above SPEECH FUNCTION, in the discourse semantics, we have the system of NEGOTIATION, which sequences moves. The basic system allows for exchanges consisting of between one and five moves, as outlined in Figure 7.6. 

In addition there are tracking and challenging options which have not been included in the network. Either can increase the number of moves an exchange works through before establishing its obligatory K1 or A1 move; and in many cases challenges abort an exchange completely by refusing to comply and perhaps leading the negotiation off in another direction (by initiating a new exchange).

The different roles of dKl, K2, K1, K2f, K1f, dA1, A2, A1, A2f, A1f and tracking or challenging moves can be shown in analysis by modelling the former as constituency to the left of the move labels, and the latter as dependency to the right:

 

 

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, for the system of NEGOTIATION to be above the system of SPEECH FUNCTION on Martin's stratum of discourse semantics, there needs to be a scale on which these two systems can be ranked as higher or lower. Martin & Rose have not proposed any such rank scale here.

[2] To be clear, the network does not specify the sequence of moves — it merely specifies which moves can be selected; but see [3] below.

[3] This is misleading, because it is not true. The network specifies either:

• an anticipatory primary initiation OR
• a nuclear primary initiation OR
• a secondary initiation

and, in the case of action, either immediate or prospective compliance. That is, these two systems  of the network specify two — and only 2 — moves.

The third system is incoherent, because it misconstrues the presence or absence of a primary follow up move as more delicate options of secondary follow up move. That is, it confuses paradigmatic delicacy with syntagmatic sequence.

See also the clarifying critique of the first appearance of this network, Figure 7.2, here.

[4] To be clear, the failure to include these tracking and challenging options in the network is a serious shortcoming of the NEGOTIATION system, since, in SFL Theory, it is the system that specifies structures.

Serial Expansion Of Discourse

Martin & Rose (2007: 199-201):

Serial expansion is more of a chaining strategy than is periodicity, in the sense that discourse is added on to what went before without being predicted by a higher level Theme. Tutu, for example, begins his Chapter What about justice? with the issue he is arguing about…

But instead of tackling this right away as he does in the argument proper, he takes a moment to develop some background information about the Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act which he feels he needs before he starts arguing. So before we get to the exposition, we have a report outlining the conditions for gaining amnesty…

Then, having built up this common ground, he restates the issue and moves into his exposition. Tutu’s transition from issue to report and from report to exposition is not scaffolded with higher level Themes, nor distilled in higher level News. He does not actually tell us before the report that he has to build some background first before discussing the issue; nor does he sum up at the end of the report what it is we needed to know. At both points he just moves on, expanding the issue with the report and then expanding the report with an exposition.

This is a serial movement from one moment in the discourse to another. We are simply expected to follow along, without the careful scaffolding of phases we get once his exposition is underway. And following his exposition the chapter expands along similar lines (some serial expansion, some hierarchy of periodicity), a kind of tandem act during which we’re sometimes warned where we’re going and reminded where we’ve been, and other times we just keep reading and find out as we go.

The important point here is that both serial expansion and hierarchy of periodicity are dynamic resources through which a text unfolds as a process. The meanings don’t emerge by crystallising. A text isn’t like an image downloading from the web, taking on detail and shape and focus here and there before our very eyes. Rather meanings flow, as texts unfold. The text materialises through time, however thing-like our written records of this dynamic misrepresent a text to be.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, as previously explained, what Martin & Rose regard as a higher level Theme predicting what follows is actually the latter elaborating the former — elaboration being one sub-type of expansion. This confusion of textual status (thematicity) with textual transition (conjunction) is here being expanded to include conjunctive relations other than elaboration, which the authors term serial expansion. This is also inconsistent with the authors' own model, where cohesive conjunction (textual metafunction) is rebranded as a logical discourse semantic system.

[2] To be clear, this is self-contradiction. On the authors' own model, if Tutu restates the issue and then presents its exposition, this is the same relation of elaboration (exposition) that the authors ascribe to a higher level Theme "predicting" what follows.

[3] To be clear, the expansion relations in serial expansion and periodicity are cohesive relations along the syntagmatic axis, whereas the choices of Theme and New form patterns of instantiation during logogenesis, the unfolding of text. In other words, here Martin & Rose confuse the unfolding of text (logogenesis through instantiation) with non-structural relations along the syntagmatic axis.

[4] To be clear, in SFL Theory, the unfolding of text is logogenesis, and the materialisation of text is instantiation: the process of instantiating potential as actual.

Misrepresenting Misunderstandings Of Lexicogrammar As Discourse Semantics

Martin & Rose (2007: 75):

So fields of experience consist of sequences of activities involving people, things, places and qualities. These activities are realised by clauses and their elements. We are concerned in this chapter with lexical relations between these elements, within and beyond the clause. Our goal is to outline the patterns of lexical relations that can combine to construe a field.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This misunderstands the relation between field and (activity) sequences as one of composition ('consist of') — logically, a relation of extension.  

Firstly, in SFL theory, field is the ideational dimension of context, and a sequence is a phenomenon in the ideational dimension of semantics.  The relation between them is realisation — intensive identification — logically, a relation of elaboration between two different levels of symbolic abstraction.

Secondly, in terms of the misunderstandings of SFL theory in English Text (Martin (1992), where field is a dimension of register, misunderstood as context, and where activity sequences are misunderstood as structures of field (pp293-4), this misrepresents the relation between the metafunction and one of its structures as one of composition.

Thirdly, in its own terms, where, inconsistent with Martin (1992), it locates activity sequences in discourse semantics, rather than context, misunderstood as register, it misunderstands the stratal relation between field and activity sequence as one of composition (extension) instead of realisation (elaboration between different levels of symbolic abstraction).

[2] This again reduces all processes to activities, reduces all participants to people and things — neither of which is defined in terms of a relation with a process — and reduces all circumstances to places and qualities.

[3] To be clear, this confuses two distinct dimensions of realisation:

• stratal: activity (figure) realised by clause
• axial: system realised by (elements) of structure.

[4] This confuses strata.  In purporting to provide a model of discourse semantics, the concern of the chapter is with lexical relations (lexicogrammar) between elements within and beyond the clause (lexicogrammar).

[5] It will be seen, in the course of this chapter review, these 'lexical relations' that 'construe a field' are a confusion of lexical cohesion (textual lexicogrammar) and logical relations between grammatical functions and forms.  It will also be seen that (instantiation) patterns are confused with syntagmatic relations.

Misconstruing Logogenetic Patterns Of Instantiation As Prosodic Structure

Martin & Rose (2007: 59-60):

Appraisal resources are used to establish the tone or mood of a passage of discourse, as choices resonate with one another from one moment to another as a text unfolds. The pattern of choices is thus ‘prosodic’. They form a prosody of attitude running through the text that swells and diminishes, in the manner of a musical prosody. The prosodic pattern of appraisal choices constructs the ‘stance’ or ‘voice’ of the appraiser, and this stance or voice defines the kind of community that is being set up around shared values.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is potentially misleading.  To be clear, the use of the terms 'tone' and 'mood' by Martin & Rose here is quite distinct from the technical terms 'tone' and 'mood' in SFL theory.  Theoretically, tone is an interpersonal system at the rank of tone group on the stratum of phonology, and mood is an interpersonal system at the rank of clause on the stratum of lexicogrammar.  Choices in the system of mood are realised in choices in the system of tone.  Martin & Rose have not theorised how choices in the system of appraisal (semantics) are realised in the realisation of mood (grammar) in tone (phonology).

[2] Here Martin & Rose confuse logogenetic patterns of instantiation ('patterns of choices') with a type of structure ('prosodic').  The confusion is primarily one of axis: paradigmatic choices are confused with syntagmatic structure.

[3] Here Martin & Rose confuse the prosodic structure type favoured by the interpersonal metafunction with the culminative structure type ('swells and diminishes') favoured by the textual metafunction; see Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 84-5).  The confusion of structure type is thus one of metafunction.

[4] Here Martin & Rose employ the logical fallacy known as false analogy, as demonstrated by the meaning of the term 'musical prosody':

In music, prosody is the way the composer sets the text of a vocal composition in the assignment of syllables to notes in the melody to which the text is sung, or to set the music with regard to the ambiance of the lyrics. For example, a songwriter might align downbeats or accents with stressed syllables or important words, or create musical accompaniment to the metre of the lyrics. Also, prosody can mean how the music supports the connotation, or emotive nature, of a song.