Showing posts with label chapter 8. Show all posts
Showing posts with label chapter 8. Show all posts

Tuesday, 29 December 2020

Misconstruing External Conjunction As Internal

Martin & Rose (2007: 263-4):
In contrast, the Cost of Courage report is organised around the people that struggled against apartheid, who are identified at the beginning of each paragraph, from the policy of apartheid to the comrades in the struggle, to I (Mandela), to we, to every man:
The last paragraph then begins In that way… to culminate Mandela’s explanation of the price his family paid for his commitment to the struggle:
The global scaffolding resource operating here is identification — initially of people, and finally text reference in a circumstance of manner. Expressions of this kind are closely related to internal conjunction in their global text orchestrating function, as we could see by substituting the manner conjunction thus for in that way.


Blogger Comments:

[1] Clearly, the policy of apartheid does not denote the people who struggled against apartheid.

[2] To be clear, this is identification in the sense of ideational denotation, which, as previously demonstrated, Martin confuses with textual reference and interpersonal deixis in his model of textual discourse semantics.

[3] To be clear, in that way serves as a cohesive conjunction of manner: means, like thus, not as a circumstance of manner.

[4] To be clear, the conjunctive relation here — whether expressed by in that way or thus — is external, not internal. This is because the relation obtains within text in its ideational guise (external), between 'chunks of experience', rather than within text in its interpersonal guise (internal), between 'chunks of interaction' (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 611).

That is, Martin & Rose, like Martin (1992), confuse expansion relations that are internal to the text as speech event — whether structurally between clauses or cohesively between messages — with expansion relations that function cohesively ("their global text orchestrating function").

Sunday, 27 December 2020

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.


[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.

Thursday, 24 December 2020

The Notion That Text Phases Are Sensitive To Genre And Field

Martin & Rose (2007: 262):
As we introduced in Chapter 1, text phases are sensitive to both genre and field: while the stages of a genre unfold in a highly predictable sequence, the phases within each stage are partly predictable from the genre, and partly from its construal of a particular field of activities and entities. Stories, for example, unfold through phases such as settings, problems, people’s reactions, descriptions, solutions to problems, author’s comments and participants’ reflections on the significance of the events. Orators and authors use such phases in highly variable combinations, as the basic building blocks of stories, as we saw for Helena’s story. The phases of recounts are often a series of episodes, and in biographical recounts these episodes correspond to the person’s life stages. In argument genres, phases may include grounds and conclusions, as we saw for Tutu’s exposition, as well as evidence, examples and so on. In the Act we found phases such as purposes, motivations, provisions and definitions. In reports, each phase will tend to describe an element or aspect of the phenomenon under focus. These may include phases such as appearance, behaviour, location, types, parts and so on, depending on the particular type of report and its particular field. We have not attempted an exhaustive study of phase types in this book, as genres are not our primary focus (but see Martin and Rose 20076, and Rose 20076 for discussion of phases in various genres). It is an area of considerable variation that is wide open to further research; the tools we present here will help the analyst to develop this research.


Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, as previously demonstrated, from the perspective of SFL Theory, the authors' 'genre' — misunderstood as a stratum of context — refers to text types that vary in their ideational semantic structures (stages), while the authors' 'field' is ideational semantics, misunderstood as context, misunderstood as register. Phases, on this model, are ideational subcomponents of stages; see [2].

In claiming that text phases vary according to genre and field, what Martin & Rose are actually saying is that the ideational subcomponents of stages vary according to the ideational stages and the ideational meaning of the text type.

[2] As can be seen from this inventory of text phases, all are ideationally defined units, which locates them theoretically within ideational semantics.

[3] To be clear, as demonstrated above and previously, developing this research is not developing research that is consistent with SFL Theory, the theory in which it is purported to be located.

Tuesday, 22 December 2020

Problems With The Notion That Field Unfolds Through Genre

Martin & Rose (2007: 261-2):
Having established the genres we are working with, our next step in analysis is to interpret how the field unfolds through each genre. One reason we start with the field is that the steps in which it unfolds are readily accessible to conscious reflection. This can be illustrated by asking people to retell a text they have heard or read; they will rarely repeat its language features, but will typically summarise its sequence of phases. As analysts, the things we are interested in include the ideational language resources that construe the unfolding field, the interpersonal resources which evaluate it from phase to phase, and the textual resources that present each phase as a pulse of information. First identifying phases from the perspective of genre and field can provide a useful scaffold for us to identify other less obvious discourse patterns.


Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, in terms of SFL Theory, there are two serious misunderstandings here.  Firstly, it is a text that unfolds, not a text type (genre). This is because the unfolding of text, logogenesis, occurs at the instance pole of the cline of instantiation (text), not at a point of variation halfway up the cline (text type/genre).

Secondly, 'field' refers to the ideational dimension of context, the culture as semiotic system, not to the ideational dimension of language. It is the ideational dimension of language that unfolds through the instantiation of text, not the ideational dimension of context, since text is an instance of language, not context. In short, the authors here confuse ideational semantics with ideational culture (field). For evidence that Martin (1992) routinely misunderstands the SFL notion of field, see the clarifying critiques here.

In terms of the authors' own model, the claim is that the ideational dimension of register, field, unfolds at a level of symbolic abstraction (stratum) above register, genre. This is analogous to claiming that a metafunctional dimension of phonology unfolds through lexicogrammar. That is, Martin & Rose confuse a stratal relation (between genre and register) with logogenesis (unfolding of text).

[2] As this demonstrates, what Martin & Rose regard as 'field' is actually the ideational meaning of language itself.

[3] There are multiple confused misunderstandings here. Firstly, as a dimension of context, field is construed by all of language, not just by its ideational resources. This is because 'construal', in SFL Theory, means the assignment of an intensive identifying relation between two levels of symbolic abstraction — in this case: between the semantics and context — irrespective of metafunction. For example, the field of science is construed by propositions, interpersonal meaning, whose validity is contested by scientists.

Secondly, the interpersonal resources of language do not evaluate field, because language and field are different levels of symbolic abstraction (strata). An analogous claim would be that interpersonal phonology (lower stratum) evaluates ideational grammar (higher stratum).

[4] To be clear, the reason why Martin & Rose suggest identifying phases from the perspective of genre and field, is that, in terms of SFL Theory

  • their phases are ideational semantic units,
  • their genres are identified by ideational semantic units (stages),
  • their field is ideational semantics misconstrued as field (their register).

Sunday, 20 December 2020

Why Martin's 'Macro-Genre' Is Inconsistent With Both His Own Model And SFL Theory

 Martin & Rose (2007: 261, 262):

Technically then Chapter 115 is a macro-genre, comprising three genres — a recount extended by a report, extended in turn by another recount. Within this overall structure, the first recount projects a pledge by quoting Mandela’s inauguration speech, which is marked in the formatting by indenting. So within macro-genres (such as books and chapters), genres are interdependent — extending, elaborating or projecting each other, as illustrated in Figure 8.1.


Blogger Comment:

[1] To be clear, the authors' claim here is that a text (Chapter 115) comprises three genres (text types). This is inconsistent with both Martin's model and SFL Theory.

With regard to Martin's model, it is inconsistent in terms of strata, since it proposes that a unit of the stratum of discourse semantics (text) is composed of categories of a stratum that is two levels of symbolic abstraction above discourse semantics and outside language (genre). This is analogous to proposing that a tone group (phonology) is composed of discourse semantic categories, since discourse semantics is two levels of symbolic abstraction above phonology.

With regard to SFL Theory, the inconsistency lies in misconstruing a type of text (genre) as a constituent of a text. A text type is a point of variation on the cline of instantiation, whereas a constituent of a text is a unit on the stratum of semantics.

[2] To be clear, the general logico-semantic relations of elaboration, extension (and enhancement) and projection do not feature in Martin's logical system of discourse semantics, conjunction, because his model is his rebranding of cohesive conjunction (Halliday & Hasan 1976), in which projection does not feature as a conjunctive relation, and the general types of expansion had not yet been formulated.

Friday, 18 December 2020

The Global Purpose Of A Genre

Martin & Rose (2007: 261, 345):
Crucially all texts have more than one purpose, and for this reason they will include elements that we would expect to find in other genres. But all texts also have a global defining purpose, and it is this global purpose that predicts the stages the text will go through to achieve this goal, i.e. its genre. Its additional purposes are realised below the level of generic stages, in the variable phases of meaning within each stage, and within the messages that make up each phase. Identifying the genre of a text sometimes involves some shunting up and down, from identifying its global purpose, to analysing its stages and phases, and back up again to its purpose. As with other features of language, a first glance is often not sufficient to identify a genre. A useful guide is the table of genres, their purposes and stages, presented as an Appendix to this book.


Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, in SFL Theory, text types (genres) differ by their patterns of instantiation; that is by different frequencies of feature selection in semantic and grammatical systems. Systemic Functional Linguistics gives priority to system over structure.

[2] This is the opposite of what is true. As Martin & Rose have just demonstrated — see the previous post — they use their stages of a text to identify ("predict") the genre of a text, and thus its global purpose. As Appendix A (above) demonstrates, the 'purpose' of a text is just a gloss of its genre classification. In SFL Theory, the purpose of a text is modelled as a dimension of mode. Halliday (2002 [1981]: 225):

Halliday has suggested (1975) that the “textual” properties of a text – the cohesive patterns and those of ‘functional sentence perspective’ – tend to be determined by the “mode”, the function ascribed to the text in the given context of situation, the purpose it is intended to achieve.

[3] To be clear, here Martin & Rose propose a 'generic' compositional scale of

  • stage
  • phase, and
  • message.
Now, although these are clearly semantic units of language defined ideationally, Martin & Rose incongruously locate them two levels of symbolic abstraction above semantics, on their stratum of genre, which they define as context, not language.

On terminology, in Martin (1992: 325), 'message' is proposed as the unit for his logical discourse semantics, whereas in SFL Theory, 'message' refers to the textual semantic counterpart of the clause (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 88, 212).

[4] To be clear, there is no shunting between levels here. On the authors' own description, in order to identify the global purpose of a text (a gloss of its genre classification), it is necessary to analyse its stages; see [2] above.

Tuesday, 15 December 2020

Two Reasons Why Martin's Model Of Genre Is Inconsistent With SFL Theory

Martin & Rose (2007: 260-1):
We can be confident that these are the genres we are looking at by asking a few probing questions. 
First is the global structure one of activities unfolding in time, or of phenomena described out of time? This criterion distinguishes the first and third sections, which are sequenced in time, from the second section, which describes and reflects on the struggle and its protagonists, but is not sequenced in time. 
Secondly, is the sequence of activities about specific people and events or about generic participants? This distinguishes stories from explanations and histories in the natural and social sciences. 
Thirdly is the story structured around a major disruption to the course of events or does it simply recount a series of events? This distinguishes narratives, anecdotes and exemplums (which involve a significant disruption) from recounts (whose series of events may or may not be problematic). 
And finally is it a recount of events in an episode of experience, as in the first recount, or of stages in a person’s life, as in the last? These and other generic criteria are discussed in detail in Martin and Rose (20076).


Blogger Comments:

As these generic criteria demonstrate, Martin & Rose classify genres (text types) according to their ideational semantic structure. That is, the authors classify text types in terms of just one metafunction, the ideational, and by taking the view 'from below': structural realisation.

This is seriously inconsistent with SFL Theory on two counts. Firstly, the authors ignore the other two metafunctions, the interpersonal and textual, and secondly, the perspective taken in SFL Theory is 'from above': that is, in terms of what is being expressed, not in terms of the expression.

In SFL Theory, therefore, in terms of stratification, different text types (genres) realise different combinations of contextual features of field, tenor and mode (Hasan's 'contextual configurations'), and it is these contextual differences that account for the different patterns of instantiation, of linguistic systems, that distinguish one text type from another.

Sunday, 13 December 2020

Misconstruing Genres As Units Of Discourse Structure

Martin & Rose (2007: 260):
The formatting of the chapter thus gives us three main units of discourse to work with (although we need to keep in mind that formatting reflects but does not determine discourse structure). Generically speaking, Inauguration Day is a recount, a genre that chronicles an episode of experience, Cost of Courage is a report, a genre for making generalised descriptions, and Meaning of Freedom is an autobiographical recount, a genre for chronicling the significant stages of the author’s life.


Blogger Comments:

To be clear, here Martin & Rose claim that a text consists of genres (text types). In terms of SFL Theory, this confuses the semantic structure of a text ("units of discourse structure") with a point of variation on the cline of instantiation (text type).

In terms of the authors' own model, it posits categories of a contextual stratum outside language, genre, as structural units of the discourse semantic stratum within language — a stratum which is, moreover, two levels of symbolic abstraction below the genre stratum. The authors' model of stratification is given in Figure 9.2 (p309):

Friday, 11 December 2020

Martin's Register, Genre And Ideology

Martin & Rose (2007: 256):
In theoretical terms what we are saying is that register, genre and ideology all matter. …
From the angle of field, we want to analyse texts whose subject matter interests us, or at least is relevant to the topic we are studying or researching; from tenor, we are interested in how speakers in oral interactions negotiate their relationships, and in how written texts engage their readers, or position us to accept their authors’ point of view; and from mode we are interested in the interplay between spoken and written ways of meaning, and in their relation to other modalities of communication (e.g. image, sound, activity).
The concept of genre then gives us the kind of handle on discourse that the clause gives us for grammara genre is a recurrent configuration of meaning that matters in the culture, just as a clause is the recurrent configuration of meaning that matters for discourse. 
And from an ideological perspective there’s no point in analysing something that isn’t compelling, because analysis is a considerable investment in time and mental labour, so it has to be worth our while. 
It’s for these reasons that we have based this book on a field that fascinates us and is surely one of the key topics of our time, the overthrow of the world’s last regime of constitutional racism.

 

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, register, genre and ideology are interpreted by Martin (1992) as three strata of cultural context, despite the fact that registers and genres are two perspectives on functional varieties of language: language as subpotential variation vs language as instance type variation. Martin has since jettisoned his stratum ideology from his model of context. For clarifying critiques of Martin's model, see:
  • the 82 posts here on register, 
  • the 67 posts here on genre, 
  • the 15 posts here on ideology, and
  • the 172 posts here on context.

[2] To be clear, in SFL Theory, field, tenor and mode are the metafunctional dimensions of context, not language. Martin (1992) misunderstands these as metafunctional dimensions of register, a functional variety of language, which he misunderstands as a stratal system of context. Moreover, Martin routinely confuses contextual field with ideational semantics; see, for example:

[3] To be clear, this is a false analogy, since a genre is a type of discourse (text), whereas a clause is not a type of grammar, but a constituent of grammar: a rank scale unit that serves as an entry condition to grammatical systems.

[4] To be clear, in SFL Theory, a text type (genre) is a pattern of instantiation that is shared across texts. The extent to which a genre (text type) "matters" in a culture might be gauged by the frequency of its instantiation.

[5] Trivially, the use of the word 'compelling' here might be seen as a Freudian slip, given that 'compel' means to force or oblige someone to do something, and that the language that realises ideology is the language of obligation and inclination — i.e. of desired proposals.

[6] To be clear, the effect of 'basing this book' on such texts is to have the reader associate the authors with the people who are actually involved in the struggle for social justice. This, in turn, has the effect of positioning a critic of their theorising as an enemy of social justice.

[7] This will come as a surprise to all the ethnic communities who are still systematically discriminated against by their national governments.