Confusing Reading Pedagogy With Linguistic Theory

Martin & Rose (2007: 249):

In pedagogic terms what we are looking at here is scaffolding which has been carefully designed to ensure teachers support students as they move into academic discourse of this order. From the point of view of exchange structure what we are looking at is exchange complexing. Each exchange is designed to realise the goals of its Prepare, Focus, Identify, Highlight or Extend phase; and they are sequenced in relation to one another according to the Detailed Reading Cycle just outlined (see Figure 7.3).

Not all registers of dialogue have exchange complexing of this kind. But as a rule of thumb we can expect that the more institutionalised the discourse, the more likely it is to display exchange routines of this order. In some contexts these routines may be so conventionalised that we treat them as stages of a genre — as with Ventolas work on service encounters for example (or Sinclair and Coulthard’s 1975 work on classroom discourse for that matter).

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, the only registers of language "likely to display exchange routines of this order" are those that realise educational contexts in which this pedagogy is deployed.

A Problem With The Argument For A 'Move Complex'

Martin & Rose (2007: 244-5):

To begin, David prepares the class to read the first sentence by telling them what it means, paraphrasing it in terms they can all understand, and then reads it to them. He then prepares the students to identify one element of the sentence, its initial temporal circumstance, by giving them its transitivity category ‘when’ and telling them exactly where to find it (‘that sentence starts by telling us… '). The logical relation between the sentence and the two preparations is elaboration (Halliday and Matthiessen 2004). Following Ventola (1987) we can treat this semantic triplet as a move complex, filling a single slot in exchange structure — two statements in other words functioning together as a K1 move. We'll highlight these move complexes by putting '=’ as a superscript before elaborating moves, and using dependency lines on the left, to group them with one another:

Blogger Comments:

[1] Trivially, 'when' is not a transitivity category; 'temporal circumstance' is its transitivity function.

[2] To be clear, the logico-semantic relation of elaboration does not feature in Martin's logical semantics, because his system of CONJUNCTION is a rebranding of Halliday & Hasan's cohesive conjunction (textual grammar) as logical discourse semantics, and Halliday & Hasan (1976) did not yet use the general expansion systems of elaboration, extension and enhancement.

Moreover, the logical relation between "the sentence and its two preparations" is not elaboration. In the first move by the teacher, he projects a clause complex that is a more congruent rendering of the metaphorical clause in his second move. It is the projected more congruent clause complex that can be said to be an elaboration of the (unprojected) metaphorical clause.

In the third move by the teacher, he projects a clause (when they were rebelling) that encodes the function of the temporal circumstance of the second move (In the mid-1980s). Again, the relation between the two is a type of elaboration (intensive identity), but there is no elaborating relation between the two sentences.

These distinction are important because the notion of a move complex depends on there being a logico-semantic relation between the sentences as moves, which is not the case here.

Problems With The Exchange Structure NEGOTIATION System

Martin & Rose (2007: 240):

Expressed as a network of choices, we have a resource with three intersecting systems. One system is concerned with how the exchange is initiated — by the primary actor/knower or the secondary one, and if by the primary actor/knower whether the nuclear Al/Kl move is anticipated or directly enacted. Another system distinguishes between action and knowledge exchanges, and for action exchanges allows for negotiations in which goods can be proffered or services enacted immediately (in which case verbalising the A1 move is optional, and in a sense redundant) and negotiations in which some time will pass before the goods are proffered or the service enacted (in which case verbalising the A1 move as a promise is obligatory, and actually acting to fulfil the promise may not eventuate). Finally there is a system allowing for follow-up moves, first for the secondary actor/knower, and then, if they do make a move, for the primary actor/knower. These options are set out in Figure 7.2.

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, this system is inconsistent with the preceding exposition of exchange structure. For example, it presents the obligatory nuclear move (A1/K1) only as a potential option — though not even an option if the exchange is initiated by the secondary knower/actor. 

Moreover, the system does not allow exchanges that include both an optional anticipatory move and an obligatory nuclear move, since only one option can be chosen.

These shortcomings are partially masked by the inclusion of structure types, after the systemic features, none of which are valid realisations of the system selections.

Even more problematically, the network unintentionally (and incongruously) allows exchange structures of just a single move, which is optional, not obligatory, such as:

• dK1 [anticipate, knowledge, no follow up], and
• K2 [secondary, knowledge, no follow up].

The Problem With The Obligatory/Optional Move Distinction

Martin & Rose (2007: 239-40):

To complete the picture we can now allow for the possibility of follow-up moves by the secondary actor or knower (with 'f' standing for ‘follow up’):

And if they do follow up, then there is the possibility of a further follow-up move by the primary actor or knower:

We can sum up the various possibilities reviewed here using parentheses for optional moves. The structure potential for action exchanges is thus:

((dA1) ^ A2) ^ A1 ^ (A2f ^ (A2f))

And for information exchanges, we find the same possibilities:

((dK1) ^ K2) ^ K1 ^ (K2f ^ (K2f))

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, on this model, the only obligatory move in the exchange between the waitress and Hendrik is said to be her A1 move Yes. All the other moves, including her offer Wine? and his metaphorical command Could I have a bottle of your best dry red? — which elicits her "obligatory" move — are mere optional extras.

Similarly, the only obligatory move in the exchange between Sannie and Llewelyn is said to be her K1 move Coetzee. All other moves, including her metaphorical command You'll never guess who's here and his question Who? — which elicits her "obligatory" move — are mere optional extras.

[2] Logically, these should read (dA1 ^) and (dK1 ^), not (dA1) ^ and (dK1) ^.

[3] Logically, these should read (^ A1f) and (^ K1f), not ^ (A2f) and ^ (K2f).

Problems With Analyses Using Anticipatory Moves (dA1 & dK1)

Martin & Rose (2007: 238):

A third possibility is for exchanges to be initiated by primary actors and knowers who anticipate proffering goods or performing a service by offering first to do so, or anticipate professing information by first alerting their addressee that it is coming. These anticipatory moves in a sense delay the exchange of goods-and-services and information, and so are referred to by Berry as dA1 and dK1 moves (with ‘d’ standing for ‘delay’):

These dK1^K2^K1 sequences can be used in conversation to re-affirm a proposition that needs to be foregrounded, for example as part of an argument amongst Daniel’s comrades about who betrayed him to the authorities.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, in terms of SFL Theory, the exchange between the waitress and Hendrik involves two speech functions, offer and command, with the response to the offer ellipsed. A more congruent rendering of the exchange would be:

• Can I get you some wine? (Offer)
• Yes. (response: acceptance)
• Please bring a bottle of your best dry red. (Command)
• I will. (response: undertaking)

Similarly, the exchange between Sannie and Llewelyn also involves two speech functions, command and question, with the response to the command ellipsed. A more congruent rendering of the exchange would be:

• Guess who's here. (Command)
• Okay. (response: undertaking)
• Who's here? (Question)
• Coetzee is here. (response: answer)

Importantly, contrary to the authors' analysis, with the metaphor unpacked, the first move involves goods-&-services ('A'), not information ('K').

See Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 137).

[2] To be clear, the exchange between Luke and Zako involves a rhetorical question: a question asked in order to create a dramatic effect or to make a point rather than to get an answer.

Problems With Obligatory Moves And With Primary vs Secondary Actor/Knowers

Martin & Rose (2007: 237-8):

We can interpret what is going on here as follows, drawing on work by Ventola (1987), who was in turn building on work by Berry (e.g. 1981). Minimally speaking, exchanges consist of one obligatory move. When negotiating goods-and-services, this is the move that proffers the goods or performs the service; when negotiating information, this is the move that authoritatively establishes the facts of the matter.

Berry refers to goods-and-services negotiations as action exchanges, and information exchanges as knowledge ones. And she refers to the person responsible for proffering goods or performing a service as the primary actor, and the person who has the authority to adjudicate information as the primary knower. On this basis, the waitress’s move below is nuclear A1 move, and Sannie’s is Kl:

Berry refers to the dialogue partner for primary actors as a secondary actor, who is the person who receives the goods or has the service performed for them; the secondary knower is the person who receives the information professed by the primary knower. Where exchanges are initiated by the secondary actor (requesting goods-and-services) or the secondary knower (requesting information), we find canonical two-part exchanges like the following:

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, in the exchange of goods-&-services, the move that "proffers the goods" or "performs the service" is not the obligatory move, since these can be omitted in an exchange. These moves are responses to commands or offers, and responses are not obligatory. If there is an obligatory move in an exchange, it is the move that brings it into being, the initiating move.

[2] To be clear, this confuses semantics with context. Relations between interlocutors — primary vs secondary actor or knower — are a matter of tenor, the interpersonal dimension of context, the culture as a semiotic system. The moves they enact in an exchange are units in the interpersonal dimension of semantics, the language as a semiotic system.