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)

Confusing Graduation With Attitude

Martin & Rose (2007: 65):

(4) How are the feelings graded: towards the lower valued end of a scale of intensity, towards the higher valued end or somewhere in between? We don’t wish at this stage to imply that low, median and high are discrete values (as with modality, cf. Halliday 1994: 358-9), but expect that most emotions offer lexicalisations that grade along an evenly-clined scale.

low             the boy liked the present
'median'      the boy loved the present
high            the boy adored the present

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, this scale is concerned with GRADUATION, a system that is distinct from — parallel with — the system of ATTITUDE.  Here Martin & Rose present it as the fourth means of classifying affect (ATTITUDE).

Presenting Experiential Construals As Interpersonal Assessment

Martin & Rose (2007: 46-7):

As well as things, we can also sharpen or soften types of qualities, such as deep blue or bluish. Even categorical concepts like numbers can be pushed around in this way:

After about three years with the special forces

vs

After exactly three years with the special forces

Here’s another example of sharpened focus from Helena’s story:

was what we saw with our own eyes

Here own sharpens the category ‘our eyes’, i.e. ‘ours and no-one else’s’ - it’s definitely not hearsay. And here’s an example of softened focus:

not quite my first love

Tutu also sharpens focus a couple of times in his exposition, in order to be precise:

the very first time

precisely this point

Blogger Comments:

[1] This continues the previous confusion between interpersonal and experiential meaning. Again, if graduation is a system of appraisal, then 'focus' is concerned with the sharpening or softening of the attitudinal assessment that enacts intersubjective relations as interpersonal meaning.

[2] The distinction between about three years and exactly three years is not a distinction between grades of attitudinal appraisal.  That is, it is not a distinction between grades of interpersonal assessment in terms of affect (emotional), appreciation (e.g. æsthetic) or judgement (e.g. ethical).

[3] The co-text of this excerpt demonstrates that it is not an interpersonal assessment in terms of affect (emotional), appreciation (e.g. æsthetic) or judgement (e.g. ethical):

And all that we as loved ones knew...was what we saw with our own eyes.

[4] Moreover, this is a elementary misreading of the text:

Then he says: He and three of our friends have been promoted. 'We're moving to a special unit. Now, now my darling. We are real policemen now.' We were ecstatic. We even celebrated. He and his friends would visit regularly. They even stayed over for long periods. Suddenly, at strange times, they would become restless. Abruptly mutter the feared word 'trip' and drive off. I ... as a loved one ... knew no other life than that of worry, sleeplessness, anxiety about his safety and where they could be. We simply had to be satisfied with: 'What you don't know, can't hurt you,' And all that we as loved ones knew...was what we saw with our own eyes.

Experientially, this clause encodes the Value all that we as loved ones knew by reference to the Token all that we as loved ones knew:

and	all that we as loved ones knew	was	what we saw with our own eyes
	Identified Value	Process	Identifier Token

That is, it's not a question of "definitely not hearsay".  It's a matter of not being told what was going on — of having no other knowledge than what could be construed from perceptual experience.

[5] By way of contrast, this can indeed be interpreted as an instance of attitudinal appraisal, since it enacts an appreciation by rating one lover against another.

[6] Again, the co-texts of each of these excerpts demonstrate that neither is an interpersonal assessment in terms of affect (emotional), appreciation (e.g. æsthetic) or judgement (e.g. ethical):

Many of those in the security forces who have come forward had previously been regarded as respectable members of their communities. It was often the very first time that their communities and even sometimes their families heard that these people were, for instance, actually members of death squads or regular torturers of detainees in their custody.

Amnesty is not given to innocent people or to those who claim to be innocent. It was on precisely this point that amnesty was refused to the police officers who applied for it for their part in the death of Steve Biko.

Confusing Metafunctions: Graduation Focus

Martin & Rose (2007: 46):

Now let’s look briefly at the second dimension of graduation, focus — the sharpening and softening of experiential categories. What we’ve considered so far are resources for adjusting the volume of gradable items. By contrast, focus is about resources for making something that is inherently non-gradable gradable. For example, Helena introduces her second love as a policeman:

After my unsuccessful marriage, I met another policeman.

Experientially, this sets him up as having one kind of job rather than another (tinker, tailor, soldier, spy etc.). Classifications of this kind are categorical distinctions — he was a policeman as opposed to something else. After his promotion, however, her second love describes himself as a real policeman, as if he hadn’t quite been one before:

We are real policemen now.

This in effect turns a categorical boundary between types of professions into a graded one, allowing for various degrees of ‘policeman-hood’. It implies that when Helena met him he was less of a policeman than after his promotion:

I met a kind of policeman
I met a policeman sort of

Grading resources of this kind doesn’t so much turn the volume up and down as sharpen and soften the boundaries between things. Real policeman sharpens the focus, a sort of policeman softens it.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This blurs the distinction between interpersonal and experiential meaning.  To be clear, if graduation is a system of appraisal, then 'focus' is concerned with the sharpening or softening of the attitudinal assessment that enacts intersubjective relations as interpersonal meaning.

[2] The classification of Helena's second love as a policeman is made through cohesion, the non-structural resources of the textual metafunction.  This can be seen by looking at the realisation of "meaning beyond the clause":

After my unsuccessful marriage, I met another policeman. Not quite my first love, but an exceptional person. Very special. Once again a bubbly, charming personality.  Humorous, grumpy, everything in its time and place.

The conflated Deictic/post-Deictic another makes cataphoric comparative reference to my first love, while policeman is lexically cohesive — through instantial equivalence (Hasan 1985/9: 82) — with my first love on the one hand, and with both an exceptional person and a bubbly, charming personality, on the other.

[3] This again blurs the distinction between interpersonal and experiential meaning.  The categorisation as a 'real policeman' is made by the attributive clause We are real policeman now, which construes class membership.  This is distinct from the interpersonal assessment enacted by the attitudinal Modifier real.

[4] This continues the confusion between interpersonal and experiential meaning.  In terms of appraisal, any implication of the statement is an interpersonal assessment of 'what he was before', not an experiential construal of 'what he was before'.

[5] Trivially, the examples of 'softening of focus' do not appear in the text, despite being presented in the same manner as the two genuine instances.

Misunderstanding Metaphor

Martin & Rose (2007: 45):

We’ve already considered Helena’s metaphors in relation to affect, but we can note here that they also have an amplifying effect:

ice cold in a sweltering night
dull like the dead
blood-curdling shrieks

These metaphors tell us how cold her second love was, how dull his eyes were, and how frightening his screams were.

Blogger Comments:

Helena's text:

He's pale, ice cold in a sweltering night - sopping wet with sweat. Eyes bewildered, but dull like the dead. And the shakes. The terrible convulsions and blood-curdling shrieks of fear and pain from the bottom of his soul.

[1] This confuses figurative language in general with metaphor in particular; see below.  That is, a hyponym is mistaken for its superordinate.

[2] Trivially, as figurative language, the use of ice in ice cold is hyperbole, not metaphor.  Its agnate cold as ice is simile, not metaphor.

[3] Trivially, as figurative language, the use of like the dead in dull like the dead is simile, not metaphor.

[4] Trivially, as figurative language, the use of blood-curdling in blood-curdling shrieks is auditory imagery, not metaphor.

However, this is an instance of (ideational) grammatical metaphor, since a semantic figure whose congruent wording would be a clause such as his shrieks curdled my blood is instead incongruently worded as (part of) a nominal group.

Misunderstanding Intensification

Martin & Rose (2007: 45):

Another feature of certain genres is that grading is erased when we technicalise attitude. For example, in common sense terms gross is at the extreme of scales such as minor/unacceptable/gross or unpleasant/disturbing/gross. But once we define a gross violation of human rights then gross doesn’t scale how unacceptable or unpleasant the violation is any more. Gross simply becomes part of the name of the offence, classifying the type of offence, rather than intensifying it:

a gross violation of human rights - defined as an abduction, killing, torture or severe ill-treatment

Blogger Comment:

The absurdity of this claim can be demonstrated by comparing the technical term with the Classifier:

a gross violation of human rights 

with the term — technical or otherwise — without the Classifier:

a violation of human rights.  

Here Martin & Rose have taken the fact that Classifiers cannot be intensified, and falsely concluded that Classifiers cannot intensify.  Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 377):

Classifiers do not accept degrees of comparison or intensity – we cannot have a more electric train or a very electric train; and they tend to be organised in mutually exclusive and exhaustive sets – a train is either electric, steam or diesel. The range of semantic relations that may be embodied in a set of items functioning as Classifier is very broad; it includes material, scale and scope, purpose and function, status and rank, origin, mode of operation – more or less any feature that may serve to classify a set of things into a system of smaller sets;

In this instance, the Classifier gross ranks this type of human rights violation relative to other types.

On Attitudinal Lexis

Martin & Rose (2007: 44-5):

Here are some more examples of attitudinal lexis from Helena’s Incidents, with some suggested scales of intensity:

vivacious man     dull/placid/lively/vivacious…
pleading              ask/request/pray/beseech/plead…

Beyond this, we can also be guided by the prosody of feeling that colours a whole phase of discourse. In Helena’s narrative for example attitudinal lexis is more a feature of her Incidents than her Orientation or Interpretations. And genre is also a factor. Tutu uses less of this resource in his exposition… 

On the other hand, the Act arguably uses no attitudinal lexis at all, just as it avoids intensifiers like very.  So we can score various genres on how much amplification they are likely to display: narratives tend to amplify most, expositions less so, and administrative genres like the Act amplify very little.

Blogger Comments:

[1] Trivially, 'dull' is an antonym of 'lively' and 'vivacious'.  That is, in terms of appraisal theory, 'dull' is negative polarity, whereas 'lively' and 'vivacious' are positive.  The upscaling of a negative appraisal is another negative appraisal, not a positive appraisal; the downscaling of a positive appraisal is another positive appraisal, not a negative appraisal.

[2] As a scale of verbal Processes, this is a scale of construals of experience (ideational metafunction). Whether, as Predicators, they are used to enact intersubjective relations by appraising by means of the values of affect, appreciation or judgement is another matter.  The text in question is: Praying, pleading: 'God, what's happening?'

[3] This again mistakes lack of structure for prosodic structure.  Consider, for example, what could, by the same misunderstanding, be claimed to be the "prosody" of processes (experiential metafunction) in the above extract.

[4] This use of 'feeling' highlights a confusion that pervades this chapter: the blurring of the ideational construal of emotion with the interpersonal enactment of intersubjective relations through appraisal.

[5] Here the terms 'Incident', 'Orientation' and 'Interpretation' are identified as phases of discourse.  This is inconsistent with the theory on which this work is based (Martin 1992: 546, 558, 565-8) where such phases are located on Martin's stratum of genre, not discourse.  This is also inconsistent with Rose's claim (Sys-func 16/9/17) that phases are units on Martin's stratum of register, as recorded and critiqued here.  For reasons why neither genre nor register can be coherently modelled as either strata or context, see here (register), here (genre) and here (context).

[6] This directly contradicts the previous analysis of this text, where what were claimed to be attitudes of positive appreciation (understanding, reparation, ubuntu) and negative judgement (vengeance, retaliation, victimisation) were all realised by the choice of lexical items, rather than through choices in closed grammatical systems; see the original critique here.

[7] This remains a bare assertion until supported by empirical evidence.

On 'Better' And 'Best' As "Grammatical Items"

 Martin & Rose (2007: 44):

Next let’s examine vocabulary items that include degrees of intensity, such as happy/delighted/ecstatic. These kinds of words are known as attitudinal lexis, i.e. ‘lexis with attitude’. The intensifiers we have already looked at, like better/best, all/several/some, must/would/might, are grammatical items. That is their meaning depends on being combined with 'content words’. By contrast, ‘content words’ are referred to technically as lexical items, or simply lexis.

Blogger Comments:

[1] The words 'better' and 'best' are not "grammatical items"; they combine the lexical features of 'good' with the grammatical features 'comparative' and 'superlative', respectively.

[2] This does not distinguish "grammatical items" from lexical items, since, in both cases, the meaning realised depends on the structural configuration in which they function.

"Grammatical items" are specified by the features of the closed and less delicate systems of the lexicogrammar, whereas lexical items form open sets and are specified by the features of the most delicate systems of the lexicogrammar.  Halliday (2008: 67, 174):

[…] you can, as expected, network through the grammar into the lexis; but what you end up with are not lexical items but lexical features. The lexical item will appear, but it will appear as a conjunct realisation of a number of these terminal features. The features are thus components of the lexical items, but the description differs from a usual componential analysis in two important respects. In the first place, the components are systemic: they are organised in sets of systemic options; and in the second place, more significantly, they are derived by ordered steps in delicacy all the way from the primary grammatical categories. …

The notion of grammaticalisation depends on the notion of a closed system. This has the properties:

1. a small fixed set of possibilities, x/y/z…, which are
2. mutually exclusive, x = “not y or z”, and
3. strictly proportional, x : y : z, is constant, with
4. a defined condition of entry, eg nominal group, and
5. generalised to a large domain of application, eg every major clause …

Lexical items, by contrast, form open sets; they are particular to certain domains, but open-ended and not so mutually defining: you can add a new lexical item to a set without perturbing the other members, whereas with a closed system if any term is added or taken away all the others move around.