Packaging Discourse Through Explicit And Implicit "Scaffolding" And "Grammaticalising" Periodicity As Clause Complexing

Martin & Rose (2007: 215):

As we’ve seen, discourse gets packaged in various ways. Explicit scaffolding involves the erection of a hierarchy of periodicity beyond the clause, with layers of Theme and News telling us where we’re coming from and where we’re going to. With serial expansion there’s a change of gears from one discourse phase to the next, without any explicit scaffolding of the change. In some kinds of discourse, such as legislation, explicitness is in a sense pushed to its limits by (i) grammaticalising as much hierarchy as possible within very complex sentences and/or (ii) naming sections of the text numerically and/or alphabetically, and/or providing them with headings. Many texts involve some combination of all these resources for phasing information into digestible chunks.

 

Blogger Comments:

[1] As we've seen, the authors' 'hierarchy of periodicity' is writing pedagogy masquerading as linguistic theory; it does not apply to any texts that don't conform these proposals for how to write, or to any texts that are spoken or signed. Moreover, the model falsely assumes that New information is never thematic, and confuses textual status (Theme, New) with textual transitions made through (implicit) appositive and summative elaboration ("predicting" and "distilling").

[2] As we've seen, in terms of SFL Theory, the authors' 'serial expansion' is concerned with textual transitions made through (implicit) relations other than elaboration (extension or enhancement).

[3] As we've seen, Martin & Rose misrepresent grammaticalisation — a shift in function from lexical to grammatical — as a shift in function from the discourse semantic stratum to the grammatical stratum. To be clear, whatever has a discourse semantic function also has a grammatical function, since strata are levels of symbolic abstraction, so the notion of a function shifting from one stratum to another is nonsensical. Moreover, the authors' claim is that their 'hierarchy of periodicity' (textual semantics) and clause complexing (logical grammar) perform the same function (since the latter is said to replace the former in some texts).

The "Grammaticalisation" Of Periodicity

Martin & Rose (2007: 214):

In summary then, where hierarchy of periodicity is used across many registers to orchestrate information flow, in the Act this packaging is as far as possible grammaticalised. The Act uses complex sentences where other registers would use introductions, topic sentences and paragraphs.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the only registers in which the authors' hierarchy of periodicity might be said to be used are those of written mode where writers conform to principles of writing pedagogy such as introductory paragraph (rebranded "macroTheme"), topic sentence (rebranded "hyperTheme"), paragraph summary (rebranded "hyperNew") and text summary (rebranded "macroNew"). Writing pedagogy is not linguistic theory, and spoken language does not conform to its principles.

[2] This misunderstands both grammaticalisation and stratification. To be clear, grammaticalisation is a shift in function from the lexical zone of lexicogrammar to the grammatical zone — just as lexicalisation is a shift in function from the grammatical zone of lexicogrammar to the lexical zone. Grammaticalisation cannot refer to a shift in function from semantics to grammar because semantics and grammar are different levels of abstraction of the same phenomenon: the content plane of language. It is therefore nonsensical to claim that a function can shift from semantics (Value) to grammar (Token). Again, this reflects the authors' mistaken view that strata are modules.

[3] To be clear, the "complex sentences" in the Act are clause complexes, in terms of lexicogrammar, and sequences, in terms of semantics. But, because the text makes extensive use of ideational metaphor, its sequences are incongruently realised as clauses, rather than congruently as clause complexes.