Misconstruing The Relation Between Semogenesis And Language As Projection

 Martin & Rose (2007: 320-21):

Along these lines, configuring language, register and genre as system amounts to mapping the reservoir of meanings available to interlocutors within discourse formations. Systems of language, register and genre are immanent as a result of the meanings that have been or could have been made by interlocutors in the past and are still relevant. Of these meanings, repertoires are distributed across subjects according to their socialisation. And of these meanings, arrays of choices are negotiated through unfolding text. This notion of time giving value to meaning is outlined in Figure 9.8. … Halliday’s (1994) ⍺ ’ꞵ notation for the projecting relation between clauses has been borrowed to represent the idea of time giving value to meaning. This represents one of the senses in which history (i.e. semogenesis) gives meaning to synchronic (albeit always changing) semiosis, since where we are in all three kinds of time is what sets the relevant valeur — the ways in which meanings are opposed to one another and thus have value in the system.

 

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, 'along these lines' refers to the authors' (quite bizarre) misunderstanding that semogenesis projects "language, register and genre"; see the clarifying critiques in the immediately preceding post.

[2] To be clear, this purports to characterise the authors' misunderstanding that phylogenesis projects "language, register and genre" (Figure 9.8). Instead, it identifies the authors' misunderstanding of phylogenesis with their misunderstanding of language — more specifically: it decodes their misunderstanding of language by reference to their misunderstanding of phylogenesis:

[3] To be clear, this misunderstands the meaning of the term 'immanent' in linguistics, where it refers to the epistemological assumption that meaning is 'something that is constructed in, and so is part of, language itself' (Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 416).

[4] To be clear, this purports to characterise the authors' misunderstanding that ontogenesis projects "language, register and genre" (Figure 9.8). Instead, it merely makes the observation that the ontogenesis of meaning varies according to social factors.

[5] To be clear, this purports to characterise the authors' misunderstanding that logogenesis projects "language, register and genre" (Figure 9.8). Instead, it misconstrues the instantiation of potential in text (logogenesis) as the negotiation of meaning in text (Martin's interpersonal discourse semantics).

[6] To be clear, this purports to characterise the authors' general misunderstanding that semogenesis projects "language, register and genre" (Figure 9.8). Instead, it confuses the process of semogenesis with the temporal dimension along which the process unfolds, and misconstrues the temporal dimension as assigning "value" to meaning ("language, register and genre"):

[7] Trivially, it is not where we are in time that sets the "relevant valeur". Time is the dimension along which the logogenesis, ontogenesis and phylogenesis of the system of meaning contrasts unfolds.

[8] As the gloss of 'projection' as 'means' in Figure 9.8 demonstrates, Martin & Rose confuse projection with verbal (and identifying) Processes.

Seriously Misunderstanding Projection

Martin & Rose (2007: 319-20):

In Chapters 2 and 3 we described how processes of saying and sensing can project locutions (what is said) or ideas (what is sensed), and also attribute the source of saying or sensing, as well as locating it in time. So if we say Bakhtin argued that creativity depends on mastery of the genre, then the projecting clause Bakhtin argued:

• projects the locution that creativity depends on mastery of the genre, through the process argue
• places the saying in the past (argued) with respect to if we say
• sources the locution to Bakhtin.

The projecting clause in other words provides a frame for interpreting its projection. By analogy, we can argue that genesis projects language, register and genre by conditioning the semantic oppositions that hold sway at one or another point of time, with respect to the unfolding of a text, with respect to interlocutors’ subjectivities and with respect to the meanings at risk in the relevant discourse formations. 

Blogger Comments:

[1] As previously noted, the logico-semantic relation of projection does not feature in the authors' model of logical discourse semantics: conjunction. This is because Martin's model derives from Halliday & Hasan (1976), where conjunction is a non-structural (cohesive) relation, and projection is not a cohesive relation.

[2] To be clear, this misunderstanding seriously misrepresents projection. The projecting clause construes the first-order symbolic processing that brings the second-order projected clause into symbolic existence; see, e.g. Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 110, 129). Importantly, only mental and verbal processes project, and projection is a relation between two different orders of experience.

[3] To be clear, this analogy seriously misunderstands semogenesis and projection. Logogenesis, ontogenesis and phylogenesis do not project language — and register and genre are (varieties) of language, not distinct from it. Instead, mental and verbal processes project the content plane of language. In contrast, logogenesis is the instantiation of the linguistic system in text, ontogenesis is the development of the linguistic system — not just "interlocutors' social subjectivities" — in the individual, and phylogenesis is the evolution of the linguistic system — not just "discourse formations" — in the species.

Reductive Glosses Of Semogenesis

Martin & Rose (2007: 319):

Read from the perspective of critical theory, phylogenesis might be glossed in terms of a concern with the evolution of discourse formations (as explored in Fairclough (1995)), ontogenesis with the development of social subjectivities (e.g. Walkerdine and Lucey (1989)) and logogenesis with the de/naturalisation of reading positions (e.g. Cranny-Francis (1996)). Glossing with respect to Bernstein (1996), phylogenesis is concerned with changes in a culture’s reservoir of meanings, ontogenesis with the development of individual repertoires (i.e. coding orientations); logogenesis is concerned with what in SFL is referred to as the instantiation of system in text (or 'process’ for a more dynamic perspective). These perspectives are illustrated in Figure 9.7.

 Blogger Comments:

To be clear, in SFL Theory, 'phylogenesis' refers to the evolution of the system in the species, 'ontogenesis' refers to the development of the system in the individual, and 'logogenesis' refers to the instantiation of the system in the text (Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 17-8).

[1] This reduces (the phylogenesis of) language to (the phylogenesis of) an aspect of the semantic stratum of language.

[Foucault's] term discursive formation identifies and describes written and spoken statements with semantic relations that produce discourses.

[2] This reduces (the ontogenesis of) language to (the ontogenesis of) one metafunction: the interpersonal enactment of intersubjective relations.

[3] This confuses the logogenesis of texts with critiques of the meanings of texts.

[4] To be clear, this wording invites the confusion of language with culture that pervades the work of Martin & Rose (e.g. confusing language variants, register and genre, with culture).

[5] This reduces (the ontogenesis of) language to (the ontogenesis of) socially-correlated variants.

[6] To be clear, the instantiation of the system is a dynamic process.

Misunderstanding Semogenesis, Confusing Culture With Language, And Confusing Social With Sociosemiotic

Martin & Rose (2007: 318):

In a model of this kind, phylogenesis provides the environment for ontogenesis which in turn provides the environment for logogenesis. In other words, where a culture has arrived in its evolution provides the social context for the linguistic development of the individual, and the point an individual is at in their development provides resources for the instantiation of unfolding texts, illustrated in Figure 9.6. 

Conversely, logogenesis provides the material (i.e. semiotic goods) for ontogenesis, which in turn provides the material for phylogenesis; in other words, texts provide the means through which individuals interact to learn the system. And it is through the heteroglossic aggregation of individual systems (that are always already social systems), through the changing voices of us all, that the semiotic trajectory of a culture evolves. Language change in this model is read in terms of an expanding meaning potential, a key feature of semiotic systems as they adapt to new discursive and material environments.

 
Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, this is a restatement of Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 18):

[2] To be clear, this misunderstands the previous sentence (Halliday's model), once again confusing culture with language. As Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 18) explain:

Following the downward arrow, the system of the language (the meaning potential of the species) provides the environment in which the individual's meaning emerges;

[3] To be clear, Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 18) add the missing elements from the authors' gloss:

… the meaning potential of the individual provides the environment within which the meaning of the text emerges.

[4] To be clear, ontogenesis is the coming into being of the meaning potential of the individual; that is, the coming into being of the individual as meaner. Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 18):

the individual's (transfinite) meaning potential is constructed out of (finite) instances of text;

[5] To be clear, this confuses two misunderstandings. On the one hand, yet again Martin & Rose confuse language with culture: the model is concerned with the phylogenesis of language. On the other hand, phylogenesis is fed by the instances of meaners, not by "the aggregation of individual systems", since systems are potential, not actual. Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 18):

the (transfinite) meaning potential of the species is constructed out of (finite) instances of individual 'meaners'.

[6] To be clear, here Martin & Rose confuse semiotic systems, of the subtype 'social', with social systems. In SFL Theory, social systems do not involve the exchange of symbolic value, and so are not semiotic systems. Social systems include those social insect colonies where the values exchanged, as through pheromones, are not symbolic. Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 509):

A biological system is a physical system with the added component of "life"; it is a living physical system. In comparable terms, a social system is a biological system with the added component of "value" …. A semiotic system, then, is a social system with the added component of "meaning". Meaning can be thought of (and was thought of by Saussure) as just a kind of social value; but it is value in a significantly different sense — value that is construed symbolically. … Semiotic systems are social systems where value has been further transformed into meaning.

[7] Cf Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 18):

These are the three major processes of semohistory, by which meanings are continually created, transmitted, recreated, extended and changed.

Seriously Misunderstanding Instantiation, Stratification, Ontogenesis & Phylogenesis

Martin & Rose (2007: 317-8, 333n):

The play of genres and their recontextualisations around issues draws attention to the crucial role of change in ideological analysis. For the distribution of power in a culture is never more than metastable; in order for power relations to remain stable over time, they must continually adapt to change: there has to be both inertia and change for life to carry on. Halliday and Matthiessen (Halliday 1992, 1993; Halliday and Matthiessen 1999) have developed a comprehensive outline of social semiotic change which is highly relevant here. For relatively short time frames such as that involved in the unfolding of a text, they suggest the term ‘logogenesis’ (the perspective we've been foregrounding in this book); for the longer time frame of the development of language in the individual, they use the term ‘ontogenesis' (Painter 1984, 1998); and for maximum time depth, ‘phylogenesis’ (as in Halliday’s reading of the history of scientific English in Halliday and Martin (1993)). A good example is Mandela’s Meaning of Freedom recount, which unfolds in a spiral texture that maps out his development as a political leader (ontogenesis) in the context of major cultural shifts in post-colonial history (phylogenesis). This trinocular framework is summarised as follows.

⁶ The term ‘instantiation’ refers to texts as instances of the semiotic system of a culture, i.e. the language system is instantiated in texts.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, on the authors' model, genres cannot be recontextualised, because genre is the highest level of context. That is, genre is a context without a context.

[2] To be clear, here the authors continue their previous confusion of power with ideology — the latter being neither defined nor exemplified.

[3] To be clear, Halliday's model is concerned with socio-semiotic systems; that is, semiotic systems that are social, as opposed to, for example, somatic. Halliday and Matthiessen (1999: 18):

These are the three major processes of semohistory, by which meanings at continually created, transmitted, recreated, extended and changed. Each one provides the environment within which the 'next' takes place, in the order in which we have presented them; and, conversely, each one provides the material out of which the previous one is constructed: see Figure 1-6.

[4] To be clear, logogenesis, ontogenesis and phylogenesis refer specifically to semogenic processes, not to other processes whose duration coincides with these three time frames.

[5] To be clear, this seriously misunderstands the three semogenic processes, confusing them with the ideational content of a text. In this particular case, logogenesis describes the unfolding of Mandela's text; ontogenesis would describe the development of the languages, Xhosa and English, in Mandela himself; and phylogenesis would describe the evolution of Mandela's languages, Xhosa and English, in the human species.

[6] To be clear, this is potentially misleading. Ontogenesis is the development of a semiotic system in the individual, and phylogenesis is the evolution of a semiotic system in the species.

[7] To be clear, this misunderstands instantiation and stratification. Texts are instances of language, not culture. In SFL Theory, culture is modelled as a semiotic system that is realised by language. That is, culture and language are different levels of symbolic abstraction. An instance of the culture is a situation; that is, culture is instantiated as situations, not texts. The confusion of culture with language pervades Martin's model, as demonstrated by his modelling varieties of language, register/genre, as culture instead of language.

The Relation Between Levels

  Martin & Rose (2007: 308-9):

Note however that the relation between levels is realisational, not a hierarchy of control; genre does not determine register variables, any more than register determines linguistic choices. Rather a genre is construed, enacted, presented as a dynamic configuration of field, tenor and mode; which are in turn construed, enacted, presented as unfolding discourse semantic patterns. Relations among genre, register, discourse and grammar are to some extent predictable for members of a culture, but at the same time they are independently variable; these complementary characteristics give language and culture the capacity for both stability and change.

 

Blogger Comments:

[1] This requires a minor qualification. In SFL Theory, some features on a higher stratum may 'preselect' features on a lower stratum in the sense that the selection of the former also entails the selection of the latter. Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 375):

More specifically, inter-stratal realisation is specified by means of inter-stratal preselection: contextual features are realised by preselection within the semantic system, semantic features are realised by preselection within the lexicogrammatical system, and lexicogrammatical features are realised by preselection within the phonological/ graphological system. This type of preselection may take different forms between different strata! boundaries, but the principle is quite general.

[2] To be clear, on the authors' model, genre is realised by register, and register by discourse semantics. On this model, it is register that construes genre, not the reverse, and discourse semantics that construes register, not the reverse. The terms 'enacted' and 'presented' are not synonyms for 'realised', since neither term expresses a relation between two levels of symbolic abstraction.

In terms of SFL Theory, on the other hand, field, tenor and mode are the metafunctional dimensions of the culture as a semiotic system, and genre (text type) and register are two perspectives on functional variants of language — rather than systems of context — and modelled as a point of variation on the cline of instantiation. Different configurations of field, tenor and mode system features are realised by different registers/text types, which means different selection probabilities/frequencies on the strata of semantics and lexicogrammar.

[3] To be clear, on the authors' model, the relation between adjacent pairs of these four strata is invariably one of realisation. However, from the perspective of SFL Theory, what Martin & Rose might be trying to articulate here, without understanding instantiation, is that selections across strata are probabilistically linked, and that members of a culture — in their model: members of genre and register (!) — are implicitly aware of those probabilities, but that probabilities in the system can nevertheless be altered by changing selection frequencies in instances, thereby providing both system stability and change. If this is the intended meaning, then such change is merely changes in the probabilities of feature selection in existing systems, not the expansion of the systems themselves.

Misconstruing Subtypes Of Variation And Addition (Extension) As Subtypes Of Comparison (Enhancement)

Martin & Rose (2007: 137):

What of difference? As we saw for lexical contrasts in Chapter 3 (Section 3.2), differences are either oppositions or converses. We can oppose ideas using rather, by contrast, on the other hand:

This is not a frivolous question,
rather it is a very serious issue.
To this point we have looked at clauses and their elements from the perspective of discourse. Grammarians, on the other hand, look at elements of clauses from the perspective of the grammar

Conversely is used to reverse two aspects of a message. In this example Malinowski interprets texts from the perspective of social contexts, whereas we suggest that contexts can only be interpreted as they are manifested in texts:

Malinowski interpreted the social contexts of interaction as stratified into two levels, 'context of situation' and 'context of culture', and considered that a text (which he called an 'utterance') could be understood only in relation to both these levels.

Conversely, we could say that speakers' cultures are manifested in each situation in which they interact, and that each interactional situation is manifested verbally as unfolding text.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This not true. In Section 3.2, converses were construed as a subtype of oppositions, a subtype of contrast (Figure 3.6, p81).

[2] To be clear, in SFL Theory, rather typically marks replacive variation (extension), whereas by contrast and on the other hand mark adversative addition (extension), in cohesive conjunction (textual metafunction); see Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 612-3). Here Martin & Rose have misconstrued these two distinct relations as one subclass of comparison, which, in SFL Theory, is a subclass of enhancement, not extension, and rebranded their misunderstanding of Halliday's grammatical relations as Martin's discourse semantic relation.

[3] To be clear, in SFL Theory, conversely also typically marks adversative addition (extension) in cohesive conjunction (textual); see Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 612-3). Here Martin & Rose have misconstrued different markers of one relation (adversative addition) as two distinct subclasses (oppose vs converse) of comparison, which, in SFL Theory, is a subclass of enhancement, not extension, and rebranded their misunderstanding of Halliday's grammatical relations as Martin's discourse semantic relation.

[4] To be clear, Malinowski's model of context has become part of the theoretical architecture of SFL, with the important qualification that 'context of situation' and 'context of culture' are not levels, but opposite poles on the cline of instantiation at one level (the context plane). On this model, language realises culture (potential pole) and text realises situation (instance pole).

Because realisation is an identifying relation between two levels of symbolic abstraction, either level can be used to identify the other:

• language/text (Token) is decoded by reference to culture/situation (Value), and/or
• culture/situation (Value) is encoded by reference to language/text (Token).

Malinowski's notion of 'understanding a text in relation to context' corresponds to the decoding option above.

[5] To be clear, the authors' notion that "contexts can only be interpreted as they are manifested in texts" corresponds to the encoding option above. However, this does not accurately characterise what was said in the quoted text; see [6] and [7].

Note also that the authors' interpretation of context as "manifested in texts" involves modelling context as (types of) texts, genre and register, thereby incongruously conflating two distinct levels of symbolic abstraction: context and language.

[6] To be clear, in SFL Theory, culture is instantiated in situation, not "manifested" in it. Instantiation is a theoretical attributive relation, whereas manifestation is a non-theoretical identifying relation.

[7] To be clear, this confuses two theoretical dimensions at the instance pole of the cline of instantiation: stratification (situation realised as text) and logogenesis (unfolding text). In SFL Theory, the unfolding of a situation is realised by the unfolding of a text. Moreover, contrary to the implicit claim explicated in [5], this does not single out the encoding option, above.

Misconstruing Ideational Semantics As Contextual Field

Martin & Rose (2007: 81):

Each lexical item in a text expects further lexical items to follow that are related to it in one of these five general ways. A lexical item initiates or expands on the field of a text, and this field expects a predictable range of related lexical items to follow.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, lexical items, as the name suggests, are located on the stratum of lexicogrammar.  Here, as throughout this chapter, lexical items are misunderstood as being located on Martin's stratum of discourse semantics, a higher level of symbolic abstraction.

[2] To be clear, in SFL theory, 'field' is the ideational dimension of context, the culture modelled as a semiotic system.  Here, and throughout, Martin & Rose unwittingly use 'field' to refer to the semantic correlate of a field — what Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 323) term a 'domain'.  The misunderstanding is further complicated by the fact that Martin & Rose mistake 'field' for a dimension of register, misunderstood as context.

[3] In terms of SFL theory, this confuses the tendency of lexical items to co-occur — in lexical cohesion: the syntagmatic relation of collocation — with paradigmatic relations in lexical sets (repetition, synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy and meronymy); see Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 644).  To be clear, collocation is the one type of lexical cohesion that has not been rebranded by Martin & Rose as feature of their discourse system of taxonomic relations.

[4] This misunderstands the relation between lexical item and field.  A Lexical item does not "initiate" or "expand" the "field of a text".  In SFL theory, a lexical item is the synthetic realisation of a bundle of the most delicate lexicogrammatical features, which realise semantic features, including those of ideational semantics, which realise contextual features, including those of field.  But see [2] above for what Martin & Rose misunderstand as field.

[5] To be clear, in SFL theory, the relative probabilities of lexical item instantiation in a text are a property of the lexicogrammatical systems of a register that realises a specific field.  Those probabilities rise and fall on the basis of ongoing instantiations during logogenesis.

Why Genre Is Not A Social Process

 Martin & Rose (2007: 8):

For us a genre is a staged, goal-oriented social process. Social because we participate in genres with other people; goal-oriented because we use genres to get things done; staged because it usually takes us a few steps to reach our goals.

Blogger Comments:

The multi-dimensional theoretical confusions here can be made more explicit by replacing the word 'genre' with 'text type' — the authors' own gloss:

For us a text type is a staged, goal-oriented social process. Social because we participate in text types with other people; goal-oriented because we use text types to get things done; staged because it usually takes us a few steps to reach our goals.

[1] The claim here is that a type of text is a process.  To be internally consistent, the claim would have to be that: 

• a type of text is a type of process, and as such, that
• a text is a process.

In SFL theory, this process is logogenesis, the unfolding of text at the instance pole of the cline of instantiation.

That is, this definition of 'genre' confuses a point on the cline of instantiation (text type) with a semogenic process (logogenesis).

This confusion of text type with logogenesis is further confounded by its being modelled here as context, instead of language.

[2] The claim here is that types of text are social because we participate in them with other people. The main confusion here is the blurring of different orders of experience.

People and the content of texts are of different orders of experience.  People, as sayers or sensers, are first-order phenomena, whereas the wordings or meanings that they verbally or mentally project are second-order phenomena: metaphenomena.  The use of participate in blurs this distinction by placing phenomena and metaphenomena at the same order of experience.

The minor confusion here is the claim that text types are social.  Text types are socio-semiotic rather than social.  This is because they are varieties of language, and language is a social semiotic system; that is: a semiotic system of the subclass 'social'.

[3] The claim here is that types of text are goal-oriented because we use them to reach our goals. This is no more, or less, true of text types than it is of clauses or tone groups, and so, is not a distinguishing feature of text types.

[4] It will be seen that Martin's 'genre' model of text type is largely limited to identifying text structures that vary for text type.  However, inconsistent with SFL theory, the elements of text structure are not differentiated according to metafunction, and are further misconstrued as generic stages (context) rather than semantic structure (language); cf Hasan's (1985) Generic Structure Potential.

Misunderstanding And Misrepresenting Instantiation

Martin & Rose (2007: 2):

The relationship between these phenomena is schematised in Figure 1.1, illustrating the scaling in size and complexity from clause to text to culture. Figure 1.1 shows one clause as an instance of the story of ‘Helena’, whose life was caught up in the injustices of apartheid South Africa, as Helena’s story is one instance of the cultural changes that culminated with the release of Nelson Mandela and the overthrow of apartheid.

Blogger Comments:

This misunderstands and misrepresents the theoretical dimension of instantiation:

• a clause is not an instance of a text — a text is an instance! — and
• a story is not an instance of cultural change.

Instantiation is the relation between potential and instance:

• the clause in question is an instance of clause as potential (system),
• the story in question, as a text, is an instance of language as potential (system), and
• a situation is an instance of culture as potential (system).

The relation of the clause in question to the text in question is stratal — the two are units at different levels of symbolic abstraction.  Clause is the largest unit at the level of wording: the stratum of lexicogrammar, whereas text is the largest unit at the level of meaning: the stratum of semantics.  The relation between strata is realisation.  Wording realises meaning.

The relation of the text in question to cultural change involves three distinct theoretical dimensions: 

Firstly, the relation between text, as language, and culture, as context, is stratal — language and context are different levels of symbolic abstraction. The relation between them is thus realisation. Language realises context. 

Secondly, text and culture differ in terms of instantiation.  Text is language as instance, whereas culture is context as potential. 

Thirdly, text and cultural change differ in terms of semogenesis.  The instantiation of the system in the text is logogenesis, whereas the evolution of culture is phylogenesis. Importantly, the logogenesis of the story (language) is not an instance of the phylogenesis of the culture (context). Logogenesis provides the material for ontogenesis, which provides the material for phylogenesis, while phylogenesis provides the environment for ontogenesis, which provides the environment for logogenesis.

One reason for distinguishing the theoretical dimensions of stratification, instantiation and semogenesis is that it makes the complexity of language more manageable; doing so facilitates a systematic approach to further theorising, to text analysis, and to pedagogical practice.  Consequently, not distinguishing such dimensions is more likely to impair further theorising, text analysis and pedagogical practice.

Misunderstanding Semogenic Processes

Martin & Rose (2007: 1-2):

We should emphasise that although we can assign a name to each of these phenomena, a clause, a text or a culture are not ‘things’, but social processes that unfold at different time scales. Culture unfolds through uncountable series of situations, as our lives unfold through these situations as learners, speakers and actors, producing texts that unfold as sequences of meanings.

Blogger Comments:

[1] With regard to the claim that clause, text and culture are social, SFL construes language and culture as social semiotic systems, as opposed to, say, somatic semiotic systems, such as those of visual perception.

[2] With regard to the claim that clause, text and culture are processes, the actual processes that SFL distinguishes are the three semogenic processes of:

• logogenesis, the instantiation of the system in the text,
• ontogenesis, the development of the system in the individual, and 
• phylogenesis, the evolution of the system in the species.

[3] This confuses the relation between culture and situation, instantiation, with the semogenic process of phylogenesis, the evolution of the culture in the species.

[4] This confuses the 'unfolding of a life' with ontogenesis, the development of the system in the individual.  The 'unfolding of a life' occurs at all three semogenic timescales.

[5] This confuses 'sequences of meanings' with logogenesis, the instantiation of the system in the text.

Blurring The Distinction Between Semantics And Context

Martin & Rose (2007: 1):

And it also means that we treat discourse as more than an incidental manifestation of social activity; we want to focus on the social as it is constructed through texts, on the constitutive role of meanings in social life. … and it is also an invitation to social theorists to reconsider social activity as meaning we negotiate in discourse.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear:

• not all social activity is realised in language, and 
• there is more to culture (context) than just social activity.

[2] The notion of 'the social being constructed through texts' affords two distinct interpretations.  On the one hand, it could be said to be concerned with the theoretical claim embodied in the stratification hierarchy that language (text) and context (situation) are construed together during logogenesis.  On the other hand, it could be said to be concerned with the semantic construal of social activities within texts, as in the plot-lines of novels.

The reason this distinction is worth highlighting here is that, in the work that this publication 'takes as its point of departure', English Text (Martin 1992), events in texts and events in the environments of texts are largely not distinguished; see, for example, the evidence here.

[3] To be clear, the meaning we negotiate in discourse is the meaning of language: semantics.  Language and context are distinct levels of symbolic abstraction, such that language realises context.  In SFL, 'context' refers to the culture as a semiotic system that has language as its expression plane.

The reason this distinction is worth highlighting here is that, in the work that this publication 'takes as its point of departure', English Text (Martin 1992), 'meaning' is misattributed to all strata, as a direct result of mistaking a statement about semogenesis — 'all strata make meaning' — for the principle of stratification; see, for example, the evidence here.