Misanalysing Information Flow

Martin & Rose (2007: 192-3):

An outline of information flow at this level of analysis is provided in Table 6.1.

 

Blogger Comments:

The table below presents a Theme analysis that is line with SFL Theory, and presents one of several possible interpretations of the distribution of Given and New information in this portion of text. Each focus of New information, realised phonologically by tonic prominence, is highlighted as bold, and the extent of New information, coloured blue, is taken to be the element of clause structure in which focus of New appears.

Theme				Rheme
structural	interpersonal	topical
		marked	unmarked
		After about three years with the special forces		our hell began
			He	became very quiet, withdrawn
	Sometimes		he	would just press his face into his hands
and				shake uncontrollably
			I	realised
			he	was drinking too much
Instead of				resting at night
			he	would wander from window to window
			He	tried to hide his wild consuming fear
but			I	saw it
		In the early hours of the morning between two and half-past-two		I jolt awake from his rushed breathing
				Rolls this way, that side of the bed
			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
	Sometimes		he	sits motionless
	just			staring in front of him

The important foci of New overlooked by Martin & Rose are those in the marked Themes, and those that mark contrasts: resting vs wander and hide (vs saw). Many other readings are possible; for example, either or both instances of the interpersonal Theme sometimes could be realised with tonic prominence, marking them as the foci of New information.

Mistaking Rheme For New Information

Martin & Rose (2007: 192):

At the other end of the clause in writing we typically have what Halliday calls New. This is a different kind of textual prominence having to do with the information we are expanding upon as text unfolds. In the phase of discourse we are concentrating on here, the News have to do with how Helena's husband felt and so the dominant pattern has to do with negative appraisal (depressed mental states and strange behaviour). Note how the choices for New are much more varied than the choices for unmarked Theme.They elaborate with human human interest, whereas choices for unmarked Theme tend to fix our gaze.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, this confuses Rheme with New. On the one hand, Rheme is the element of clause structure in which the Theme is developed (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 89). On the other hand, New is not an element of clause structure, but an element of the structure of an information unit, which can

• be co-extensive with a clause,
• extend over a portion of a clause, or
• extend further than a clause.

Moreover, New information can occur in either the Theme or the Rheme of a clause; that is, New is not restricted to the Rheme. Examples of the conflation of New with Theme in Martin & Rose's data include the marked Themes. Each of these is punctuated graphologically by a comma, which marks the extent of the Theme as an information unit, which obligatorily includes a focus of New information. Given that the marked Themes in Helena's texts are restricted to circumstances of temporal Location which introduce each new time-phase in her autobiography, it is not surprising that each of these marked Themes presents the temporal Location as New information.

[2] It will be seen in the next post that Martin & Rose's analysis of New information (and unmarked Theme) is markedly different from an analysis based on SFL principles — not only because New is ignored when thematic.

"Marked Themes Are Often Used To Signal A Shift In Major Participants"

 Martin & Rose (2007: 191-2):

Themes that are not Subject have a different effect; they are more prominent because they are atypical, so we refer to them as 'marked' Themes. Marked Themes can include circumstantial elements, such as places or times, or they may be participants that are not the Subject of the clause. Marked Themes are often used to signal new phases in a discourse: a new setting in time, or a shift in major participants; that is they function to scaffold discontinuity.

In Helena's story, marked Themes play an important role in moving us from one phase of the story to the next. The story's key marked Themes are outlined below. We can see the role they play in moving us from Incident to Incident and from Incidents to Interpretation; and the role they play with Incidents to frame the meeting, operations and repercussion phases. These are underlined below:

Incident 1

As an eighteen-year-old, I met a young man in his twenties
Then one day he said he was going on a 'trip'
More than a year ago, I met my first love again through a good friend

Incident 2

After my unsuccessful marriage, I met another policeman
[Then he says: He and three of our friends have been promoted]
After about three years in the special forces, our hell began

Interpretation

Today I know the answer to all my questions and heartache

Blogger Comments:

[1] Again, this confuses markedness with prominence. All Themes are textually prominent, but marked Themes typically carry an added feature of contrast (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 105).

[2] To be clear, participants that are not the Subject of a clause, Complements, are very rarely thematic in declarative clauses; examples include now that I like and lobsters I never eat. There are no instances of Complement/Themes in any of the texts analysed by Martin & Rose, and the claim that marked Themes are used to signal a shift in major participants is, at best, unsupported by evidence.

[3] To be clear, here Martin & Rose have borrowed and misused a linguistic term introduced by Vygotsky, who defined scaffolding instruction as the role of teachers and others in supporting the learner's development and providing support structures to get to that next stage or level. The theoretical notion of "scaffolding discontinuity" is thus nonsensical.

[4] To be clear, Helena's story is a temporally ordered autobiography, and she simply thematises temporal circumstances of Location to introduce each time period.

Misanalysing Theme

Martin & Rose (2007: 191):

All the Themes are highlighted, and the marked Themes are underlined below:

He became very quiet.
[He became] Withdrawn.
Sometimes he would just press his face into his hands
and [he would] shake uncontrollably.
I realised
he was drinking too much.
Instead of resting at night, he would wander from window to window.
He tried to hide his wild consuming fear,
but I saw it.
In the early hours of the morning between two and half-past-two, I jolt awake from his rushed breathing.
[He] Rolls this way, that side of the bed.
He's pale.
[He's] ice cold in a sweltering night
[He's] — sopping wet with sweat.
[His] Eyes [are] bewildered,
but [his eyes are] dull like the dead.
And [he had] the shakes.
[He had] The terrible convulsions and blood-curdling shrieks of fear and pain from the bottom of his soul.
Sometimes he sits motionless,
just staring in front of him.

The main recurrent choice for Subject/Theme in this phase is Helena's husband, realised as he. This identity gives us our basic orientation to the field for this phase of discourse; Helena's husband is the hook round which she spins the new information she gives us in each figure. As the Theme of each clause, he is our recurrent point of departure, our angle on the field in each figure. These kinds of Subject/Themes give continuity to a phase of discourse. Because they are the most frequent kind of Theme in discourse, listeners/readers perceive them as 'unmarked' Themes; they are mildly prominent in the flow of discourse, because they are the point of departure for each clause, but because they are typical they are not especially prominent.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, as previously explained, Martin & Rose misrepresent the data by inserting Themes that the author chose not to instantiate. That is, Martin & Rose give higher textual status (Theme) to elements that the author ellipsed in order to give them lower textual status. Moreover, Martin & Rose mistake the Subjects of clauses with marked Themes for (unmarked) Themes, as previously explained. A thematic analysis that is consistent with SFL Theory is presented below for comparison.

Theme				Rheme
structural	interpersonal	topical
		marked	unmarked
			He	became very quiet, withdrawn
	Sometimes		he	would just press his face into his hands
and				shake uncontrollably
			I	realised
			he	was drinking too much
Instead of				resting at night
			he	would wander from window to window
			He	tried to hide his wild consuming fear
but			I	saw it
		In the early hours of the morning between two and half-past-two		I jolt awake from his rushed breathing
				Rolls this way, that side of the bed
			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
	Sometimes		he	sits motionless
	just			staring in front of him

[2] To be clear, in SFL Theory, 'field' refers to the ideational dimension of the culture as semiotic system; that is, 'field' refers to what is happening in terms of the culture. Martin's use of 'field' typically refers to the ideational semantics of a text, due to the fact that he misunderstands context as register, a sub-potential of language, such that field is the ideational dimension of register.

[3] To be clear, this confuses Rheme (the body of the clause as message) with New information. New information is not restricted to the Rheme of a clause, as demonstrated by every Theme realised by tonic prominence, the phonological realisation of the focus of New information. Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 652):

… thematic status may be combined with either given or new, and the same is true of rhematic status.

[4] To be clear, the figure is a unit in the ideational semantics of Halliday & Matthiessen (1999). Since the concern here is the textual metafunction, the relevant semantic unit is the message.

[5] To be clear, a Theme is not an "angle" on field (see [2]). Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 88, 89):

We may assume that in all languages the clause has the character of a message, or quantum of information in the flow of discourse: it has some form of organisation whereby it fits in with, and contributes to, the flow of discourse. …

The Theme is the element that serves as the point of departure of the message; it is that which locates and orients the clause within its context. The speaker chooses the Theme as his or her point of departure to guide the addressee in developing an interpretation of the message; by making part of the message prominent as Theme, the speaker enables the addressee to process the message.

[6] To be clear, the author's use of ellipsis — which Martin & Rose have undone (see [1]) — gives continuity to this phase of discourse. Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 635):

Ellipsis marks the textual status of continuous information within a certain grammatical structure. At the same time, the non-ellipsed elements of that structure are given the status of being contrastive in the environment of continuous information. Ellipsis thus assigns differential prominence to the elements of a structure: if they are non-prominent (continuous), they are ellipsed; if they are prominent (contrastive), they are present. The absence of elements through ellipsis is an iconic realisation of lack of prominence.

[7] To be clear, this confuses markedness with prominence and attributes a knowledge of SFL theory — the perception of unmarked Themes — to listeners/readers. All Themes are textually prominent, but marked Themes typically carry an added feature of contrast. Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 105):

When some other element comes first, it constitutes a ‘marked’ choice of Theme; such marked Themes usually either express some kind of setting for the clause or carry a feature of contrast.

Marked Themes can be 'doubly prominent' if the focus of New information falls with the Theme. Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 328):

One way of giving prominence to a Theme is to construe it as if it was a circumstance of Matter; e.g. as for the ghost, it hasn’t been seen since. By being first introduced circumstantially, the ghost becomes a focused Theme.

However, as will be seen, such focused Themes are not possible in the periodicity model of Martin & Rose, since it is falsely assumed that New information always falls within the Rheme of a clause.

Seriously Misunderstanding Marked And Unmarked Theme

Martin & Rose (2007: 190-1):

The next step is to highlight Themes — which in writing is basically everything up to and including the participant that functions as the Subject of the clause. …

So the most common choice for the Theme of a clause is the Subject. Ideational meaning that comes before the Subject is referred to as marked Theme, and has a different discourse function from the ordinary Subject/Theme … .

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, this widespread misunderstanding of Theme derives from Martin (1992: 435):

…in English declaratives, unmarked topical Theme is conflated with Subject, whereas marked topical Theme precedes it.

Applying Martin's misunderstanding of Halliday, a clause can consist solely of topical Themes, such that there are multiple points of departure for the clause as message, but no actual body of the message (Rheme) to depart into.  For example:

Blessed	are		the cheesemakers
Theme: marked	Theme: marked		Theme: unmarked
Attribute	Process: relational		Carrier
Complement	Predicator	Finite	Subject
Residue		Mood

Sad	therefore	in his view	is		one way to describe it
Theme: marked	?	Theme: marked	Theme: marked		Theme: unmarked
Attribute		Angle	Process: relational		Carrier
Complement	conjunctive Adjunct	circumstantial Adjunct	Predicator	Finite	Subject
Res-		-idue		Mood

In contrast, Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 91) provide the general principle:

As a general guide to start off with, we shall say that the Theme of a clause is the first group or phrase that has some function in the experiential structure of the clause, i.e. that functions as a participant, a circumstance or the process.

and stipulate (p128) that markedness depends on mood:

The systemic value of ‘unmarked’ and ‘marked’ theme depends on the mood selection…

It is for declarative clauses that the Subject is the unmarked Theme (p97):

In a declarative clause, the typical pattern is one in which Theme is conflated with Subject; …. We shall refer to the mapping of Theme on to Subject as the unmarked Theme of a declarative clause. The Subject is the element that is chosen as Theme unless there is good reason for choosing something else.

But if Subject is not Theme, the selected Theme is a marked Theme (p98):

A Theme that is something other than the Subject, in a declarative clause, we shall refer to as a marked theme. The most usual form of marked Theme is an adverbial group, e.g. today, suddenly, somewhat distractedly, or prepositional phrase, e.g. at night, in the corner, without any warning functioning as Adjunct in the clause. Least likely to be thematic is a Complement, which is a nominal group that is not functioning as Subject – something that could have been a Subject but is not…

Most importantly, where the Subject is not selected as Theme, it is part of the Rheme (p105):

When some other element comes first, it constitutes a ‘marked’ choice of Theme; such marked Themes usually either express some kind of setting for the clause or carry a feature of contrast. Note that in such instances the element that would have been the unmarked choice as Theme is now part of the Rheme.

A clause has, at most, one topical Theme: either unmarked or marked.

Misrepresenting The Thematic Selections Of A Text

Martin & Rose (2007: 189-90, 218n):

The notion of waves of information has been an important part of functional linguistics, in the work for example of the Prague school on communicative dynamism, in the 1930s, and in SFL since the 1960's. Halliday treats the clause itself, from the point of view of textual meaning, as a wave of information. The peak of prominence at the beginning of the clause is referred to as its Theme.

To do a Theme analysis we take a phase of discourse and divide it into clauses; let's use Helena's description of her husband's agony as an example here.

Since we're working on discourse, we need to fill in the participants that have been ellipsed, as their identities are part of the listener/reader's expectations. We'll show these ellipsed participants in square brackets, together with the ellipsed verbal elements they are associated with…

He became very quiet.
[He became] Withdrawn.
Sometimes he would just press his face into his hands
and [he would] shake uncontrollably.
I realised
he was drinking too much.
Instead of resting at night, he would wander from window to window.
He tried to hide his wild consuming fear,
but I saw it.
In the early hours of the morning between two and half-past-two, I jolt awake from his rushed breathing.
[He] Rolls this way, that side of the bed.
He's pale.
[He's] ice cold in a sweltering night
[He's] — sopping wet with sweat.
[His] Eyes [are] bewildered,
but [his eyes are] dull like the dead.
And [he had] the shakes.
[He had] The terrible convulsions and blood-curdling shrieks of fear and pain from the bottom of his soul.
Sometimes he sits motionless,
just staring in front of him.

It's sometimes difficult to know how much to fill in; we've given a pretty rich reading above, filling all the 'holes' except the one in the last non-finite clause (just staring in front of him).¹ Filling in gives us a richer text to work with from the point of view of Theme analysis.

¹ Non-finite clauses are omitted from a Theme analysis because one reason they’re non-finite is to take them out of the mainstream of information flow in a phase of discourse.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is misleading, because it includes three untruths:

• The notion of waves of information has never been proposed by the Prague School;
• communicative dynamism is part of Functional Sentence Perspective, which was first developed by Firbas (1921-2000) in the 1950s, not the 1930s; and
• the notion of waves of information in SFL first appeared in the 1980s, not the 1960s.

[2] To be clear, in "filling in" the ellipsed clause elements, Martin & Rose have rejected the textual selections of the writer (Helena) and replaced them with their own. This is particularly problematic because the absence of elements through ellipsis marks lack of textual prominence, whereas the reinstatement of these elements as Themes by Martin & Rose misrepresents them as textually prominent. Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 635):

Ellipsis thus assigns differential prominence to the elements of a structure: if they are non-prominent (continuous), they are ellipsed; if they are prominent (contrastive), they are present. The absence of elements through ellipsis is an iconic realisation of lack of prominence.

[3] This is a bare assertion, unsupported by argumentation based on evidence. Clearly, even non-finite clauses without a Theme contribute to the information flow — "mainstream" or otherwise — of a text, if only because the Rheme is an element of information, constituting the body of the clause as message. However, non-finite clauses can include both structural and topical Themes, and to ignore these is to misrepresent the information flow of a text. Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 127):

If non-finite, there may be a conjunction or preposition as structural Theme, which may be followed by a Subject as topical Theme; but many non-finite clauses have neither, in which case they consist of Rheme only.

It is likely that Martin & Rose have confused information flow (textual metafunction) with negotiability (interpersonal metafunction), since non-finite clauses are the least negotiable. Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 172):

Non-finite clauses are even further removed from the status of negotiability than finite ones.

This type of metafunctional confusion will be seen in later posts where Martin & Rose fail to distinguish Theme (textual metafunction) from Subject (interpersonal metafunction).

Misrepresenting Writing Pedagogy As Linguistic Theory

Martin & Rose (2007: 188-9):

Pike's notion of little waves on bigger ones is very important for understanding information flow since rhythm in discourse may have several layers. In the 'repercussions' phase of her second Incident, for example, Helena introduces her husband's agony with our hell began and then proceeds to spell out his suffering. In doing so she frames a layer of information inside one phase of her story; and as we've seen her story has been framed as a larger wave (My story begins… to I end with a few lines…) and beyond this her story in relation to Tutu's exposition is a still larger pulse. We can use indentation in the first instance to outline something of the relation of these larger waves of information to the smaller ones:

The South Africa Broadcasting Corporation's radio team covering the Truth and Reconciliation Commission received a letter from a woman calling herself Helena (she wanted to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals) who lived in the eastern province of Mpumalanga. They broadcast substantial extracts:

My story begins in my late teenage years as a farm girl in the Bethlehem district of Eastern Free State. ...

After about three years with the special forces, our hell began.
He became very quiet. Withdrawn. Sometimes he would just press his face into his hands and shake uncontrollably. I realised he was drinking too much. Instead of resting at night, he would wander from window to window. He tried to hide his wild consuming fear, but I saw it. In the early hours of the morning between two and half-past-two, I jolt awake from his rushed breathing. Rolls this way, that side of the bed. 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. Sometimes he sits motionless, just staring in front of him. I never understood. I never knew. Never realised what was being shoved down his throat during the 'trips'. I just went through hell. Praying, pleading: 'God, what's happening? What's wrong with him? Could he have changed so much? Is he going mad? I can't handle the man anymore! But, I can't get out. He's going to haunt me for the rest of my life if I leave him. Why, God?' …

I end with a few lines that my wasted vulture said to me one night: 'They can give me amnesty a thousand times. Even if God and everyone else forgives me a thousand times — I have to live with this hell. The problem is in my head, my conscience. There is only one way to be free of it. Blow my brains out. Because that's where my hell is.'

The term 'wave' is used to capture the sense in which moments of framing represent a peak of textual prominence, followed by a trough of lesser prominence. So discourse creates expectations by flagging forward and consolidates them by summarising back. These expectations are presented as crests of information, and the meanings fulfilling these expectations can be seen as relative diminuendos, from the point of view of information flow. The term periodicity is used to capture the regularity of information flow: the tendency for crests to form a regular pattern, and for the hierarchy of waves to form a predictable rhythm. Discourse, in other words, has a beat; and without this rhythm, it would be very hard to understand.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, here Martin & Rose misunderstand the text. As the clause our hell began makes plain, it is the suffering of both Helena and her husband that Helena "proceeds to spell out".

[2] To be clear, this is writing pedagogy masquerading as linguistic theory; that is: this is a proposal for how to write misrepresented as a proposition of how language works. Proof that it is not a model of language can be ascertained by trying to apply periodicity to spoken language (or written dialogue).

[3] To be clear, the beat of discourse is phonological, with salient syllables identifying the potential foci of information that the speaker chose not instantiate, and tonic feet identifying the actual foci of information that the speaker chose to instantiate.

Misunderstanding 'Metadiscourse' And Misrepresenting Halliday

Martin & Rose (2007: 188):

We've already seen for example the way in which Helena's narrative was framed. Since Tutu is using it to exemplify one of his arguments, he carefully scaffolds the transition from his exposition:

The South Africa Broadcasting Corporation's radio team covering the Truth and Reconciliation Commission received a letter from a woman calling herself Helena (she wanted to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals) who lived in the eastern province of Mpumalanga. They broadcast substantial extracts

Tutu uses names of discourse (letter, extract) to build the bridge. Then Helena takes over and names her genre (my story begins), setting up our expectations about the kind of letter we're about to read. And Helena explicitly brings her story to a close, announcing she will end with a few lines from her wasted vulture.

The terms letter, extract, story, lines and end could be described as 'metadiscourse', since they refer to discourse as a thing (letter, extract, story, line), and as a process (end). Vocabulary of this kind is one important resource for packaging discourse. For Helena's narrative it frames the beginning and end of her story by naming them, and manages the relationship between her story and Tutu's exposition.

Halliday, Pike and others have used the metaphor of waves to describe this kind of information flow.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the only instances above that might be termed 'metadiscourse' are:

• my story begins
• I end with a few lines

because they satisfy the definition of metadiscourse as discourse about discourse. In SFL Theory, clause elements that are termed 'metadiscourse' in other theories include comment Adjuncts (to be clear), modal Adjuncts (perhaps), and conjunctive Adjuncts (nevertheless). In contrast, the elements letter, extract, story, lines — types of semiotic object (Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 192) — do not constitute instances of metadiscourse because they are not comments on the content of the text.

[2] This is misleading, because it is untrue. To be clear, Halliday has not used the metaphor of waves to describe the packaging of discourse using vocabulary — of any kind. Instead, Halliday uses the term 'wave' to characterise grammatical structures that realise selections in the textual systems of THEME and INFORMATION. Halliday (1985: 169):

The textual meaning of the clause is expressed by what is put first (the Theme); by what is phonologically prominent (and tends to be put last – the New, signalled by information focus); and by conjunctions and relatives which if present must occur in initial position. Thus it forms a wave-like pattern of periodicity that is set up by peaks of prominence and boundary markers.

Periodicity

Martin & Rose (2007: 187):

Periodicity is concerned with information flow — with the way in which meanings are packaged to make it easier to take them in.

Following a general introduction, section 6.2 looks at information flow in clauses, introducing the concepts of Theme and New. Section 6.3 pushes this up a level to paragraphs, considering how information can be predicted by a hyperTheme (aka topic sentence) and summarised as hyperNew. Then in section 6.4 extensions of this patterning in longer carefully edited texts are explored (macroTheme and macroNew).

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, in Martin (1992: 392-3), the concepts described in this chapter are modelled as types of interaction pattern, described as a 'systematic interaction between discoursal, grammatical and phonological structures'. For a thorough examination of that model, see the clarifying critiques here. In the present work, Martin & Rose have totally re-theorised these interaction patterns as textual systems of Martin's discourse semantic stratum, and named the systems, not 'from above', in terms of the meanings that are expressed, but 'from below' in terms of the type of structure that expresses the meaning. In a functional theory, such as SFL Theory, the view 'from above' takes priority.

[2] To be clear, the systems of theme and information assign different textual statuses to grammatical elements as a means of relating a text to its environment. Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 528): 

The “textual” metafunction is the name we give to the systematic resources a language must have for creating discourse: for ensuring that each instance of text makes contact with its environment. The “environment” includes both the context of situation and other instances of text.

[3] To be clear, Theme is an element of clause structure, but New is an element of information unit structure, not clause structure. Clause and information unit are grammatical systems, not (discourse) semantic systems. In Martin (1992: 384, 393, 401), information is misunderstood as a phonological system.

[4] To be clear, 'paragraph' is a graphological unit, and thus only applies to the written mode of language. Because spontaneous speech is not organised in paragraphs, the model does not apply to language as a whole. As will be seen, much of what is presented in this chapter is not linguistic theory, but writing pedagogy rebranded and misrepresented as linguistic theory.

[5] These are rebranded terms from writing pedagogy, misrepresented as linguistic theory:

• 'hyperTheme' is Martin's rebranding of 'topic sentence' (as acknowledged above);
• 'hyperNew' is Martin's rebranding of 'paragraph summary';
• 'macroTheme' is Martin's rebranding of 'introductory paragraph'; and
• 'macroNew' is Martin's rebranding of 'text summary'.

The inverted use of 'hyper-' and 'macro-' derives from Martin's misunderstanding of the source of the term 'hyperTheme' (Daneš 1974), where 'hyper-' means 'above', since it refers to the first instance of a repeated Theme; see Problems With The Argument For Hyper-Theme.

"The Discourse Analysis Doesn’t Really Tell Much That Hasn’t Already Been Accounted For In Grammatical Analysis"

Martin & Rose (2007: 185):

In ‘little texts’ such as headlines, telegrams, SMS messages on mobile phones, titles, labels, diagrams, billboards and so on, determiners are more often than not left out, so the distinction between presenting and presuming is neutralised. For example, ‘the’ is left out of the headings in the Act but included in the paragraphs,

CHAPTER 2
Ø Truth and Reconciliation Commission
Ø Establishment and Ø seat of Ø Truth and Reconciliation Commission
2. (1) There is for the purposes of sections 10(1), (2) and (3) and II and Chapters 6 and 7 hereby established a juristic person to be known as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
(2) The seat of the Commission shall be determined by the President.

We should also observe that various pronouns are commonly used in a generalised way that doesn’t presume the identity of anyone in particular:

You don't know who your friends are 'til you're down and out.
We just don't behave like that round here!
They're double parking both sides of the street again!
It's too damn hot!

Finally, there are various kinds of structural it, which presume information in the same grammatical configuration; these can be treated as text reference if desired. As with esphora, the discourse analysis doesn’t really tell much that hasn’t already been accounted for in grammatical analysis. Examples include:

It's Tutu who forgave them
It pleased me he forgave them
I like it he forgave them
it's good he forgave them
It's reported he forgave them
It appears he forgave them

Blogger Comments:

[1] As previously explained, 'presenting' reference is reference in the sense of ideational denotation — a nominal group realising a participant — not reference in the textual sense of a referential relation between a reference item and its referent.

[2] To be clear, the unacknowledged source here is once again Halliday & Hasan (1976) who refer to this as generalised exophoric reference; see the discussion in Halliday & Hasan (1976:53).

[3] To be clear, genuine cases of this sort are termed 'structural cataphora' (Halliday & Hasan 1976: 56-7) and do not function cohesively.

[4] To be clear, the authors' 'text reference' is their rebranding of 'extended reference' (Halliday & Hasan 1976: 66-7) and is distinct from structural cataphoric reference and, unlike the latter, does function cohesively.

[5] This is misleading. To be clear, the authors' discourse analysis is merely a rebranding of the grammatical analysis of Halliday & Hasan (1976).

[6] To be clear, the reference of it is to who forgave them, not to Tutu… .

[7] To be clear, it does not refer to he forgave them, as demonstrated by what would be an agnate clause if this were the case:

* he forgave them appears.

"Several Locative Expressions Which Presume Information About Time And Space"

Martin & Rose (2007: 185):

And just to complete our review of resources, there are also several locative expressions which presume information about time and space:

now, then; here, there; hereby, thereby; herewith, therewith

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the genuine "locative expressions", the adverbial groups here and there, which serve as demonstrative reference items, contradict the claims of Martin & Rose that reference is

• limited to the nominal group,
• limited to identifying participants,
• a means of tracking (participants).

[2] To be clear, the temporal adverbial groups, now and then, do not serve as reference items. Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 632):

The temporal demonstratives now and then also function as cohesive items, but conjunctively rather than referentially.

[3] To be clear, these expressions are not locatives, but do include demonstratives:

• hereby = 'by this'
• thereby = 'by that'
• herewith = 'with this'
• therewith = 'with that'

The authors' error is a consequence of their taking the view 'from below' (the expression of meaning) — rather than view 'from above' (the meaning expressed) — and falsely concluding that here- and there- in these expressions serve a 'locative' function like the adverbs here and there.