On The Heteroglossic Function Of "Concessive Conjunctions"

Martin & Rose (2007: 57):

But is the most common conjunction used to signal concession. But there are other possibilities, including however and although, and variations on the theme including even if and even by; in fact, at least, indeed; and nevertheless, needless to say, of course, admittedly, in any case etc:

Even if God and everyone else forgives me a thousand times — I have to live with this hell.

Even if here means ‘more than expected’ — given the condition of forgiveness, his continued hell is unexpected.

I envy and respect the people of the struggle — at least their leaders have the guts to stand by their vultures, to recognise their sacrifices. 

Spiritual murder is more inhumane than a messy, physical murder. At least a murder victim rests.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, as Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 422) point out, the conjunction but is used for three distinct types of expansion:

• adversative addition (extension): 'on the other hand' [X and conversely Y]
• replacive variation (extension): 'instead' [not X but Y]
• concessive condition (enhancement): 'nevertheless' [if P then contrary to expectation Q]

[2] Of these, the only items that are conjunctive Adjuncts that can mark a relation of concession are however, although, even if and nevertheless — though however, like but, can also mark adversative addition.  The remaining items serve either as conjunctive Adjuncts marking an elaborating relation, or as modal Adjuncts, mood or comment:

Item	Conjunctive Adjunct	Modal Adjunct
in fact	elaboration: clarification: verifactive	mood: intensity; comment: factual
at least	elaboration: clarification: corrective
in any case	elaboration: clarification: dismissive
needless to say		comment: obvious
of course		comment: obvious
admittedly		comment: concession*

* Interestingly, admittedly signals interpersonal concession as a comment Adjunct, though Martin & Rose misconstrue it as conjunctive.

[3] This continues the (previously cited) confusion between interpersonal counterexpectancy (exceeding vs limiting) and the enhancement relation of concessive condition (if P then contrary to expectation Q):

• if God and everyone else forgives me a thousand times
• then contrary to expectation I have to live with this hell

On The Heteroglossic Function Of "Concessive But"

Martin & Rose (2007: 56-7):

The third resource we need to consider, as far as heteroglossia in discourse is concerned, is known as ‘counterexpectancy’. This is more a feature of Helena’s narrative than the exposition or Act, and has to do with the way she tracks readers’ expectations, adjusting them as her story unfolds. In her prayer for example, she tells God she can’t handle her second love anymore, creating an expectation as she does so that she will try to leave. Then she counters this by saying that she can’t leave.

I can’t handle the man anymore! But, I can't get out.

In this example Helena uses the conjunction but to signal that she is countering an expectation that she’s created for the reader. At any point in a text, readers have an expectation about what is likely to follow, and Helena takes this into account as she counters it. In other words she is acknowledging voices in addition to her own, in this case those of her readers.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, in SFL theory, the interpersonal system of counterexpectancy (exceeding vs limiting) is distinct from the conditional relation of concession, whose meaning is 'if P then contrary to expectation Q', and which may function logically between units in complexes or textually in conjoining messages cohesively.

[2] The claim here is that an author can track ('trail', 'follow') the expectations of all future readers.

[3] This misunderstands the data.  Firstly, the proposition I can’t handle the man anymore does not entail the proposition I will leave — any more than numerous other possible propositions such as He's got to go or Something has to change etc.

Secondly, the cohesive conjunction relation between the two messages is not the enhancing relation of concessive condition ('if P then contrary to expectation Q'):

• if I can't handle the man anymore
• then, contrary to expectation, I can't get out.

but the extending relation of adversative addition (X and conversely Y):

• I can't handle the man anymore
• and conversely I can't get out.

[4] The claim here is that the author's use of but acknowledges the "voice" of the reader, and that this acknowledgement constitutes an instance of heteroglossia.  Regardless of whether acknowledging the voice of the reader would constitute an instance of heteroglossia, as demonstrated in [3], the claim itself rests on a misinterpretation of the text and a misconstrual of the expansion relation between the two clauses.

On The Heteroglossic Function Of "Projections", "Polarity" And "Modality"

Martin & Rose (2007: 56):

Some projections also include modality or polarity in their meaning, and so can be interpreted as heteroglossic with respect to both projection and modalisation (Hyland 1998). Tutu uses three of these:

They denied that they had committed a crime, claiming that they had assaulted him only in retaliation for his inexplicable conduct in attacking them.

I contend that there is another kind of justice, restorative justice.

Denied includes the meaning of ‘not true’; claiming allows for doubt; contend is less strong than claim (more ‘should be’ than ‘must be true’).

Blogger Comments:

[1] The general confusion here is between the verbal process of a projecting clause — denied, claiming, contend — and the locution clause that it projects; see further below.

[2] All clauses, whether projecting or projected, "include polarity in their meaning".  If polarity were sufficient grounds for heteroglossia, then all clauses would be heteroglossic, and the distinction with monoglossia would be meaningless.

[3] Not one of the clauses in Tutu's projection nexuses includes an instance of modalisation; see [6] and [7] below.

[4] The implication here is that the cited work — Hyland, K. (1998) Hedging in Scientific Research Articles Amsterdam: Benjamins — somehow endorses the authors' claim, though none of its 264 pages is identified in this regard.

[5] This misconstrues the truth value of the projected clause as the polarity of the projecting clause — the latter misconstrued as the meaning of denied.

[6] This appears to confuse what was said by the author (claiming) with what might be thought by the reader ('doubt').

[7] This is a bare assertion, unsupported by data, argument, or dictionary definitions, such as

• contend: 'assert something as a position in an argument.'
• claim: 'state or assert that something is the case, typically without providing evidence or proof'.

On The Heteroglossic Function Of Obligation

Martin & Rose (2007: 55-6):

The Act, because it is concerned with what should happen, is mainly concerned with obligation (how obliged people are to act):

AND SINCE it is deemed necessary to establish the truth in relation to past events as well as the motives for and circumstances in which gross violations of human rights have occurred, and to make the findings known in order to prevent a repetition of such acts in future; 

AND SINCE the Constitution states that the pursuit of national unity, the well-being of all South African citizens and peace require reconciliation between the people of South Africa and the reconstruction of society; 

AND SINCE the Constitution states that there is a need for understanding but not for vengeance, a need for reparation but not for retaliation, a need for ubuntu but not for victimisation; 

AND SINCE the Constitution states that in order to advance such reconciliation and reconstruction amnesty shall be granted in respect of acts, omissions and offences associated with political objectives committed in the course of the conflicts of the past

The last example here makes use of what we might call legislative’ shall to signal incontestable obligation. By Chapter 2 of the Act, this use of shall becomes dominant as the various processes around the establishment of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission are prescribed:

(3) In order to achieve the objectives of the Commission -

(a) the Committee on Human Rights Violations, as contemplated in Chapter 3, shall deal, among other things, with matters pertaining to investigations of gross violations of human rights;

(b) the Committee on Amnesty, as contemplated in Chapter 4, shall deal with matters relating to amnesty;

(c) the Committee on Reparation and Rehabilitation, as contemplated in Chapter 5, shall deal with matters referred to it relating to reparations;

(d) the investigating unit referred to in section 5(d) shall perform the investigations contemplated in section 28(4)(a); and

(e) the subcommittees shall exercise, perform and carry out the powers, functions and duties conferred upon, assigned to or imposed upon them by the Commission.

Blogger Comments:

The claim here (e.g. p59) is that the instances of obligation in these texts signal heteroglossia, the acknowledgement of other points of view.  As might be expected of a text of this type, this is about as monoglossic as a text can get.  No other positions on any of the proposals are acknowledged, as Martin & Rose should have realised in using the term 'incontestable obligation'.

The general misunderstanding of Martin & Rose in discussing modality as a resource for heteroglossia can be traced to a misunderstanding of why it is that one type of modality, probability, can acknowledge other voices.

The reason why probability can acknowledge other voices is that the explicit subjective form, 'I think', is agnate with circumstances of Angle: viewpoint (just as 'I say' is agnate with circumstances of Angle: source).

However, Martin & Rose have mistaken probability to acknowledge other voices through the selection of one value — low, median or high — rather than another, with the unselected values mistaken for other voices.  This sort of logic can also be misapplied to the selection of one Subject, rather than other, one mood, rather than another, and so on, right through every system in the language.

On The Heteroglossic Function Of Usuality, Obligation, Inclination And Ability

Martin & Rose (2007: 55):

Helena uses modality even more often, across a range of modal meanings:

Negotiating information
how usual         He and his friends would visit regularly
how probable    there must have been someone out there who is still alive 

Negotiating services
how obliged      I had to watch how white people became dissatisfied with the best
how inclined     I would have done the same had I been denied everything
how able           who can give a face to 'the orders from above' for all the operations

These examples show the five types of modality discussed by Halliday (1994): usuality, probability, obligation, inclination and ability.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, negotiation is discussion aimed at reaching an agreement.

[2] These four instances do not exemplify heteroglossia, the acknowledgment of other voices.  Each instance is monoglossic, since each enacts the author's voice only; no other viewpoints are acknowledged.

[3] These three instances are modulated propositions, not proposals — they are neither offers nor commands — and so the commodity of exchange is information, not (goods–&–)services.  The first two are modulated statements that give information, the third is a modulated question that demands information.

On The Heteroglossic Function Of Usuality

Martin & Rose (2007: 54-5):

Modality functions very much like negation when we look at it in terms of these scales (cf. Fuller 1998; Martin and White 2005). Arguing that something must be the case, for example, sounds assertive but in fact allows an element of doubt; it’s stronger than saying something would be true, but not as strong as avoiding modality completely and arguing it is the case. So modality, like polarity, acknowledges alternative voices around a suggestion or claim. Unlike polarity, it doesn’t take these voices on and deny them; rather it opens up a space for negotiation, in which different points of view can circulate around an issue, a space perhaps for mediation and possible reconciliation. 

Tutu uses a range of modal resources in his exposition to acknowledge alternative positions, including usuality when he is generalising about the effects of a public hearing:

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.

Here the grading has to do with ‘how often’ something happened, along a scale like the following:

Blogger Comments:

The claim here is that usuality acknowledges alternative voices, or viewpoints, on a proposition. Martin & Rose do not identify the different positions acknowledged by the use of instances of usuality in the exemplifying text, but instead make reference to the grading of values of usuality. In doing so, they confuse an assessment of usuality with the recognition of different viewpoints (engagement: heteroglossia).

On The Heteroglossic Function Of Negative Polarity

Martin & Rose (2007: 53):

As we’ve said, modality can be used as a resource for introducing additional voices into a text, and this includes polarity. To see how this works, let’s start with polarity and the role of negation. Tutu begins his exposition with a question, which he follows up immediately with a negative clause:

So is amnesty being given at the cost of justice being done? This is not a frivolous question, but a very serious issue, one which challenges the integrity of the entire Truth and Reconciliation process.

What Tutu is doing here is countering anyone who thinks that the cost of justice issue is a frivolous question (or perhaps anyone who says Tutu thinks it’s frivolous).  He uses a negative clause to pre-empt this position before it can cloud the discussion.  Negation places his voice in relation to a potential opposing one; two voices are implicated. In this respect negative polarity is different from positive polarity; all things being equal, positive polarity invokes one voice whereas negative polarity invokes two.

Blogger Comments: 

[1] This misunderstands the text. The negative element here functions at group rank, not clause rank, and it marks a logical relation — extension: variation: replacive (not X but Y) — between the nominal groups in a group complex:

not	a frivolous question	but	a very serious issue
	1		+ 2

[2] This misunderstands the text.  It is amnesty, not the cost of justice, that is the issue.  As Subject, it is amnesty that carries the modal responsibility of the proposition:

so	is	amnesty	being given	at the cost of justice being done
	Process:	Goal	material	Contingency: default
	Finite	Subject	Predicator	Adjunct
	Mood		Residue

The agnate statement of this rhetorical question is that 'amnesty is being given at the cost of justice being done', which entertains a negative ethical judgement of 'giving amnesty'. It is the use of this rhetorical question, not the logical deployment of not that acknowledges voices other than the author's. In terms of Appraisal theory, the rhetorical question can be interpreted as an instance of ENGAGEMENT: heterogloss: expand: entertain; see Martin & White (2005: 110).

[3] This misunderstands the text.  What Tutu is doing is enacting a positive appreciation (social value) of the rhetorical question itself:

this	is		not a frivolous question but a very serious issue
Carrier	Process: attributive		Attribute
Subject	Finite	Predicator	Complement
Mood		Residue

[4] This misunderstands the text. The negation here marks a replacive relation between a frivolous question and a very serious issue; see [1].

[5] This misunderstands the text.  The other voice is implicated by the rhetorical question, not by the use of negation; see [2].

[6] Since this claim is made following a misunderstanding, it stands here as a bare assertion. What is true is that positive and negative polarity are mutually defining, and that positive polarity is more probable to be instantiated than negative polarity across registers (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 173). The claim can be falsified by considering minimal pairs such as:

• Go to sleep! vs Don't go to sleep!
• Do you have any? vs Don't you have any?
• I believe in God. vs I don't believe in God.
• How did you manage to see him? vs How did you manage not to see him?

Projection Summary

Martin & Rose (2007: 52):

In sum we have seen four ways in which projection is used to attribute sources: as projecting clauses, as names for speech acts, as projecting within clauses, and as scare quotes.  Examples of these are given in Table 2.6.

Blogger Comments:

In sum:

1. Martin & Rose do not account for the logico-semantic relation of projection at the discourse semantic level.
2. Martin & Rose mistake the names of projections — locutions or ideas — for the names of "speech acts".
3. To be clear, "projecting within clauses" encompasses projection relations between verbal groups in verbal group complexes and the assignment of identifying and attributive relations by projection.
4. Martin & Rose misinterpret the attitudinal function of scare quotes as disowning an appraisal, rather than enacting one.

Misunderstanding The Engagement Function Of Scare Quotes

Martin & Rose (2007: 52):

Finally we need to consider cases where punctuation is used to signal that someone else’s words are being used. Helena does this several times in her story:

Even if he was an Englishman, he was popular with all the 'Boer' Afrikaners. And all my girlfriends envied me. Then one day he said he was going on a 'trip'.

Abruptly mutter the feared word 'trip' and drive off.

The role of 'those at the top', the 'cliques' and 'our men' who simply had to carry out their bloody orders... like 'vultures'. And today they all wash their hands in innocence and resist the realities of the Truth Commission. Yes, I stand by my murderer who let me and the old White South Africa sleep peacefully. Warmly, while 'those at the top' were again targeting the next 'permanent removal from society' for the vultures.

... there must have been someone out there who is still alive and who can give a face to 'the orders from above' for all the operations.

This device is sometimes referred to as ‘scare quotes’, and warns readers that these are not Helena’s words but someone else’s, for example the wording of her second love or white South African leaders. In spoken discourse speakers might use special intonation or voice quality to signal projection of this kind, and sometimes people use gesture to mimic quotation marks, acting out the special punctuation. The effect of this is to disown the evaluation embodied in the highlighted terms, attributing it to an alternative, unspecified, but usually recoverable source.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, scare quotes are quotation marks placed round a word or phrase to draw attention to an unusual or arguably inaccurate use.

[2] To be clear, scare quotes can serve many functions, and although they may sometimes indicate that an author is using someone else's term, this is by no means always the case:

Scare quotes (also called shudder quotes, sneer quotes, and quibble marks) are quotation marks a writer places around a word or phrase to signal that they are using it in a non-standard, ironic, or otherwise special sense. 

• Scare quotes may express that the author is using someone else's term, similar to preceding a phrase with the expression "so-called"; 
• they may imply skepticism or disagreement, belief that the words are misused, or 
• that the writer intends a meaning opposite to the words enclosed in quotes. 

Writers use scare quotes for a variety of reasons. 

• They can imply doubt or ambiguity in words or ideas within the marks, or even outright contempt. 
• They can indicate that a writer is purposely misusing a word or phrase or 
• that the writer is unpersuaded by the text in quotes, and 
• they can help the writer deny responsibility for the quote. 

In general, they express distance between writer and quote. …  

An author may use scare quotes not to convey alarm, but to signal a semantic quibble. Scare quotes may suggest or create a problematisation with the words set in quotes.

[3] There is no evidence in the text that any of these quotes are attributable to either Helena's second love or to white South African leaders; but see [5] below.

[4] In this instance, the scare quotes mark a simile deployed by Helena herself, and so, do not mark it as attributable to either Helena's second love or to white South African leaders; but see [5] below.

[5] This is the exact opposite of what is true.  The effect of Helena's use of scare quotes is not to 'disown the evaluations embodied in the highlighted terms' but to enact evaluations of them herself.  In highlighting with scare quotes, she expresses her own attitude.

Projections "Within Clauses" [2]

Martin & Rose (2007: 51-2):

The Act also uses projections within clauses in relation to claims of victimhood, and in relation to the powers of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission:

... the gathering of information and the receiving of evidence from any person, including persons claiming to be victims of such violations or the representatives of such victims ...

establish such offices as it may deem necessary for the performance of its functions

... conduct any investigation or hold any hearing it may deem necessary and establish the investigating unit referred to in section 28

These are examples of ‘saying’ and ‘thinking’ (claiming to be, may deem).

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the "projection within a clause" here is the projection relation between claim and be in the verbal group complex serving as identifying Process in the embedded clause persons claiming to be victims of such violations or the representatives of such victims:

persons	claiming	to	be	victims of such violations or the representatives of such victims
Token	Process: relational			Value
	a	"	b

[2] To be clear, the "projection within a clause" in both these cases is the assignment of an attributive relation by cognitive projection:

as	it	may deem	necessary for the performance of its functions
	Attributor	Process: relational	Attribute

it	may deem	necessary
Attributor	Process: relational	Attribute

Projections "Within Clauses" [1]

Martin & Rose (2007: 51):

Projections can also be found within clauses, where they explicitly assign responsibility for opinions to sources. Tutu uses this resource four times in relation to claims of innocence, the meaning of ubuntu, reputations and the values of the new South African democracy:

Amnesty is not given to innocent people or to those who claim to be innocent.

This is a far more personal approach, which sees the offence as something that has happened to people and whose consequence is a rupture in relationships.

Many of those who have come forward had previously been regarded as respectable members of their communities

the new culture of respect for human rights and acknowledgment of responsibility and accountability by which the new democracy wishes to be characterised

These projections within clauses include ‘saying’ claim to be, ‘seeing’ sees, been regarded as and ‘feeling’ wishes to be.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the "projection within a clause" here is the verbal projection relation between claim and be in the verbal group complex serving as attributive Process in the embedded clause who claim to be innocent:

who	claim	to	be	innocent
Carrier	Process: relational			Attribute
	α	"	β

[2] To be clear, the "projection within a clause" here is the assignment of an attributive relation by cognitive projection:

which	sees	the offence	as	something that has happened to people and whose consequence is a rupture in relationships
Attributor	Process: relational	Carrier		Attribute

[3] To be clear, the "projection within a clause" here is the assignment of an attributive relation by cognitive projection:

Many of those who have come forward	previously	had been regarded	as	respectable members of their communities
Carrier	Location	Process: relational		Attribute

[4] To be clear, the "projection within a clause" here is the desiderative projection relation between wishes and be characterised in the verbal group complex serving as identifying Process in the embedded clause by which the new democracy wishes to be characterised:

by which	the new democracy	wishes	to	be characterised
Token	Value	Process: relational
		α	'	β