Activity Sequences: A Cornucopia Of Theoretical Inconsistencies

Martin & Rose (2007: 75-6):

We can identify three sets of lexical relations. … 

The third is the sequence of activities construed by clauses as a text unfolds. These are the relations from one process to the next that imply a series of steps, such as meeting - beginning relationship - marriage. As they construe the field of a text as unfolding in series of activities, these relations are known as activity sequences.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This misrepresents lexicogrammar as discourse semantics.  To be clear, lexical relations are relations between lexical items, and lexical items are the synthetic realisations of feature combinations at the level of lexicogrammar (Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 199).  The theoretical inconsistency is in terms of stratification.

[2] There are many inconsistencies here, five of which can be identified as follows.

Firstly, the notion of activity sequences as discourse semantic is inconsistent with the informing text, Martin (1992), where they are theorised as field, ideational context, where context is misunderstood as register.  For some of the problems with the theorising of activity sequences in Martin (1992), see here.

Secondly, the notion of activity sequences as experiential is inconsistent in terms of metafunction. As will be seen, relations between activities are not experiential relations, but a confusion of logical relations between clauses in complexes, on the one hand, and textual relations of cohesive conjunction, on the other.

Thirdly, the notion of activity sequences as lexical relations is inconsistent in terms of delicacy.  From the perspective of lexicogrammar, relations between activities are not lexical relations — relations between lexical items — but grammatical relations, whether structural or cohesive.

Fourthly, the relocation of activity sequences here to discourse semantics creates a further inconsistency, within the discourse semantic model, since relations between activities in sequences are also modelled in terms of the logical system of conjunction — itself a confusion of clause complexing and cohesive conjunction.  Martin & Rose (2007: 115):

Conjunction looks at interconnections between processes — adding, comparing, sequencing, or explaining them. These are logical meanings that link activities and messages in sequences.

Fifthly, as the previous four inconsistencies suggest, the modelling of activity sequences is also inconsistent with SFL theory, where the semantic counterparts of clauses, figures, are related logically in sequences; see Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 104-27).

[3] This confuses levels of symbolic abstraction, mistaking an instance of language (relations between processes) for an instance of the culture (field) that the language realises.

Rebranding Halliday's Clause Nuclearity As Their Own Nuclear Relations

Martin & Rose (2007: 75-6):

We can identify three sets of lexical relations. …
The second is the configurations of elements within each clause. These include relations between people and things and the process they are involved in, and the places and qualities associated with the process, for example the configuration of two people and a process when Helena’s romance starts: Helena - meet - young man. As they are more or less central to the unfolding of the process, as in Figure 3.1, these are known as nuclear relations.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This misrepresents lexicogrammar as discourse semantics.  To be clear, lexical relations are relations between lexical items, and lexical items are the synthetic realisations of feature combinations at the level of lexicogrammar (Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 199).  The theoretical inconsistency is in terms of stratification.

[2] To be clear, 'the configuration of elements within each clause' involves grammatical relations, not lexical relations, which obtain at the level of lexicogrammar, not discourse semantics.  The theoretical inconsistencies are thus twofold: in terms of delicacy and stratification.

[3] This is misleading.  These relations are those of clause nuclearity (Halliday 1985, 1994).  In not acknowledging the source of this work, Martin & Rose falsely present it as their own.

plagiarism (noun)

the practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own. 

synonyms: copying, infringement of copyright, piracy, theft, stealing, poaching, appropriation;

See also Jim Martin "Honouring" The Late Ruqaiya Hasan where Martin falsely accused the late Ruqaiya Hasan of plagiarism at a symposium organised to honour her.

Rebranding Halliday & Hasan's Lexical Cohesion As Their Own Taxonomic Relations

Martin & Rose (2007: 75):

We can identify three sets of lexical relations. The first is the chains of relations between elements as a text unfolds, from one clause to the next. These include relations such as repetition, synonymy and contrast, that build up a picture of people and things as the text progresses. For example, early in her story Helena begins to construct a picture of herself as a teenage girl: late teenage years - farm girl - eighteen-year-old. As they progressively construct taxonomies of people, things, places and their qualities, these are known as taxonomic relations.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This misconstrues lexicogrammar as discourse semantics.  To be clear, lexical relations are relations between lexical items, and lexical items are the synthetic realisations of feature combinations at the level of lexicogrammar (Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 199).  The theoretical inconsistency is in terms of stratification.

[2] This is misleading.  These relations are those of lexical cohesion (Halliday & Hasan 1976).  In not acknowledging the source of this work, Martin & Rose falsely present it as their own.

plagiarism (noun)

the practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own. 

synonyms: copying, infringement of copyright, piracy, theft, stealing, poaching, appropriation;

See also Jim Martin "Honouring" The Late Ruqaiya Hasan where Martin falsely accused the late Ruqaiya Hasan of plagiarism at a symposium organised to honour her.

[3] This misrepresents a lexicogrammatical system of the textual metafunction (lexical cohesion) as  a discourse semantic system of the experiential metafunction.  It is the logogenetic patterns of instantiation of systems of the ideational metafunction, such as clause transitivity, that "build up a picture of people and things as the text progresses".  The theoretical inconsistencies are thus twofold: stratal and metafunctional.

[4] Here Martin & Rose rebrand Halliday & Hasan's lexical cohesion (textual lexicogrammar) as their own taxonomic relations (experiential discourse semantics).

Misrepresenting Misunderstandings Of Lexicogrammar As Discourse Semantics

Martin & Rose (2007: 75):

So fields of experience consist of sequences of activities involving people, things, places and qualities. These activities are realised by clauses and their elements. We are concerned in this chapter with lexical relations between these elements, within and beyond the clause. Our goal is to outline the patterns of lexical relations that can combine to construe a field.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This misunderstands the relation between field and (activity) sequences as one of composition ('consist of') — logically, a relation of extension.  

Firstly, in SFL theory, field is the ideational dimension of context, and a sequence is a phenomenon in the ideational dimension of semantics.  The relation between them is realisation — intensive identification — logically, a relation of elaboration between two different levels of symbolic abstraction.

Secondly, in terms of the misunderstandings of SFL theory in English Text (Martin (1992), where field is a dimension of register, misunderstood as context, and where activity sequences are misunderstood as structures of field (pp293-4), this misrepresents the relation between the metafunction and one of its structures as one of composition.

Thirdly, in its own terms, where, inconsistent with Martin (1992), it locates activity sequences in discourse semantics, rather than context, misunderstood as register, it misunderstands the stratal relation between field and activity sequence as one of composition (extension) instead of realisation (elaboration between different levels of symbolic abstraction).

[2] This again reduces all processes to activities, reduces all participants to people and things — neither of which is defined in terms of a relation with a process — and reduces all circumstances to places and qualities.

[3] To be clear, this confuses two distinct dimensions of realisation:

• stratal: activity (figure) realised by clause
• axial: system realised by (elements) of structure.

[4] This confuses strata.  In purporting to provide a model of discourse semantics, the concern of the chapter is with lexical relations (lexicogrammar) between elements within and beyond the clause (lexicogrammar).

[5] It will be seen, in the course of this chapter review, these 'lexical relations' that 'construe a field' are a confusion of lexical cohesion (textual lexicogrammar) and logical relations between grammatical functions and forms.  It will also be seen that (instantiation) patterns are confused with syntagmatic relations.

Not Acknowledging Halliday As The Source Of "Their" Ideas

Martin & Rose (2007: 74-5):

Grammatical descriptions such as those in Halliday and Matthiessen (2004), and Caffarel et al. (2004), have richly elaborated this construal of experience within the clause, in various dimensions. They describe grammatical patterns that:

• distinguish types of processes - doing, happening, thinking, saying, being, having
• expand processes - in dimensions such as time, manner, cause
• differentiate roles of people and things participating in a process - for example as the Medium, Range or Agent of the process
• modify these participants - classifying, describing and counting them, their parts, possessions, facets and so on
• distinguish types of circumstances associated with activities - such as places, times and qualities.

As rich as these grammatical resources are for specifying aspects of experience, they still comprise only a part of the strategies that language provides us for construing experience. Two complementary sets of ideational patterns are equally necessary. One is the conjunctive relations that logically relate one clause to the next, so construing experience as unfolding series of activities. We outline these resources in Chapter 4 on CONJUNCTION. The other is lexical relations, that is semantic relations between the particular people, things, processes, places and qualities that build the field of a text. These relations between lexical elements comprise the system of IDEATION.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, these are two ways of saying the same thing, except that the second version substitutes 'associated with' for 'expand', and 'activities' for 'processes'.  But more importantly:

• expansion is not the only relation that obtains, since Matter and Angle involve projection, and
• the logico-semantic relation actually obtains between the circumstance and 'the configuration of process + participants' (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 314).

[2] This is very misleading indeed. Here Martin & Rose strategically neglect to mention previous work on the logical component in the construal of experience, as discussed for lexicogrammar in Introduction to Functional Grammar (Halliday ± Matthiessen), and for semantics in Construing Experience through Meaning (Halliday & Matthiessen 1999).  The false implication here is that Martin & Rose are filling a gap in previous theorising.

[3] Here Martin & Rose confuse structural relations between clauses (logical metafunction) with non-structural conjunctive relations between messages (textual metafunction).  More importantly, in neglecting to acknowledge Halliday as the source of these ideas, they again give the false impression that this work is entirely their own.

[4] It will be seen that Martin & Rose model 'unfolding series of activities' as both experiential (this chapter) and logical (Chapter 4), with the latter confusing logical complexing with cohesive conjunction, both of which are lexicogrammatical, but relocated by them to their stratum of discourse semantics.

[5] It will be seen that these lexical relations are those of Halliday's (& Hasan's) lexical cohesion, a resource of the textual metafunction, misunderstood by Martin & Rose as experiential in metafunction, and relocated to their stratum of discourse semantics.

[6] Here Martin & Rose confuse the textual function of cohesive relations between lexical items with the ideational functions that lexical items serve in grammatical structures — the latter of which it is that construes the field of the situation realised by a text.

[7] It will be seen in the course of this chapter review, that Martin & Rose confuse lexis with grammar, and ignore the difference in symbolic abstraction between lexicogrammar and semantics.

Taking Halliday's Notions Of 'Figure' And 'Nuclearity' And Passing Them Off As Their Own

Martin & Rose (2007: 74, 75):

From a grammatical perspective, the clause is a structure of words and word groups, but from a discourse semantic perspective the clause construes an activity involving people and things. The core elements of such a figure are the process and the people and things that are directly involved in it, while other elements such as places and qualities may be more peripheral. This nuclear model of experience is diagrammed in Figure 3.1. The ‘doer-doing’ nucleus is represented as a revolving yin/yang complementarity, with ‘place’ and ‘quality’ in peripheral orbits.

 

Blogger Comments:

[1] This misunderstands and misrepresents the clause by reducing it to the syntagmatic axis (structure) and by confusing structure with constituency (the rankscale).  Systemically, the clause is a level on the rankscale that serves as the entry condition to the systems of THEME, MOOD and TRANSITIVITY. Structurally, as a construal of experience, the clause is a configuration of functions (process, participant, circumstance).

[2] This misunderstands and misrepresents a semantic counterpart of the clause (the figure) by reducing all process types to "activities" and reducing all participants to "people and things".  The latter also confuses orders of phenomena (figure with element); see Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 56ff).

[3] Here Martin & Rose present the Halliday & Matthiessen (1999) notion of a 'figure' without acknowledging its source, thereby falsely presenting it as their own work.

plagiarism (noun)

the practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own. 

synonyms: copying, infringement of copyright, piracy, theft, stealing, poaching, appropriation;

See also Jim Martin "Honouring" The Late Ruqaiya Hasan where Martin falsely accused the late Ruqaiya Hasan of plagiarism at a symposium organised to honour her.

[4] Strictly speaking, not all participants are directly involved in the process; those mediated by a minor Process are only indirectly involved.

[5] Here Martin & Rose present the Halliday (1985) notion of 'nuclearity' without acknowledging its source, thereby falsely presenting it as their own work.  In the second edition of IFG, Halliday (1994: 164) writes:

[6] Cf Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 174):

[6] This mistakes the 'doer-doing' relation in doing-&-happening figures with the 'medium-process' relation on which the notion of nuclearity is founded.  In grammatical terms, it confuses ergativity with transitivity, reducing a general ergative relation to one type of transitive relation.

[7] To be clear, consistent with their lack of meticulous scholarship, Martin & Rose have not even bothered to present the yin-yang representation the right way around — and the term 'revolving' serves no explanatory function here.

The "taichi symbol" (taijitu)

Misrepresenting Halliday (1994) Through Selective Omission

Martin & Rose (2007: 74):

The model of human experience at the heart of ideational meaning, in all languages, is of processes involving people, things, places and qualities. Halliday (1994: 106) proposes that this construal of experience lies behind the grammar of the clause:

The clause ... embodies a general principle for modelling experience - namely the principle that reality is made up of PROCESSES. Our most powerful impression of experience is that it consists of goings on - happening, doing, sensing, meaning, being and becoming. All these goings-on are sorted out in the grammar of the clause.

The grammar of the clause organises such ‘goings on’ as configurations of elements, such as a process, a person and a place:

In this interpretation of what is going on, there is doing, a doer, and a location where the doing takes place. This tripartite interpretation ... is what lies behind the grammatical distinction of word classes into verbs, nouns and the rest, a pattern that in some form or other is probably universal among human languages, (ibid.: 108)

Blogger Comments:

[1] This misrepresents Halliday (1994) through selective omission.  As Halliday (1994: 107) makes clear, the frame of reference for construing experience consists of process, participants and circumstances:

and this is the tripartite interpretation said to be behind group and word classes (op. cit.: 109):

This is not a minor quibble, since Martin & Rose here confuse strata (lexicogrammar and semantics) and, from a semantic perspective, orders of phenomena (figure and element); see Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 49).  Moreover, such (motivated) misrepresentations are indicative of the lack of meticulous scholarship (and intellectual integrity) that permeates Martin & Rose's work, as the posts on this blog demonstrate.

[2] This misleads through selective omission.  As a way of supporting the (abovementioned) misrepresentation, it presents Halliday's discussion of one instance as the general model, as a fuller quote demonstrates.  Halliday (1994: 108):

Foreshadowing Misunderstandings Of Grammatical Metaphor

Martin & Rose (2007: 74):

The final section 3.6 discusses what happens when lexical meanings are expressed by atypical wordings, such as realising a process as a noun instead of a verb ('nominalisation'). This is known as grammatical metaphor, and a method is described for unpacking grammatical metaphors to help analyse activity sequences.

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, grammatical metaphor is not an experiential discourse semantic system.

[1] The notion of grammatical metaphor involving "lexical meanings" betrays a misunderstanding, as will be demonstrated in future posts. To be clear, grammatical metaphor is not lexical, by definition.

[2] The notion of grammatical metaphor involving an "atypical" relation between strata betrays a misunderstanding, as will be demonstrated in future posts.  To be clear, the relation is incongruent, whether typical or atypical (which depends on instantiation probabilities, which vary for register).

[3] The characterisation of grammatical metaphor as a relation between function (process) and form (verb, noun) betrays a misunderstanding, as will be demonstrated in future posts.

[4] As the three misunderstandings above suggest, the promised method for unpacking grammatical metaphor is inconsistent with theory, as will be demonstrated in future posts.

Activity Sequences: Misapplied Logical Relations Rebranded As Experiential Discourse Semantics

Martin & Rose (2007: 73-4): 

Section 3.5 describes relations between activities as a text unfolds. As they construe experience as unfolding in series of activities, these relations are known as activity sequences. …

Section 3.5 concludes with a method for analysing activity sequences in a text that displays its phases of activities as well as its patterns of participation by people and things.

Blogger Comments:

[1] It will be seen that "relations between activities" are logical relations — addition and cause —between the semantic counterpart of clauses — in SFL: figures — rebranded as experiential discourse semantics.  In the ideational semantics of Halliday & Matthiessen (1999), figures are related logically in sequences.

As already explained, the inclusion of activity sequences in the experiential system of IDEATION is inconsistent with the informing work, Martin (1992), where activity sequences are modelled as field, the ideational dimension of context, itself misconstrued by Martin as register. Adding to the confusion, logical relations between the semantic counterpart of clauses are also modelled, here and in the informing work, by the logical discourse system of CONJUNCTION, itself a rebranding of misunderstandings of the textual grammatical system of cohesive conjunction, confused with misunderstandings of the logical systems of clause complexing.

[2] It will be seen that this method for analysing activity sequences (in SFL: logical relations between figures) is actually a method for analysing nuclear relations (in SFL: logical relations between elements of figures).  The confusion here is in terms of order of phenomena (in SFL: sequence and figure), and given that the chapter is concerned with experiential meaning, the theoretical inconsistency is once again metafunctional.

Nuclear Relations: Misapplied Logical Relations Rebranded As Experiential Discourse Semantics

Martin & Rose (2007: 73-4): 

Section 3.4 describes lexical relations between processes, people, things, places and qualities within each clause. As they are more or less central in the clause, these are known as nuclear relations. … 

Section 3.4 includes methods for analysing nuclear relations in a text, that display how people and things participate in activities, and how lexical elements are related across different parts of grammar. 

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the relations here are logical, not lexical, and they obtain between grammatical functions in clause structure, not lexical items.  Moreover, the logical relations between grammatical elements within the clause are misunderstood and rebranded as experiential discourse semantics — a model purportedly concerned with meaning beyond the clause.

[2] To be clear, logical relations between experiential functions do not display how — the manner in which — participants participate in processes, as will be demonstrated in future posts.

[3] To be clear, logical relations between experiential grammatical functions do not display how lexical elements are related across different parts of grammar.  Moreover, any relations between lexical elements across the grammar are a feature of lexicogrammar, not discourse semantics.  The confusions here thus involve two theoretical dimensions: metafunction and stratification.

Taxonomic Relations

Martin & Rose (2007: 73):

Section 3.2 describes chains of relations between lexical elements in a text, such as repetition, synonymy and contrast. As they build up a picture of people and things as a text unfolds, these are known as taxonomic relations. … 

In section 3.2 a method is introduced for analysing taxonomic relations in a text, that allows us to see relations between lexical elements as a text unfolds, as well as the overall pictures of people and things that a text construes.

Blogger Comments:

As the terms 'lexical', 'repetition' and 'synonymy' disclose, this constitutes Martin's rebranding of lexical cohesion, textual lexicogrammar, misconstrued as experiential discourse semantics. The theoretical inconsistencies are in terms of metafunction and stratification.

Some Fundamental Problems With The Experiential System Termed 'Ideation'

Martin & Rose (2007: 73):

IDEATION: construing experience 

Ideation is concerned with how our experience is construed in discourse. It focuses on sequences of activities, the people and things involved in them, and their associated places and qualities, and on how these elements are built up and related to each other as a text unfolds.

Blogger Comments:

The critiques of this chapter will attempt to identify its inconsistencies with the informing work, Martin (1992), as well as the inconsistencies both with SFL theory and with itself.  Problems with the theorising in Martin (1992) are identified in great detail here.

[1] To be clear, the characterisation of IDEATION as 'construing experience' is inconsistent with the characterisation of IDEATION in Martin (1992: 271) as 'the company words keep'.  The original characterisation derives from the fact that Martin's experiential discourse system is largely a rebranding of lexical cohesion (Halliday & Hasan 1976, Halliday 1985), a grammatical system of the textual metafunction.  The revised characterisation here derives from the title of Halliday & Matthiessen (1999), Construing Experience Through Meaning, which presents a model of ideational semantics, experiential and logical, that is consistent with the principles and architecture of SFL theory.

[2] To be clear, the inclusion of activity sequences in the experiential system of IDEATION is inconsistent with the informing work, Martin (1992), where activity sequences are modelled as field, the ideational dimension of context, itself misconstrued by Martin as register.  The notion of sequence as a semantic unit derives from the ideational semantics of Halliday & Matthiessen (1999).

Moreover, the inclusion of activity sequences in the experiential system of IDEATION is inconsistent in terms of metafunction to the extent that activity sequences involve logical relations between the semantic counterpart of clauses.

Adding to the confusion, logical relations between the semantic counterpart of clauses are also modelled, here and in the informing work, by the logical discourse system of CONJUNCTION, itself a rebranding of misunderstandings of the textual grammatical system of cohesive conjunction, confused with misunderstandings of the logical systems of clause complexing.

[3] It will be seen in the critiques that follow that these nuclear relations between elements constitute misunderstandings of clause nuclearity and logical relations, rebranded as an experiential discourse semantic system.

[4] It will be seen in the critiques that follow that the relations between elements constitute a rebranding of lexical cohesion, textual lexicogrammar, misconstrued as experiential discourse semantics.

On The Implicit Coupling Of Field With Appreciation

Martin & Rose (2007: 70-1):

Further complicating this issue is the implicit coupling of field with appreciation (the evocation variable noted above). As with affect and judgement, ideational meanings can be used to appraise, even though explicitly evaluative lexis is avoided. It perhaps should be stressed again here that appraisal analysts do need to declare their reading position, in particular since the evaluation one makes of evocations depends on the institutional position one is reading from. For example, according to reading position, formal and functional linguists will evaluate terms in the following sets of oppositions in complementary ways with firm convictions about what the good guys and the bad guys should celebrate:

rule/resource :: cognitive/social :: acquisition/development :: syntagmatic/paradigmatic :: form/function :: language/parole :: system/process :: psychology&philosophy/socioiogy&anthropology :: cognitive/social :: theory/description :: intuition/corpus :: knowledge/meaning :: syntax/discourse :: pragmatics/context :: parsimony/extravagance :: cognitive/critical :: technicist/humanist :: truth/social action :: performance/instantiation :: categorical/probabilistic :: contradictory/complementary :: proof/exemplification :: reductive/comprehensive :: arbitrary/natural :: modular/fractal :: syntax&lexicon/lexicogrammar...

Blogger Comments:

[1] As pointed out in the previous post, the notion of "coupling" of field with appreciation betrays the authors' misunderstanding of strata and metafunctions as interacting modules of meaning (Martin 1992: 390); see, for example Misconstruing Strata And Metafunctions As Modules. 

[2] The notion that 'ideational meanings can be used to appraise' continues the misunderstanding of metafunctions as modules.  The implication here is that the terms that enact explicit appraisals, such as 'disorganised', do not also serve an ideational function.

To be clear, the ideational metafunction is language in its function of construing experience as meaning, whereas the interpersonal metafunction is language in its function of enacting intersubjective relations as meaning.  As an interpersonal system, appraisal is the enactment of intersubjective relations as meaning, not the use of "ideational" meanings to appraise. 

[3] This confuses the reading position of the discourse analyst with the appraisals enacted in a text — the latter being either those of the author, or those reported by the author to be those of instantial participants.

[4] These proportionalities actually disclose the reading position of Martin & Rose.  The following table sets out what the authors believe are appraised as positive by "the good guys and the bad guys":

What Formal Linguists Should Celebrate	What Functional Linguists Should Celebrate
rule	resource
cognitive	social
acquisition	development
syntagmatic	paradigmatic
form	function
language	parole
system	process
psychology & philosophy	socioiogy & anthropology
cognitive	social
theory	description
intuition	corpus
knowledge	meaning
syntax	discourse
pragmatics	context
parsimony	extravagance
cognitive	critical
technicist	humanist
truth	social action
performance	instantiation
categorical	probabilistic
contradictory	complementary
proof	exemplification
reductive	comprehensive
arbitrary	natural
modular	fractal
syntax & lexicon	lexicogrammar