Dear colleagues...Since you are having an interesting and insightful
discussion on discourse and SFL, do you think you can recommend literature
which deals with the interface of SFL and Critical Discourse
Analysis/Studies? Thanks.
Best wishes
Sebastian
El mar, 30 nov 2021 a las 19:02, Dr ChRIS CLÉiRIGh (<c.cleirigh@xxxxxxxxx>)
escribió:
Hi Kieran,
Your discussion of the exophoric reference of *that in*
1. *That is the second biggest arrow I've ever seen.*
raises the issue of the two orientations to meaning: immanent vs
transcendent.
What is your understanding of these two orientations,
and which of them do you adopt?
ChRIS
On Tue, 30 Nov 2021 at 18:08, Kieran McGillicuddy <
dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi Chris,
I often notice that you draw attention to this quotation, and this line
of thought, from Halliday. And it is very hard to disagree with a call to
provide a foundation for our analyses. And, if there is to be a solid
foundation, it is at the least more likely to be found in 'grammar' (note
'scare quotes') than in 'discourse semantics' (more bloody 'scare quotes')
. And, Halliday in his own work has managed to produce some impressive
analyses of texts which for me have been very much consistent with my
intuitive responses to the text in question. And, subsequently a mass of
systemic linguits and fellow travellers have produced analyses of texts
which have been, 'informative', doesn't cut it, and 'useful' cuts it even
less. Mmm, I'll just mutter past with some wide comment like 'they have a
huge amount to be proud of'.
And of course, a 'but' (not 'scare quotes') is coming.
But also, before the biggish but, the analyses based on the
lexicogrammar, are systematic, and often enough language users appear to be
making choices rather than other choices, and we tend to accept that in
making certain choices certain other choices are being rejected, and to
some it appears that that is where meaning lies.
- a quick diversion here to thank some clearsightedness from Margaeret
Berry in trying to get the distinction between system options and choices
cleared up, the which, I believe never happened to her satisfaction.
So..., I can say pending the bigger buts, that I am extremely attached to
language being systematic, but, I am concerned about what has shaped and is
shaping whatever system we are deploying. And, foreshadowing my obvious big
buts, what has shaped the system, is hardly likely to be found internal to
the system.
So, my brother! The one who is a basterd. Was/is great at finding
something/anything which challenged the foundations of one's argument. You
couldn't get any foundation, and the argument would end up turning and
turning in some pretty much unrecognisable gyre.
And there may be some family trait, which we should all pronounce with a
vocalised 't'. Over time I have put together, largely for myself, a set of
phenomena where the lexicogrammar doesn't cut it. I'm a destructive basterd
by character perhaps, but I feel as if I shouldn't have been able to find
so many problems.
And many many many of the problems entail that 'meaning' isn't able to be
found within the lexicogrammar. Though I may 70% agree with you, for
example,
A discourse analysis that is not based on grammar is not an analysis at
all, but simply a running commentary on a text … the exercise remains a
private one in which one explanation is as good or as bad as another.
'grammar' (scare quotes) doesn't really solve the problem. But, pending
stating one of the problems that I see, discourse analysis, at least as
practiced within systemics, tries very hard to base itself on 'grammar'.
While adding other tricks/techniques, often enough I suspect to
counter/supplement problems of grammar.
(Damn, am I still preluding?)
So, I'm destructive, and I find problems, and if I find a problem left in
the bathwater by the baby. that is almost certainly not a reason to throw
out the baby.
One of the problems is to be found in my last sentence, and like a lot of
my problems, but not all, has some deictic or pointing component. What is
'that'? Now you and I might know that 'that' is *I find a problem left
in the bathwater by the baby*, or *if I find a problem left in the
bathwater by the baby*, (or some such not much difference) but from a
lexicogrammar perspective that does me no good. Neither of those possible
meanings is in the clause in question, all I can find is 'that', and clause
complexing doesn't help me, that doesn't tell me what the 'that' is.
(Furtherly, the lexicogrammar and discourse analysis won't tell you what
the clause complexing relationships might be.) A discourse analyst with
systematising tendencies would attempt to deploy endophora, in this case,
and that would help, but not explain how we track things down, and in any
case endophora is not a feature of the lexicogrammar, the last time I
looked.
And/ but even endophora does not really explain. If I am to track down
'that' to '*if I find a problem in the bathwater'*, how do I do it, the
tracking? And, frankly, for the foundations of the lexicogrammar, it
happens at least partly in my head, and who would want to sort through that
jumble.
The problem is more noticeable, much more noticeable, when what we are
analysing is not texty texts.
1.
*That is the second biggest arrow I've ever seen. *
2.
*This is this, this aint something else, this is this.*
3.
*He died here.*
An awful lot of the time, from an analysis of the lexicogrammar, we won't
know what the hellsapoppin' is goin' on.
But we do know, within some limits. It's just we don't know from the bit
of text/utterance or/and a lexicogrammatical analysis.
And here, I step briefly into the huge whingewhich has been building up
in me since Reading Images first prouded my bookshelf. Why the hell aren't
we reassessing the lexicogrammar itself in response to the damage which has
been done to it, and is being done to it, by 'multimodality' (scare quotes)
(end whinge)
In a) 'that' is a nuclearly warheaded arrow aimed at Washington DC. And
part of the 'meaning' could be worked out from 'the second biggest arrow',
but on the spot, watching the interactants between a teepee and the arrow,
there was pretty much nothing to work out. I could see the thing, and it
has already been established that it was a nuclear weapon. I don't need
'discourse analysis', because I can see the thing, except that seeing also
doesn't deal with all that I cognize. A perhaps more important problem is
to be found in the 'Value', in 'the second biggest arrow I've ever seen',
which somehow, explicably somehow, set up a contrast between 'this' arrow
and another in a set of arrows which includes one which was bigger. This
was clearly a basterd of a situation. My head was manipulated, and I was
made to attempt a chunk of visual stuff, in my head/memory to see/imagine
this other arrow.
Now, in this case the lexicogrammar isn't cutting it. I can't deal with
these things without seeing stuff, at the least without seeing stuff.
And I can't really step up to 'discourse analysis' to sort things out,
and construing doesn't cut. When I am told, '*That is the second biggest
arrow I've ever seen*'. I'm there. I'm already there. When I hear 'that'
I start to sort a few things out, working out what 'that' is, but that
isn't what we mean by construing is it? And the 'that' is pretty much a
physical thing.
In b) the grammar doesn't cut it, but in the situation, where it was
said, 'this' is a bullet.
So, is this just one problem I'm pointing to now? Can we throw out the
baby yet? Deixis/pointing is in fact, I very strongly believe, a major
major problem, with threads unwinding their way right through the
lexicogrammar. It leads, I believe, to a need to reverse the analysis of
the nominal group, with the deictic to be head, though Croatians may
disagree. The deixis problem, for example, also creates some problems for
the nominalisation variant of grammatical metaphor. And surely I have
previously raised my concerns about a nominal group starting the second
world war.
I*n 1939, Hitler invaded Poland and this started the second world war.*
Is '*this*' a nominalisation of *Hitler invaded Poland*. We linguists
don't instinctively relate to it as nominalisation as we would, say, to
*'this invasion started world war 2'*
But what would be the difference? 'This' treats/transforms 'Hitler
invaded Poland' as a Thing/Entity but that Thinging of a complex phenomenon
happens separate to a grammatical transformation. At this point,
traditionally, I kind of get cranky at the notion of a nominalisation
starting a war. So, why would one think that the issue here is one of a
verb being changed to a noun? I don't get it. But the linguists are doing
it everywhere, and it needs to be explained why they think they are doing
something languagey.
And to give ammunition against me, that kind of attack on nominalisation
is a same kind of attack which matches up with my claim that I have never
produced a sentence, and that I have never engaged in discourse. Why the
gorblimey would I want to produce a sentence? Even on those occasions when
I have talked and talked and talked, saying nothing much at all perhaps
like now, I have actually been doing something else, such as blocking
critics from intervening/interacting. But that is another debate.
*Give me the gun!*
Okay, I say that *Give me the gun, *as it exists in this passage of text, is
not an instance of language, it is an attempted example. And you, in fact,
never give me the bloody gun. Leave that aside. We lexicogrammaticalists, I
believe, want to treat 'Give me the gun!' as `a material process, but
perhaps there are some who would take account that what is being
'exchanged' (yet more bloody scare quotes) is control, and that the
'exchange' is not really any exchange of matter or action. No matter, my
point is as someone who would sometimes like to analyse 'dscourse', I don't
give a sherbet whether 'Give me the gun' is material or control. *I want
the gun*, or more precisely, *I want to have the gun*. If I say *Give me
the gun*, and *you give me the gun*, zowee, *I have the gun*. And my new
possession, which can all very well not show up in any analysis, is the
state of affairs which sadly leads to X being deaded, or not.
*A text is a semantic unit, not a grammatical one. But meanings are
realised through wordings; and without a theory of wordings — that is, a
grammar — there is no way of making explicit one's interpretation of the
meaning of a text.*
When we read, a lot of us read smoothly and slide over the page, the
words. Perhaps more so, when we are working out way through an extended
passage of text. And, things can appear differently when we look at them
slowly in detail, as when analysing. So, let's try and slow down our
reading of the Halliday quotation.
*without a theory of wordings — that is, a grammar — there is no way of
making explicit one's interpretation of the meaning of a text.*
But, instead of analysing this short passage in lexicogrammatical terms,
let's contrast it with,
*with a theory of wordings - that is a grammar - one will be able to make
explicit one's interpretation of the meaning of text*
Er, nah! As I said to my wife while recently walking along a country
road, *that is quite possibly bullsheet*. And in our analyses, virtually
every systemicists analyses, we gloss the sentence/words, contextualise
them, and pretend that we are analysing the wordings when we are actually
analysing the 'wordings' in conjunction with the gloss/contextualisation.
Err, nah! But would such a change to the quotation be justified?
And I have a cart/horse problem too? Where does *one's interpretation of
the meaning of the text* fit in? Is the process one where my
interpretation of the meaning of the text is correct, albeit 'intuitive',
and then the deployment of the grammar will make explicit/explain my
interpretations/intuitions? We have a bit of slipperiness going on here.
Where the result, one's interpretation, something 'intuitive', is given,
and the purpose of the analysis is to prove it. We seem to have our
conclusion before our evidence, which in some respects would not
necessarily be wrong.
I interpret 'texts' all the time, and I read and I listen, albeit that
even when I read I don't just read for the sake of reading. But leave that
distinction aside. I interpret texts, that is, I read and think and react
to some and various purposes. And that is what I do.
So, to follow on, what is the relationship between what I do when faced
with a 'text' with what I do when I lexicogrammatically analyse that text.
Let's say that once upon a time, a policeman knocked on my door, and when
I opened it, he took off his headgear and said solemnly, (note the glossing)
*I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but your wife has tragically died in
a car accident this afternoon!*
To which I replied, similarly solemnly,
*No, that'll be the bloke next door *(pointing to my left) *I'm not
married.*
It's not clear, once again, that the lexicogrammar will cut it. There's
lot going on in the copper's talk, but most of it is dismissed to the
netherworld while I focus on the failed deixis of 'your wife' trying to
find some other perhaps relevant wife, who will not be mine, because it
can't be mine. (The real world really has some part to play here.) And
there is nothing about the nominal group 'your wife', analysed as a nominal
group, which will much help.
The above, you may have guessed, was an invented example. I now give you
an example which is 'real', although, being an example, it is not real,
and, as usual, I use it because I think it is funny.
I went to see a kidney specialist after a biopsy of my left adrenal
gland. And this kidney specialist, who would prefer not to be named, said
'you have a cancer of the adrenal gland! You only have a few months to
live.' And please excuse that somewhat paraphrasing. One of my brothers,
not a busterd, was with me at the time, and I suppose I could check. In any
case, he handed over the pathologist's report. To cut a long interpretation
very short, it took me an hour to get home, I didn't have a mobile, so I
had to wait till I got home to call the doctor to tell him he was wrong,
and I managed that even without looking on the internet. But, apart my
boasting, did that kidney specialist provide we with information, deploying
a possessive relational Process, of the kind, 'You have a very nice car',
or should that 'information' be treated as something more, of the kind, *I
have a gun*, but worse, because you can't escape the information no
matter how fast you run. The interpretation was consequently a much more
elaborate process.
But, the interpretation!
I have been asked by someone to comment on the following passage on
symbolism, from some apparently highly reputable linguist.
*Language rests fundamentally on the ability of speakers and hearers to
deal withsymbols. A symbol is an object (sound, gesture, behavior) that has
become associated with meaning by convention. The introduction of new words
is clearly an act of symbolism. Grammatical constructions are also
symbolic. *
And I keep shaking my head. How the hell am I supposed to deal with this?
I don't think I know what a symbol is. And until I sort that out, it's
going to be hard for me to understand what he is saying. My problems are
numerous. I don't think that I have ever produced a gesture, qua gesture.
*The
middle finger? *Which I only use very sparingly. But gesture seems like
a a grammatical category, rather than something I would do.
And to be fair with my interactant. I don't blame him for asking me to
comment. I think he was trying to get me to think what I think, or to say
what I think, aware that it would not be easy for me. I suppose that's a
kind of trolling.
What does 'this' mean, as opposed to what does it do? And 'the' and
'second' and 'biggest', and perhaps most importantly, what does 'sarcoma'
'mean'? And, what is the convention for 'sarcoma'? Now, the pathologist
wrote sarcoma, or some such, and the specialist read it and said it, and I
heard it, and sort of understood it, and took some time to think through
what I had earlier read about it. And, quite amazingly, despite all of use
using the same soundingish apparently a word, we weren't talking about the
same word/meanng/thing. And, one needs to face facts, I didn't care about
the word, and I didn't care about the meaning, what was in play was the
'Thing', but not a thing as if it was a Thing, but a Thing with a set of
potential behavriours and interactions. It was amazing. We were talking
about the same word/sounding which was attached to different and for me and
my specialist sadly unstable meanings which changed for me in the course of
my going home. I'm telling you, this lexico end of the lexicogrammar can be
a little dodgy too. Adenoma/sarcoma/carcinoma/incidentaloma, what's the
difference, or is the appropriarte question, what's the consequence?
On Tuesday, 30 November 2021, 00:39:08 GMT, Rodrigo Esteves de Lima Lopes
<rll307@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Thanks for sharing. I went through mine and noticed I had highlighted the
same passage.
All the best,
Rodrigo
On Mon, 29 Nov 2021 at 01:18, Dr ChRIS CLÉiRIGh <c.cleirigh@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Halliday (1985/1994: xvi-xvii):
The current preoccupation is with discourse analysis, or 'text
linguistics'; and it has sometimes been assumed that this can be carried on
without grammar — or even that it is somehow an alternative to grammar.
But this is an illusion. A discourse analysis that is not based on grammar
is not an analysis at all, but simply a running commentary on a text … the
exercise remains a private one in which one explanation is as good or as
bad as another.
A text is a semantic unit, not a grammatical one. But meanings are
realised through wordings; and without a theory of wordings — that is, a
grammar — there is no way of making explicit one's interpretation of the
meaning of a text.
--
dr chris cléirigh
*All you need is ignorance and confidence and then success is sure.
<https://thoughts-that-cross-my-mind.blogspot.com/p/the-dunningkruger-effect.html>*
— Mark Twain
====================================
My Linguistics Sites
Factoring Out Structure <https://yaegandoran.blogspot.com/>
Martin's Discourse Semantics, Register & Genre
<http://discourse-semantics.blogspot.com.au/> (凌遲
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingchi>)
Working With Discourse: Meaning Beyond The Clause
<http://workingwithdiscourse.blogspot.com.au/> (凌遲
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingchi>)
The Cardiff Grammar <http://cardiff-grammar.blogspot.com.au/> (凌遲
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingchi>)
Thoughts That Cross My Mind
<http://thoughts-that-cross-my-mind.blogspot.com.au/>
The Thought Occurs <http://thethoughtoccurs.blogspot.com.au/>…
Thoughts That Didn't Occur <http://master-bateman.blogspot.com.au/>…
Informing Thoughts <http://informingthoughts.blogspot.com.au/>
Systemic Functional Linguistics <http://systemictheory.blogspot.com/>
Sysfling <http://sysfling.blogspot.com.au/>
Sys-Func <http://sys-func.blogspot.com.au/>
Attitude In Systemic Functional Linguistics
<http://attitude-in-sfl.blogspot.com.au/>
Martin's Model Of Paralanguage <https://sflparalanguage.blogspot.com/>
Lexis As Most Local Context
<https://lexisasmostlocalcontext.blogspot.com/>
Making Sense Of Meaning <https://meta-sfl-theory.blogspot.com/>
====================================
--
dr chris cléirigh
*Virtues, like essences, lose their fragrance when exposed.*
— William
Shenstone
====================================
My Linguistics Sites
Factoring Out Structure <https://yaegandoran.blogspot.com/>
Martin's Discourse Semantics, Register & Genre
<http://discourse-semantics.blogspot.com.au/> (凌遲
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingchi>)
Working With Discourse: Meaning Beyond The Clause
<http://workingwithdiscourse.blogspot.com.au/> (凌遲
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingchi>)
The Cardiff Grammar <http://cardiff-grammar.blogspot.com.au/> (凌遲
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingchi>)
Thoughts That Cross My Mind
<http://thoughts-that-cross-my-mind.blogspot.com.au/>
The Thought Occurs <http://thethoughtoccurs.blogspot.com.au/>…
Thoughts That Didn't Occur <http://master-bateman.blogspot.com.au/>…
Informing Thoughts <http://informingthoughts.blogspot.com.au/>
Systemic Functional Linguistics <http://systemictheory.blogspot.com/>
Sysfling <http://sysfling.blogspot.com.au/>
Sys-Func <http://sys-func.blogspot.com.au/>
Attitude In Systemic Functional Linguistics
<http://attitude-in-sfl.blogspot.com.au/>
Martin's Model Of Paralanguage <https://sflparalanguage.blogspot.com/>
Lexis As Most Local Context
<https://lexisasmostlocalcontext.blogspot.com/>
Making Sense Of Meaning <https://meta-sfl-theory.blogspot.com/>
====================================
