You bar steward!
And that is my opening gambit. You have given me a choice betweenengaging with
something difficult, or going away, with my tailtucked, and hoping no-one will
notice.
But it seems that here I am, at a page on my computer, faced with achoice
between Immanent or Transcendent? But, in your now, I'm not atmy computer am I?
As you read this, you are somewhere else, facedwith your own activities, which
are probably only very partiallyyours.
It's hard to talk to you, in part because you use words likeTranscendental and
Immanent, and I don't really understand thosewords. Mmm. No! I can do something
with them, but not a lot. And inany case, here I am talking to you, but perhaps
there are otherpeople watching, or perhaps reading. For me, it's threatening to
havesomeone reading. But here I am. Or I was here, and for my
(these)interactants now, I am somewhere else. So, to be a little moreprecise,
here I am, even though I'm not.
I'm watching my back here. Because someone somewhere else has askedme to
elaborate on the difference between a production and receptionperspective on
language, and I have done some of it tentatively andam continuing to doing it,
to some extent, and here I'm worried thatmy interactant from somewhere else
will be watching actually here. Idon't want to do too much stupid.
I'm supposed to be a linguist. At least to me I'm supposed to be alinguist, but
I have trouble staying within bounds, and that is not,I think, entirely my
fault. For me here, which is for you very muchnot here, but nevertheless I can
say, for me here... Stop.
I have problems. I don't know what the real is. There, I admit it.And I will
therefore have some trouble with materialisms, of thevarious kinds, and knowing
where I fit in with them. But I need toknow what is real, it would seem, if I
am going to use language topoint to stuff. What am I pointing to/at?
And now I can play my common man schtick. I am only trying to workout what
happens when we use language. And I am wary of even sayingthat. Because I worry
that I don't use language, in that to say thatI use language implies a
phenomenon 'language' which I then go on todeploy. It is a conception which
worries me, which has been carriedover rather literally so that we linguists
tend to start withlinguistics proper and then go on to pragmatics. Someone
quoted to merecently something to the effect that Halliday didn't
study'language' first, as some sort of linguistics phenomenon, what helooked at
was language, and I took that to mean that he wanted tolook at language in its
functioning. But my 'took that to mean', isnot necessarily what was meant.
I'm trying to work out what 'the real' is. And with that, 'truth'. Ihave, you
see, a problem with my nephew. My nephew plays the Frenchhorn. And I want to
discuss an aspect of that fact, as a linguist. Ihave told you, My nephew plays
the French horn, and I have putthat in italics, because it is words, something
that I am saying,but, in fact, My nephew plays the French horn, which I
havebolded, because it is real, a fact?, and I want to distinguish thereal
world from language. But, practically, I run into problems. WhenI write my
nephew plays the French horn, what I am saying andwhat you are hearing have to
be two different things. My my nephewis not your my nephew. We don't share the
same meanings. Whichis kind of tricky, and simple, and important. When I say
'the cat' or'a cat', what I am saying and what you are hearing are not the
samething. And it might be said that we don't share the same language,but it
isn't a problem of language, my 'a cat' and your 'a cat', arenot the same
thing. There's a problem in our signifier/signifiedrelationship, and the
problem doesn't lie with the 'word' cat, itlies with cats. Your 'a cat' is not
he same thing as my'a cat'. In essentially the same way that my my
nephew,Declan, is not the same as your my nephew.
Language is amazing, and the magic of words, to me, is that thedifference
between our worlds can be so cleverly bridged by atechnique which allows us to
talk about different 'things', withoutnoticing.
I'm reading stuff by a guy called Adrian Pable, from Hong Kong. But Iam not
reading his stuff. I'm trying to understand it, and I amtrying to understand it
because too much of the stuff going by in hiswriting makes sense to me, so I
keep hoping that I can struggleforward and make sense of the rest. In part that
is difficult, andtime consuming. To understand as well as I would wish, I
needed toread a Roy Harris book that I hadn't had access to, AfterEpistemology,
and now I have it. I also need to get hold of twoarticles from Nigel Love,
which, it seems, will be important for avariety of reasons. That will happen
eventually.
Amongst the stuff from Adrian Pable, is that linguists need to engagewith
philosophy. And that is not happening, too much. Mmm. Nah, I'mgoing to stick
with that. Linguists aren't engaging enough with, mmm,not philosophy so much as
trying to work out what they are talkingabout.
Your 'a cat' is not the same as my 'a cat'. And this throws up acouple of
problems. Some of which, due to a defect in language, canbe difficult to talk
about. Lately, I have decided that it doesn'twork to talk about the meaning of
'cat', and I can dodge someproblems by talking about 'a cat'. And I have
troubles with whether acat is a thing or a concept. And this edges into
problems I havein working out the difference between epistemology and ontology.
Ihave trouble working out the distinction between my concept of acat, and what
I think a cat is. You see, I live in a world wherea cat is a cat is a cat, but
as soon as I talk about the felinebasterds which populate too much of the
world, these real things turninto concepts. But I refuse to live in a world
where there areconcepts of cats, I live I a world where there are cats. Does
thatmake me an immanentist, or am I a transcendentalist? I take it as anarticle
of faith that my 'a cat' is not the same as your 'a cat', butboth of us will
still be talking about real cats', real to me anddifferently real to you.
My nephew plays the French horn. Now, that is true. It is true forme, and I am
just going to take it that you believe me. But it is notreal, in that he is not
playing the French horn now, he is probablyasleep. Now, I'm edgy about saying
that it is a fact that my nephewplays the French horn. I can say that it is a
fact that my nephew hasplayed the French horn. And it is a fact that he has
played theFrench horn on several occasions. But is it a fact that he plays
theFrench horn? There are instances/facts, but what is the relationshipbetween
these instances of fact, and the simple present tense of amaterial process. I
think I am nearing an answer.
But, I will divert myself just briefly. It doesn't help much tounderstand how
language works, to say that the sentence has a Processand Range, or some such.
To name parts doesn't say how it works
One of our problems with My nephew plays the French horn, isthat my 'plays the
French horn' in this case, is not the same asyours. Especially when attached to
my nephew. Knowing stuffabout him, changes what plays the French horn is
likelyto mean. Before getting into what meaning means. Now, do I mean, ordo the
words mean, or do you take to mean?
I'm going to quit this, without going into where I was aiming, whichwas a
discussion of the simple present, and the conditonality of thepresent, rather
than, say, some sort of generalisation frominstances, because I think I have
worked out what my point is.
Which is, that I think you have asked the right question, perhaps notnecessrily
the specific question, but the class of question.
I have gone on a chunk, and it is sort of unfair to think that people(actually,
you are not people, you are linguists) should listen tome. But you should
listen to someone, someone who knows that they aretalking about. Adrian Pable
has written an article, somewhere, aboutthe need for philosophy of language
behind the study of language. AndI think he argues that it isn't happening.
Which seems odd when thereare huge fields of philosophy of language. But..., if
we take thequotation from Halliday too seriously, then we do have a problem.
Thequotation needs a philosophying of language.
On Tuesday, 30 November 2021, 22:02:31 GMT, Dr ChRIS CLÉiRIGh
<c.cleirigh@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi Kieran,
Your discussion of the exophoric reference of that in
- 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:
HiChris,
Ioften notice that you draw attention to this quotation, and this lineof
thought, from Halliday. And it is very hard to disagree with acall to provide a
foundation for our analyses. And, if there is to bea solid foundation, it is at
the least more likely to be found in'grammar' (note 'scare quotes') than in
'discourse semantics' (morebloody 'scare quotes') . And, Halliday in his own
work has managed toproduce some impressive analyses of texts which for me have
been verymuch consistent with my intuitive responses to the text in
question.And, subsequently a mass of systemic linguits and fellow
travellershave produced analyses of texts which have been,
'informative',doesn't cut it, and 'useful' cuts it even less. Mmm, I'll just
mutterpast with some wide comment like 'they have a huge amount to be proudof'.
Andof course, a 'but' (not 'scare quotes') is coming.
Butalso, before the biggish but, the analyses based on thelexicogrammar, are
systematic, and often enough language users appearto be making choices rather
than other choices, and we tend to acceptthat in making certain choices certain
other choices are beingrejected, and to some it appears that that is where
meaning lies.
-a quick diversion here to thank some clearsightedness from MargaeretBerry in
trying to get the distinction between system options andchoices cleared up, the
which, I believe never happened to hersatisfaction.
So...,I can say pending the bigger buts, that I am extremely attached
tolanguage being systematic, but, I am concerned about what has shapedand is
shaping whatever system we are deploying. And, foreshadowingmy obvious big
buts, what has shaped the system, is hardly likely tobe found internal to the
system.
So,my brother! The one who is a basterd. Was/is great at
findingsomething/anything which challenged the foundations of one'sargument.
You couldn't get any foundation, and the argument would endup turning and
turning in some pretty much unrecognisable gyre.
Andthere may be some family trait, which we should all pronounce with
avocalised 't'. Over time I have put together, largely for myself, aset of
phenomena where the lexicogrammar doesn't cut it. I'm adestructive basterd by
character perhaps, but I feel as if Ishouldn't have been able to find so many
problems.
Andmany many many of the problems entail that 'meaning' isn't able to befound
within the lexicogrammar. Though I may 70% agree with you, forexample,
Adiscourse analysis that is not based on grammar is not an analysis atall, but
simply a running commentary on a text … the exerciseremains a private one in
which one explanation is as good or as badas another.
'grammar'(scare quotes) doesn't really solve the problem. But, pending
statingone of the problems that I see, discourse analysis, at least aspracticed
within systemics, tries very hard to base itself on'grammar'. While adding
other tricks/techniques, often enough Isuspect 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 inthe
bathwater by the baby. that is almost certainly not a reason tothrow out the
baby.
Oneof the problems is to be found in my last sentence, and like a lot ofmy
problems, but not all, has some deictic or pointing component.What is 'that'?
Now you and I might know that 'that' is Ifind a problem left in the bathwater
by the baby,or if I find aproblem left in the bathwater by the baby,(or some
such not much difference) but from a lexicogrammarperspective that does me no
good. Neither of those possible meaningsis in the clause in question, all I can
find is 'that', and clausecomplexing doesn't help me, that doesn't tell me what
the 'that' is.(Furtherly, the lexicogrammar and discourse analysis won't tell
youwhat the clause complexing relationships might be.) A discourseanalyst with
systematising tendencies would attempt to deployendophora, in this case, and
that would help, but not explain how wetrack things down, and in any case
endophora is not a feature of thelexicogrammar, the last time I looked.
And/but even endophora does not really explain. If I am to track down'that' to
'if Ifind a problem in the bathwater',how do I do it, the tracking? And,
frankly, for the foundations ofthe lexicogrammar, it happens at least partly in
my head, and whowould want to sort through that jumble.
Theproblem is more noticeable, much more noticeable, when what we areanalysing
is not texty texts.
-
That is the second biggest arrow I've ever seen.
-
This is this, this aint something else, this is this.
-
He died here.
Anawful lot of the time, from an analysis of the lexicogrammar, wewon't know
what the hellsapoppin' is goin' on.
Butwe do know, within some limits. It's just we don't know from the bitof
text/utterance or/and a lexicogrammatical analysis.
Andhere, I step briefly into the huge whingewhich has been building upin me
since Reading Images first prouded my bookshelf. Why the hellaren't we
reassessing the lexicogrammar itself in response to thedamage which has been
done to it, and is being done to it, by'multimodality' (scare quotes) (end
whinge)
Ina) 'that' is a nuclearly warheaded arrow aimed at Washington DC. Andpart of
the 'meaning' could be worked out from 'the second biggestarrow', but on the
spot, watching the interactants between a teepeeand the arrow, there was pretty
much nothing to work out. I could seethe thing, and it has already been
established that it was a nuclearweapon. I don't need 'discourse analysis',
because I can see thething, 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, explicablysomehow,
set up a contrast between 'this' arrow and another in a setof arrows which
includes one which was bigger. This was clearly abasterd of a situation. My
head was manipulated, and I was made toattempt a chunk of visual stuff, in my
head/memory to see/imaginethis other arrow.
Now,in this case the lexicogrammar isn't cutting it. I can't deal withthese
things without seeing stuff, at the least without seeing stuff.
AndI can't really step up to 'discourse analysis' to sort things out,and
construing doesn't cut. When I am told, 'Thatis the second biggest arrow I've
ever seen'.I'm there. I'm already there. When I hear 'that' I start to sort
afew things out, working out what 'that' is, but that isn't what wemean by
construing is it? And the 'that' is pretty much a physicalthing.
Inb) the grammar doesn't cut it, but in the situation, where it wassaid, 'this'
is a bullet.
So,is this just one problem I'm pointing to now? Can we throw out thebaby yet?
Deixis/pointing is in fact, I very strongly believe, amajor major problem, with
threads unwinding their way right throughthe lexicogrammar. It leads, I
believe, to a need to reverse theanalysis of the nominal group, with the
deictic to be head, thoughCroatians may disagree. The deixis problem, for
example, also createssome problems for the nominalisation variant of
grammatical metaphor.And surely I have previously raised my concerns about a
nominal groupstarting the second world war.
In1939, Hitler invaded Poland and this started the second world war.
Is'this'a nominalisation of Hitlerinvaded Poland.We linguists don't
instinctively relate to it as nominalisation as wewould, say, to
'this invasion started world war2'
Butwhat would be the difference? 'This' treats/transforms 'Hitlerinvaded
Poland' as a Thing/Entity but that Thinging of a complexphenomenon happens
separate to a grammatical transformation. At thispoint, traditionally, I kind
of get cranky at the notion of anominalisation starting a war. So, why would
one think that the issuehere is one of a verb being changed to a noun? I don't
get it. Butthe linguists are doing it everywhere, and it needs to be
explainedwhy they think they are doing something languagey.
Andto give ammunition against me, that kind of attack on nominalisationis a
same kind of attack which matches up with my claim that I havenever produced a
sentence, and that I have never engaged indiscourse. Why the gorblimey would I
want to produce a sentence? Evenon those occasions when I have talked and
talked and talked, sayingnothing much at all perhaps like now, I have actually
been doingsomething else, such as blocking critics fromintervening/interacting.
But that is another debate.
Giveme the gun!
Okay,I say that Give me thegun, as it exists inthis 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. Welexicogrammaticalists, I believe, want
to treat 'Give me the gun!' as`a material process, but perhaps there are some
who would takeaccount that what is being 'exchanged' (yet more bloody scare
quotes)is control, and that the 'exchange' is not really any exchange ofmatter
or action. No matter, my point is as someone who wouldsometimes 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 anyanalysis, is the state of affairs
which sadly leads to X beingdeaded, or not.
A text is a semantic unit, not agrammatical one. But meanings are realised
through wordings;and without a theory of wordings — that is, a grammar — there
isno way of making explicit one's interpretation of the meaning of atext.
Whenwe read, a lot of us read smoothly and slide over the page, thewords.
Perhaps more so, when we are working out way through anextended passage of
text. And, things can appear differently when welook at them slowly in detail,
as when analysing. So, let's try andslow down our reading of the Halliday
quotation.
without a theory of wordings —that is, a grammar — there is no way of making
explicit one'sinterpretation 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 - thatis a grammar - one will be able to make
explicit one'sinterpretation of the meaning of text
Er,nah! As I said to my wife while recently walking along a countryroad, that
is quitepossibly bullsheet. Andin our analyses, virtually every systemicists
analyses, we gloss thesentence/words, contextualise them, and pretend that we
are analysingthe wordings when we are actually analysing the 'wordings'
inconjunction with the gloss/contextualisation. Err, nah! But wouldsuch a
change to the quotation be justified?
AndI have a cart/horse problem too? Where does one'sinterpretation of the
meaning of the textfit in? Is the process one where my interpretation of the
meaning ofthe text is correct, albeit 'intuitive', and then the deployment
ofthe grammar will make explicit/explain my interpretations/intuitions?We have
a bit of slipperiness going on here. Where the result, one'sinterpretation,
something 'intuitive', is given, and the purpose ofthe analysis is to prove it.
We seem to have our conclusion beforeour evidence, which in some respects would
not necessarily be wrong.
Iinterpret 'texts' all the time, and I read and I listen, albeit thateven when
I read I don't just read for the sake of reading. But leavethat distinction
aside. I interpret texts, that is, I read and thinkand 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 facedwith a
'text' with what I do when I lexicogrammatically analyse thattext.
Let'ssay that once upon a time, a policeman knocked on my door, and when
Iopened it, he took off his headgear and said solemnly, (note theglossing)
I'm sorry to have to tell youthis, but your wife has tragically died in a car
accident thisafternoon!
Towhich I replied, similarly solemnly,
No, that'll be the bloke nextdoor (pointing to myleft) I'm not married.
It'snot 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 thenetherworld
while I focus on the failed deixis of 'your wife' tryingto find some other
perhaps relevant wife, who will not be mine,because it can't be mine. (The real
world really has some part toplay here.) And there is nothing about the nominal
group 'your wife',analysed as a nominal group, which will much help.
Theabove, you may have guessed, was an invented example. I now give youan
example which is 'real', although, being an example, it is notreal, and, as
usual, I use it because I think it is funny.
Iwent to see a kidney specialist after a biopsy of my left adrenalgland. And
this kidney specialist, who would prefer not to be named,said 'you have a
cancer of the adrenal gland! You only have a fewmonths to live.' And please
excuse that somewhat paraphrasing. One ofmy brothers, not a busterd, was with
me at the time, and I suppose Icould check. In any case, he handed over the
pathologist's report. Tocut 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
tocall the doctor to tell him he was wrong, and I managed that evenwithout
looking on the internet. But, apart my boasting, did thatkidney specialist
provide we with information, deploying a possessiverelational Process, of the
kind, 'You have a very nice car', orshould 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 howfast you run. The interpretation was consequently
a much moreelaborate process.
But,the interpretation!
I have been asked by someone to comment on the following passage onsymbolism,
from some apparently highly reputable linguist.
Language rests fundamentally onthe ability of speakers and hearers to deal with
symbols. A symbolis an object (sound, gesture, behavior) that has become
associatedwith meaning by convention. The introduction of new words is
clearlyan act of symbolism. Grammatical constructions are also symbolic.
AndI 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. Myproblems are numerous. I don't think
that I have ever produced agesture, qua gesture. The middle finger? WhichI only
use very sparingly. But gesture seems like a a grammaticalcategory, rather than
something I would do.
Andto be fair with my interactant. I don't blame him for asking me tocomment. I
think he was trying to get me to think what I think, or tosay what I think,
aware that it would not be easy for me. I supposethat's a kind of trolling.
Whatdoes '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, thepathologist wrote sarcoma, or some
such, and the specialist read itand said it, and I heard it, and sort of
understood it, and took sometime to think through what I had earlier read about
it. And, quiteamazingly, despite all of use using the same soundingish
apparently aword, we weren't talking about the same word/meanng/thing. And,
oneneeds to face facts, I didn't care about the word, and I didn't careabout
the meaning, what was in play was the 'Thing', but not a thingas if it was a
Thing, but a Thing with a set of potential behavrioursand interactions. It was
amazing. We were talking about the sameword/sounding which was attached to
different and for me and myspecialist sadly unstable meanings which changed for
me in the courseof my going home. I'm telling you, this lexico end of
thelexicogrammar can be a little dodgy
too.Adenoma/sarcoma/carcinoma/incidentaloma, what's the difference, or isthe
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.
— Mark Twain
====================================
My Linguistics SitesFactoring Out StructureMartin's Discourse Semantics,
Register & Genre (凌遲)Working With Discourse: Meaning Beyond The Clause (凌遲)The
Cardiff Grammar (凌遲)Thoughts That Cross My MindThe Thought Occurs…Thoughts That
Didn't Occur…Informing Thoughts
Systemic Functional LinguisticsSysflingSys-FuncAttitude In Systemic Functional
LinguisticsMartin's Model Of ParalanguageLexis As Most Local ContextMaking
Sense Of Meaning====================================
--
dr chris cléirigh
Virtues, like essences, lose their fragrance when exposed.
— William Shenstone
====================================
My Linguistics SitesFactoring Out StructureMartin's Discourse Semantics,
Register & Genre (凌遲)Working With Discourse: Meaning Beyond The Clause (凌遲)The
Cardiff Grammar (凌遲)Thoughts That Cross My MindThe Thought Occurs…Thoughts That
Didn't Occur…Informing Thoughts
Systemic Functional LinguisticsSysflingSys-FuncAttitude In Systemic Functional
LinguisticsMartin's Model Of ParalanguageLexis As Most Local ContextMaking
Sense Of Meaning====================================
