Robert....
I am not sure if "typical" structures are the object of interest here:
after all we are talking about verbal art. But even in ordinary life, I'm
quite wary of making statements about "canonical" order without any corpus
evidence.
For example, what about questions? Consider:
a) "What is your name?"
b) "What, after all, are names?"
You can see that in a) the order is Token Value, but the Token doesn't map
onto the Subject but rather onto the Complement.
In b), which is surely much less common in life if more typical of verbal
art, the order is Value-Token and the Subject does map onto the Token, but
it dseems somehows (semantically) agnate to "What's in a name?",, where the
relationship doesn't seem to be Token-Value at all.
(A grad student of mine once spent the morning in a pharmacy with her two
children, 3 and 7, trying out both questions which are grammatically
identical in Korean, and only the seven year old could really understand or
answer b). IShe then asked the kids to play a game where they switch names
for the day, and only the seven-year-old agreed that this was possible (and
even started calling his mother "Daddy").
Similarly, while there exists a very few people who live lives that are
dominated by M-C-M", most of us working stiffs still sell the commodity
labor power to obtain money in order to buy the commodities we need to
reproduce our labor power, so I think C-M-C" is still the dominant mode in
our economic lives. It would be very surprising to me if everyday language
defied this.
Your memory for the Trotsky quote is word perfect. But the quote is
actually from the beginning of the chapter in Revolution Betrayed on the
abolition of money.
(I noticed, by the way, on my last trip to China, that paper money is going
the way of metal coins. Even the one homeless guy we saw begging in a park
in Changsha had a QR code for donations and did not accept cash....)
dk
.
2023년 12월 23일 (토) 오전 7:59, Robert Spence <r.spence@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>님이 작성:
Chris,
This is the part of English grammar that numbs my brain. Let me just post
a two-fold "wild surmise":
1)
Normally, Identifier in the transitivity structure would be conflated with
the New in the information structure, but in the examples you’ve given that
doesn’t necessarily seem to be the case. I once asked Michael for an
example of the two functions _not_ being conflated, and he constructed a
piece of dialogue in which they clearly weren’t. If I remember rightly, I
later discovered that he was probably quoting from a passage in “Some Notes
on Transitivity and Theme in English”, because the example was about David
Garrick being Hamlet. (The only people I know who can effortlessly get
their heads around this are Christian Matthiessen and Kristin Davidse.)
2)
In English,, Token is typically Subject in the active voice — we can
easily say “Joe played the President” but not “The President oomphed Joe”,
where “oomphed” means “was played by” but is active not passive. I once
floated the idea with Michael that this reflects a world in which the basic
model of human interaction is, in Marx’s terms:
M-C-M’
not
C-M-C’
i.e. it’s the money (the Token), not the commodity (the Value), where the
success of the interaction accrues. At the time I thought that this was
related to a complete absence of verbs like “oomph” in English (see above),
but I later discovered that there are some. Christian Matthiessen has
listed them somewhere in chapter 5 of IFG4, but I can’t find the list at
present.
It’s almost midnight on a Friday night here, so, with “my Latin
exhausted”, as the Germans say, I’ll finish with something that, for me,
after all these decades, is still sort of an article of faith:
“But we can leave these questions entirely to posterity, who will be more
intelligent than we are.”
(Trotsky, “Some thoughts on how to raise a human being”; quoted entirely
from memory.)
— Rob
--------------------------
*Dr. Robert Spence*
Lehrbeauftragter,
Sprachpraxis Anglistik
Universität des Saarlandes
*Fachrichtung Anglistik und Amerikanistik*
Postanschrift: PSF 15 11 50 | 66041 Saarbrücken
Mobil: +49 175 526 3506
On 22. Dec 2023, at 22:30, Dr ChRIS CLÉiRIGh <c.cleirigh@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Thanks Donna, this helps to clarify matters.
The bi-directionality here is in the direction of coding, as applies to
identifying processes such as realisation.
What varies here is not the level of symbolic abstraction, wording remains
Token and meaning remains Value,
but which of these is Identified and which is Identifier.
In encoding, it is Token/Identifier and Value/Identified, whereas
in decoding, it is Token/Identified and Value/Identifier.
In encoding, the Value is encoded by reference to the Token,
so, meaning is encoded by reference to wording.
In decoding, the Token is decoded by reference to the Value,
so, wording is decoded by reference to meaning.
<1.png>
Interestingly, Hasan has interpreted the effective agency, encoding, as
activation,
and the middle agency, decoding, as construal.
ChRIS
On Fri, 22 Dec 2023 at 20:15, Donna Rose Miller <donnarose.miller@xxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Just quickly and too briefly. But it may be of interest that Hasan does
have something to say about a kind of ‘reversability’ – for her there is ‘
*bi-directionality*’ of the strata – top-down *and* bottom up. This for
her is because
“realization works somewhat differently in the two directions. In the
encoding view, it is
an activation of some possible choice at the next lower level: thus in
the production of an
utterance, context activates meaning, meaning activates wording. By
contrast, in the
reception of the utterance, realization is construal of the relevant
choice at the higher
level: thus in decoding an utterance, the choice in wording construes
meaning, the choice
in meaning construes context. (Hasan 2010: 12).
(The meaning of ‘not’ is not in ‘not’, in A. Mahboob and N. Knight (eds),
*Appliable Linguistics*, London and New York: Continuum, 267‒306.)
Cheers,
Donna
Donna R. Miller
*Alma Mater* Professor
Department of Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures
*Alma Mater Studiorum* - University of Bologna
https://donnarosemiller.academia.edu/
*Da:* sys-func-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <sys-func-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> *Per
conto di *???????/_??_?????
*Inviato:* giovedì 21 dicembre 2023 23:49
*A:* sys-func@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
*Oggetto:* [sys-func] Re: R: Re: R: Re: R: Re: R: Re: Halliday On The
Evolution Of Semiotic Complexity
Erratum:
Hasan's preferred term is "activation" not "actualization" (I rather like
"actualization", though--very close to "realization" semantically: the
Russian would be something like "factualization".
dk
2023년 12월 22일 (금) 오전 6:54, 데이브드켈로그/_교수_영어교육과 <dkellogg60@xxxxxxxxx>님이 작성:
Chris--yes, theory turned back on itself indeed! But theory turned back
on itself often produces category errors, like when you drive by a field
and instead of seeing two cows you say that there are a bull, a cow, and a
bovine couple.
When you say that "wording-realises-meaning" is agnate with the clause
"meaning realizes wording", you can ignore the hyphen and make the clause
irreversible, so that wording realizes meaning but meaning does not realize
wording.
That makes it impossible for me to pursue my argument on verbal art,
because my argument does depend on the relationship being reversible, and
the 'bottom up" realization being dominant in and typical of literature.
But ignoring the hyphen and introducing "Token-Relational Process-Value"
also means that your model is no longer neutral between speaking and
hearing, as Halliday's is (Halliday remarks on the difficulty and necessity
of making it so in the intro to the IFG).
Worse, you seem to be confusing two dimensions of SFL (stratification and
metafunction) which are typically (and rightly) distinct--at least as
distinct as the dimensions of instantiation and stratification confused in
the Martin model.
As I said, I was writing about the theory--not about the way it was
worded. That's why I used my own words and said "Halliday pointed out that"
instead of "Halliday said". And Halliday does indeed say, in many places,
that realization works both ways. I think, actually, that he chose the word
"realization" for precisely this reason--it can mean both "to make real"
and "to become aware" in English, although of course neither of these folk
meanings captures the distinction that Halliday is really making.
This is one of many places where Halliday's terminology differs from that
of Hasan--Hasan prefers "actualization" to talk about bottom up
realization. For me, "realization" will do nicely. See:
David Kellogg (2020) Realizations: non-causal but real relationships in
and between Halliday, Hasan, and Vygotsky, Mind, Culture, and Activity,
27:3, 264-276,
DOI: 10.1080/10749039.2020.1806329
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/10749039.2020.1806329
dk
2023년 12월 21일 (목) 오전 8:56, Dr ChRIS CLÉiRIGh <c.cleirigh@xxxxxxxxx>님이 작성:
David,
Thanks for asking.
The reason why Halliday would not even have meant
'wording-realized-as-meanings' or
'sounding-realized-as-wording'
is that both are self-contradictions.
These are agnate with:
meaning realises wording
wording realises sounding
which are identifying clauses: Token^Process^Value.
In the first clause, the higher level of symbolic abstraction (meaning)
is misconstrued as the lower level of symbolic abstraction (Token),
and the lower level of symbolic abstraction (wording) is misconstrued as
the higher level of symbolic abstraction (Value).
Likewise, in the second clause, the higher level of symbolic abstraction
(wording) is misconstrued as the lower level of symbolic abstraction
(Token),
and the lower level of symbolic abstraction (sounding) is misconstrued as
the higher level of symbolic abstraction (Value).
This is 'theory turned back on itself'.
ChRIS
On Thu, 21 Dec 2023 at 10:15, 데이브드켈로그/_교수_영어교육과 <dkellogg60@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
I think, Chris, that if you look at the original post, you will see that
I employed hypotaxis and I was projecting Halliday's (and Lemke's) meanings
and not their wordings, precisely because I think these problems can't be
resolved with empty verbalisations of the great masters.
I would be interested, as always, in your own interpretation, and I'm
quite surprised that you continue to withhold it. Perhaps that is a chronic
drawback of the quotation-slinging style.
dk.
2023년 12월 20일 (수) 오전 8:18, Dr ChRIS CLÉiRIGh <c.cleirigh@xxxxxxxxx>님이 작성:
David,
Thanks for confirming that Halliday didn't write either
'wording-realized-as-meanings' or
'sounding-realized-as-wording'.
ChRIS
On Wed, 20 Dec 2023 at 10:04, 데이브드켈로그/_교수_영어교육과 <dkellogg60@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Chris:
Take a look at the page immediately before the page you quoted (p. 357 of
Volume One). Halliday is talking about the "explosion into grammar", which
he describes as "an explosion that bursts apart the two facets of the
protolinguistic sign".
"The result is a semiotic of a new kind: a stratified, tristratal system
in which meaning is 'twice cooked', thus incorporating a stratum of 'pure'
content form. It is natural to represent this, as I have usually done
myself, as 'meaning realized by wording, which is intturn realized by
sound'. But it is also rather seriously misleading. If we follow Lemke's
lead, interpreting language as a dynamic open system, we can arrive at a
theoretically more accurate and more powerful account. Here the key concept
is Lemke's principle of metareudundancy."
What follows is a more careful exposition of Lemke's idea, culminating in
the reference to Hasan's theory of verbal art and Martin's of ideology
and genre which disappointed you.
I think part of being a born teacher is the ability to entertain more
than one formulation per idea (exoteric vs. esoteric, demotic vs patrician,
agitational vs. propagandistic). But as I admitted, I am not a born
teacher. I suppose it's better to just say what I think and not bother
throwing quotations.
Since you don't have Volume Two, let me repost this quotation, which I
offered five days ago.
"There are, of course, more or less codified genres of literature, text
types showing similar text structures such as narrative fiction or lyric
poetry: but there is no such thing as a literary register or "literary
English as a functional variety of English." (Collected Works 2, p. 177).
I'd be interested to hear whether you think Halliday could have written
this!
dk
2023년 12월 20일 (수) 오전 7:26, Dr ChRIS CLÉiRIGh <c.cleirigh@xxxxxxxxx>님이 작성:
Thanks Donna.
Very generous indeed!
Yes, I definitely need to read that paper
because I can't understand how one level of symbolic abstraction can
determine another.
The reason I asked is because I know Halliday wouldn't write things like
'wording realised as meanings'
because that's a contradiction in terms,
so I was curious to know what he did write.
And you're right: I did find Martin's "understanding" interesting :-)
Thanks again,
ChRIS
On Tue, 19 Dec 2023 at 20:36, Donna Rose Miller <
donnarose.miller@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi Chris (David, all)
The volume 2 paper referenced by David is Halliday 1982, The
De-Automatization of Grammar: From Priestley’s “An Inspector Calls”, which
you may have elsewhere Chris, originally published in J.M. Anderson
(Ed.) *Language Form and Linguistic Variation*: *Papers Dedicated to
Angus McIntosh*, 129--59. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Here he explains why he opts for “de-automatization”, the Mukařovskýan
term he preferred to ‘foregrounding’, in contrast to Hasan. He uses the
notion to argue the dissimilar, if complementary, roles of twin levels of
meaning, both grammatically realized, but one “underlying”, and “deeper”
than, the first, “immediate” level, also glossed as the “subject matter”
(which he speaks of in his 1971 paper: Linguistic Function and literary
Style: An Inquiry into the language of William Golding’s *The Inheritors*.
Reproduced in collected works volume 2 as well but originally in S. Chatman
(Ed.) *Literary Style: A Symposium*, 330--65. New York and Oxford:
Oxford University Press). Both these levels he says are the product of
“syntactic imagery”.
So, in the Priestley paper he says:
“The term “de-automatization”, though cumbersome, is more apt than
“foregrounding”, since what is in question is not simply prominence but
rather *the partial freeing of the lower-level systems from the control
of the semantics so that they become domains of choice in their own right*.
In terms of systemic theory the de-automatization of the grammar means that
grammatical choices are not simply determined from above: there is
selection as well as pre-selection. *Hence the wording becomes a
quasi-independent semiotic mode through which the meanings of the work can
be projected*.” (1982[2002]:131, my emphasis)
The meaning-making process in verbal art is (tempted to say ‘certainly’!)
being characterized here as different, special. Choices in literature are
said to free themselves in part from semantic constraints, becoming
quasi-autonomous, i.e., becoming instruments of meaning-making across the
wordings of the text but also at another, deeper, level.
Seems to me that this is not exactly a ‘reversal’ of the typical
realization direction, but that what is being theorized here does evoke the
scaffolding of Hasan’s doubly-articulated framework for the analysis of
verbal art. Moreover, Halliday’s wording, “that grammatical choices are not
simply determined from above”, also presages her own theorization of the
‘special’ language-context connection in verbal art, about which Halliday
also reflects elsewhere, and which I had something to say about the other
day.
You may find interesting that Martin (1985. The language of madness:
method or disorder? *Language and the Inner Life. *Canberra: Faculty of
Military Studies, Duntroon (Department of English Occasional Papers
(4):4--35.) disputes various points made by Halliday here - and the SFL
take on foregrounding too. Chiefly, he would modify certain of Halliday’s
terms and their function. Martin speaks of the literary text’s “connotative
semiotics”, which he previously equates in the paper with “social context
[…] a set of semiotic systems […] which use another semiotic system (i.e.
language) as their expression plane […] termed register, genre and
ideology”. He argues that it is these connotative semiotics – *rather
than* the semantics, as Halliday maintains – which are what
de-automatization partially frees “language” (rather than the grammar)
from, in this way allowing foregrounded patterns of semantic choices.
When asked, Martin cordially replied (personal communication, 2020) that
he very much still stands by the above assessment. The upshot of his
comments on Halliday in that exchange is hard, and fueled by his
long-standing critique of what he sees as Halliday’s blurring of the
lexicogrammar/semantics border. Indeed, for Martin, Halliday’s suggestion
concerning “the partial freeing of the lower-level systems from the control
of the semantics so that they become domains of choice in their own right”,
and the rest of the paragraph, “is confusing, reductive and inoperable… a
grammarian’s reductive view of deautomatization”.
Hmmm… though I agree that it isn’t an easy concept to get straight off
and there are still moments when I’m not 100% sure I’ve got it! But then I
go back to the larger cotext, and intertext, and it’s comprehensible, if
always complicated, once more.
Sorry, folks, but Christmas week not a good time for me so will need to
fall silent.
Season’s greetings and all that to those who celebrate it. 😉
Donna
Donna R. Miller
*Alma Mater* Professor
Department of Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures
*Alma Mater Studiorum* - University of Bologna
https://donnarosemiller.academia.edu/
*Da:* sys-func-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <sys-func-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> *Per
conto di *Dr ChRIS CLÉiRIGh
*Inviato:* martedì 19 dicembre 2023 05:40
*A:* sys-func@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
*Oggetto:* [sys-func] Re: R: Re: R: Re: R: Re: Halliday On The Evolution
Of Semiotic Complexity
Thanks for that. Unfortunately, I don't have Volume 2,
but the Volume 1 reference has nothing about reversing the realisation
relation. Halliday just writes:
Once the original protolinguistic redundancy has been transformed into
metaredundancy in this way, the relation becomes an iterative one and so
opens up the possibilities for construing, not only the context of
situation, but also higher levels such as Hasan’s symbolic articulation
and theme in verbal art, or Martin’s strata of genre and ideology.
ChRIS
On Tue, 19 Dec 2023 at 15:20, 데이브드켈로그/_교수_영어교육과 <dkellogg60@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Sure, Chris.
Try p. 357 of Volume 1, "On Grammar". Halliday explicitly links this to
symbolic articulation and to theme (bottom of the page) and rather less
fortunately to "genre" and "ideology" (Martin).
The idea that the relationship of realization which is typical is
reversed with verbal art is from Volume Two, pp. 130-131.
But I accept Donna's implication that there are great authorities to be
cited on both sides of the argument, although I think that Matthiessen's
own formulation is really baggy description rather than definition: it
lacks the co-efficient of specification that you need to restrict the
concept and make it explanatory.
So I think it's really time to put some of these ideas to work. So the
phrasing and the examples are my own.
dk.
2023년 12월 19일 (화) 오후 12:44, Dr ChRIS CLÉiRIGh <c.cleirigh@xxxxxxxxx>님이 작성
:
David,
Is there any chance of you providing the Halliday wording that you
interpret below as:
wording-realized-as-meanings
sounding-realized-as-wording
?
ChRIS
On Tue, 19 Dec 2023 at 13:49, 데이브드켈로그/_교수_영어교육과 <dkellogg60@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Donna has demonstrated most convincingly (if not "indisputably") that
there are authorities to cite on both sides of whether literature
constitutes a single register or not. So it is time to move on from the
arguments of authorities to the authority of an argument.
Or rather three arguments, in order to match the "trinocular" view that
Donna has given us from Matthiessen's hands But hopefully, precisely by
taking it to the level of Hasan's theory of verbal art with its three
orders of second order semiosis, I may increase the "correlation of
specification" so that it will be closer to the idea of
including everything that is lit and excluding all that is not.
First, from Hasan's "verbalization", i.e. from the bottom up. Halliday
points out that literature actually reverses the typical, congruent,
"canonical" order of the realization relationship. Instead of
meaning-realized-as-wording which is then realized as spelling or speaking
(or, alternatively, meaning which is realized as
wording-realized-as-spelling/speaking) we have the selection of sounding
which then "throws up" wording-realized-as-meanings (especially in
versification and in the last sentence of "Gatsby"), or the selection of
sounding-realized-as-wording which then creates new meanings (especially
in prose, and in the preceding two sentences of "Gatsby"). This reversal of
the typical realization order in the layer of verbalization makes it much
easier for literature to create not only new meanings but also new uses for
meaning, that is, new symbolic articulations, to use Hasan's term. That
constant creation of new uses for meaning seems to rule out (or rule
obsolete) any fixed definition of a functional variety of language
according to use (which IS the definition of a register).
Second, from Hasan's "symbolic articulation", e.g. or around and about,
how the scene is set, how the characters created, how the problems are
posed). Genres of literature consist of configurations of these rather than
of configurations of contextual factors retrievable from some material
situational setting. They have their own history of divergence and
convergence. For example, Aesop's fables become lyric poetry under the
influence of La Fontaine and then revert to moralism when we teach kids;
revenge plays become psycho-dramas under the influence of Shakespeare (and
then revert to revenge plays in our own time). Gatsby is something between
a novel and a novella (and now of course it is not one but two full length
movies, and is in danger of constituting a cinematic genre of its own).
This use of genre (which has, of course, nothing to do with the use of
"genre" in Genre Theory) seems to reside at the level of symbolic
articulation, and therefore belongs not to the pattern of language
detectable in register but rather to the patterns of patterns detectable
only at the level of symbolic articulation .
Third, from Hasan's "theme"; that is, from above, Adorno tells us that
every work of literature provides, even if only negatively and through dark
glasses, some vision of the good life, some view of how life might be were
it harmonious and not riven by exploitation and alienation, and even some
sense of programme on how to imagine it if not how to realize it. In
"Gatsby", for example, the ending is not simply a reference to death and
mortality: it is also a reference to the fact that Carraway, the narrator,
has drawn the logical conclusion from Gatsby's tragedy and returned to his
roots in the more innocent midwest, where both he and Gatsby were born.
This is not, of course, a revolutionary programme, or even a social
therapeutic one, but it is an expression of the theme of the novel (which
is why Carraway's last words to Gatsby are "You're better than the whole
lot of them.") This too seems to me to preclude the definition of
literature as a stable register with a settled use: the purpose of
literature is, at the level of theme, precisely to destabilize registers,
social uses, and even social systems.
Note to Ed. The distinction between the historical and the logical
approach is, as you intimate, completely different from the dialectic of
theory and practice: both history and logic are both. But we often present
things in a very different order from the way we discover them--sometimes,
in fact, it is almost backwards. The IFG discussion of its central unit of
analysis, the clause, is written from the textual metafunction through the
ideational to the interpersonal one, but children tend to discover clause
structure in the reverse order. Marx writes Capital in much the same way,
but he states in the preface to the first German edition that it was not
written in that order (and this was born out by the discovery of
"Grundrisse".) Halliday was a born teacher: he presented things logically
rather than historically. Most of us, however, are born learners, and that
most definitely includes me.
dk .
2023년 12월 18일 (월) 오후 5:23, Donna Rose Miller <donnarose.miller@xxxxxxxx>
님이 작성:
Thanks, Ed, for this postscript on “conceptual continuums” (like that
btw), eminently McDonaldian, and so well worth perusal!
I’m dashing to my Monday morning slog so will only say that Donna is
indeed pleased with the ‘offending’ paragraph.
Best to all,
Donna
Donna R. Miller
*Alma Mater* Professor
Department of Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures
*Alma Mater Studiorum* - University of Bologna
https://donnarosemiller.academia.edu/
*Da:* sys-func-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <sys-func-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> *Per
conto di *Edward McDonald
*Inviato:* lunedì 18 dicembre 2023 00:41
*A:* sys-func@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
*Oggetto:* [sys-func] Re: R: Re: R: Re: Halliday On The Evolution Of
Semiotic Complexity
Sorry all - just one final (McDonaldian, I fear) postscript from me to
the current discussion, taking up an issue David has referred to a number
of times before: the distinction between "logical" and "historical".
Of course we all come to these discussions with our own preferred - I was
going to say "dichotomies" - but perhaps "conceptual continuums" is better.
I don't pretend to understand the whole tradition of Marxist theorising
which David moves so confidently within, of "dialectical" and "historical",
of "materialism" and "idealism" etc etc, though I occasionally "rub up
against" it in an "okay-let's-just-skim-over-that-part" in Mainland Chinese
writing, but from someone who, liked Halliday, started out as a language
teacher, I don't find any of these the most appropriate distinction. What
seems to me the most relevant distinction here is the - highly vexed - one
between "theoretical" and "applied".
When I had the great privilege of working with Michael on the
"Metafunctional profile of Chinese" in the Functional Typology volume that
came out in 2004, I remember him taking issue with the wording of one of my
paragraphs, in a way that was typically "Halliday", as well as typically
"linguist" (well at least typical of those "linguists" whose work I respect
ha ha) in that it hinged on a very fine distinction of wording which had
broad conceptual implications for the whole context of what we were doing.
I have now forgotten exactly what the disputed wording was, but Michael
pointed out that it was registerially typical of the "language textbook"
rather than the "reference grammar", and therefore would have tied our
sketch grammar of the Chinese clause to a particular applicational context
- turning it into a "tool" perhaps? - rather than making it a general
"resource" for a broad range of applications.
This is perhaps the same kind of distinction that Michael had in mind
when he later coined the term "appliable linguistics"; though I sense a
tendency for this term to be used as implying a kind of "super-applied"
linguistics, rather than stressing the potentiality signalled by the
"-able" suffix, an emphasis which allows the concept to **pivot between**
the theoretical and applied, without ever needing to fall towards one
or the other. This seems to have been a tension that goes right back to the
beginnings of the European grammatical tradition with Dionysius Thrax, the
earliest parts of whose Grammar date back to c. 200 BCE, where it was
expressed as a distinction between tekhne, roughly "theoretically informed
knowledge" (i.e. "technical" in the sense in which it contrasts with
"commonsense") and empeiria "practical knowledge" (i.e. "empirical" as in
based on experience). The controversy here focused on the inconsistency
between the title of his work Tekhne Grammatike - literally "theoretical
knowledge of letters" - "learning your letters" being both the first stage
and the grounding metaphor for Greek linguistic scholarship - and the
introduction, perì grammatikẽs "about grammar", in which he characterised
this study as an empeiria "practical knowledge";
(I hope I may be forgiven for quoting the offending paragraph below,
which Donna will be pleased to see puts the whole of this body of knowledge
to use in the understanding of literature.)
This prejudice of the "theoretical" thinkers towards the "applied"
workers runs like a stain of pure snobbery through the whole of the Western
tradition - it was one of the main prejudices relied on by Chomsky in his
"Making Linguistics Scientific (Again?)", although in my far from humble
opinion since Old Noam suffers from a severe case of physics envy, he only
succeeded in making (mainstream) linguistics **scientistic** - and it is
one of the main reasons (there are others!) why in Australia at least SFL
has become the bogey man for "real" linguists because it meddles too much
in applications - though to do "mainstream" linguists justice, the
distinction is really between "respectable" scholarly applications, like
working on endangered languages, and "commercial" applications like
propping up the imperialistic hegemonic global English teaching industry
(you can assume almost every lexical item in this sentence to be encased in
scare quotes).
Anyway, I'm just putting off getting started on the Monday morning slog,
so I'll sign off here.
best to all
Ed
Dionysius Thrax (170 BC–90 BC) The Art of Letters Διονύσιου του Θρᾷκος ἡ
Τέχνη Γραμματική
π ε ρ ὶ γ ρ α μ μ α τ ι κ ῆ ς.
perì grammatikẽs
about grammar
1. γραμματική ἐστιν ἐμπειρία τῶν παρὰ ποιηταῖς τε καὶ συγγραφεῦσιν ὡς ἐπὶ
τὸ πολὺ λεγομένων.
grammatikḗ estin empeiría tõn parà poiētaĩs te kaì syngrapheũsin hōs épì
tò polỳ legoménōn
grammar is empirical-knowledge of-the by poets both and prose-writers how
for the most of-sayings
Grammar is the empirical knowledge of the general usage of poets and
prose writers.
2. μέρη δὲ αὐτῆς ἐστιν ἕξ·
mérē dè autẽs estin héx:
parts then of-it be six
It has six divisions:
3. πρῶτον ἀνάγνωσις ἐντριβὴς κατὰ προσωιδίαν,
prõton anágnōsis entribḕs katà prosōidían,
first reading skilled according-to prosody
first, expert reading with due regard to prosodic features;
4. δεύτερον ἐξήγησις κατὰ τοὺς ἐνυπάρχοντας ποιητικοὺς τρόπους,
deúteron exḗgēsis katà toùs enypárkhontas poiētikoùs trópous,
second explanation according-to the belonging-to literary expressions
second, explanation of the literary expressions found in the texts;
5. τρίτον γλωσσῶν τε καὶ ἱστοριῶν πρόχειρος ἀπόδοσις,
tríton glōssõn te kaì historiõn prókheiros apódosis,
third of-words both and of-information convenient provision
third, the provision of notes on particular words and on the subject
matter;
6. τέταρτον ἐτυμολογίας εὕρεσις,
tétarton etymologías heúresis,
fourth of-etymology discovery
fourth, the discovery of etymologies;
7. πέμπτον ἀναλογίας ἐκλογισμός,
pémpton analogías eklogismós,
fifth of-analogy reckoning
fifth, the working out of grammatical regularities;
8. ἕκτον κρίσις ποιημάτων, ὃ δὲ κάλλιστόν ἐστι πάντων τῶν ἐν τῆι τέχνηι.
hékton krísis poiēmátōn, hò dè kállistón esti pántōn tõn en tẽi tékhnēi.
sixth judgment of-literary-creations which then finest is of-all of-those
in the art
sixth, the critical appreciation of literature, which is the finest part
of all that the science embraces.
On Sun, Dec 17, 2023 at 9:06 PM Donna Rose Miller <
donnarose.miller@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hello all,
Just to bring in another voice as food for thought.
In a sadly unpublished paper from 2013 Matthiessen (also) speaks about
literature as register. Will just copy a bit below:
“If we characterize literature as verbal art, this means that we assume
that there are “artistic” ways of deploying the resources of language
[…]. Here it is helpful to invoke Halliday’s principle of
*trinocularity,*
*or trinocular vision *[…]; based on the stratal organization of language
in context, we can view literature “from above”, “from roundabout”
and “from below”:
• viewed “*from above*”, literature operates in *contexts *where it
is given value by members of the culture or one or more subcultures
– so we need to investigate how this happens […]; but
at the same time, we also need to situate literature in relation
to all aspects of context, identifying its contribution to the life
of a community relative to other meaning-making practices of
that community […];
• viewed “*from roundabout*”, literature is a way of deploying
the *semantic resources *of a language – and often also the
meaning-making resources of other semiotic systems that
accompany language – to achieve the kind of value that is
recognized by the community; it is an extended register –
the meanings deployed within the overall meaning potential
within the kind of context in which verbal art is produced and
consumed […];
• viewed “*from below*”, the patterns of meaning of literature
are realized directly by patterns of *wording *in the lexicogrammar,
and, by another step, by patterns of *sounding *in the phonology
(or patterns of *writing *in the graphology, or of course
by patterns of gesturing in sign languages).
…literature is dispersed across all strata of language
in context – just as any registerial variety of language is (that is
any subpotential of the overall meaning potential of language). And
just like any other register, literature is a semantic construct in the
first
instance – the “language of literature” is a meaning potential within
the overall meaning potential of language in the first instance; but it
engenders a higher-order of meaning within context, and it is realized
by patterns within the strata located below semantics in the stratal
organization of language…”
I find the notion of an ‘extended register’ appealing and, I think,
appropriate, and don’t see why it jeopardizes the uses of its language.
Best,
Donna
Donna R. Miller
*Alma Mater* Professor
Department of Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures
*Alma Mater Studiorum* - University of Bologna
https://donnarosemiller.academia.edu/
*Da:* sys-func-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <sys-func-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> *Per
conto di *???????/_??_?????
*Inviato:* sabato 16 dicembre 2023 23:14
*A:* sys-func@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
*Oggetto:* [sys-func] Re: R: Re: Halliday On The Evolution Of Semiotic
Complexity
There are a number of words the habitual use of which I am striving to
abstain from. "To be clear", "infinitely", and "indisputably" are just
three of them. Whenever I use "clearly" and "to be clear", I find that if I
am really honest with myself it is because something is at bottom unclear
to me; whenever I use "infinitely", I can hear a mocking echo of "hugely",
and as for "indisputably", if something, e.g. "literature is a single
register", is indisputable it is not worth mentioning at all. In this case,
it should be clear that Halliday, for one, and probably Hasan for another,
are disputing precisely that point.
"Clearly" and "to be clear" are both much overused by Chris in his blogs,
particularly when, as William points out, he is being rather opaque (the
coloring and numbering system he uses to critique my post on cave art is
particularly hard to workout). But in Chris's defense, I should say that I
understood what he had to say about infinite resources quite well.
Chomskyanism (and many other approaches to language since Descartes) is
predicated on the idea that language is "infinite use of finite means".
This is precisely the kind of philosophical prejudice that Ed is warning
about: at bottom, it is a pious wish for the immortality of human souls and
the eternity of human existence. But in reality, the meaning potential of a
language has no real existence independent of the actual speech community
that uses it: there is no ghostly entity called "meaning potential" that
will outlive that speech community, and when it dies the meaning potential
dies along with the language. So language as a resource may be indefinitely
large (because we cannot define exactly when a speech community will die)
but it is certainly not infinite.
I think that "language use in a particular social context" is not a
definition of register: it's just a description, and it applies to all
language, including things that are definitely not register (e.g. dialect,
which Halliday carefully distinguishes from register and Hasan even
distinguishes from social register). I think that one register (each
register, any register) is one functional variety of language, as defined
by use (as opposed to the user, or the geographical extent, or mutual
comprehensibility, or structural formulae or some other criterion). So for
literature to be a register of language, we would have to define it
according to the way it is used. For me, Hasan's whole point is that
literature can't be confined in that way: that is why the border between
"literary text" and "literature text" is so hard to establish, and why
Hasan seeks it within text rather than between them.
Take, for example, the last two paragraphs of F. Scott Fitzgerald's
"Great Gatsby", which was the topic of the final exam given by my colleague
two days ago (much to the distress of my students this morning!).
"Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by
year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we
will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And one fine morning——
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the
past."
The first clause complex is still part of Fitzgerald's story--Nick
Carraway is telling us, bitterly and critically, what Gatsby thought and
why it killed him. The second clause complex is no longer part of the
narrative but something like dialogue: Carraway is using free indirect
discourse to resurrect and channel Gatsby's own words. But the very last
sentence is not narrative or dialogue: it is barely even prose. There is
alliteration, near rhyme, and two carefully controlled metaphors that don't
mix but instead strengthen each other ("beating" against the wind, sailing
against the current like Huck and Jim trying to take the Mississippi
northward). There is also a pun on "borne", and even a little metaphysical
meditation on time's arrow as translated into the terms of human mortality.
The uses of language--in just these three sentences--are indefinitely
many, and I am hard put to reduce them to a single register. It seems to me
that any attempt to do so will reduce "use" to a meaningless abstraction.
.
dk
2023년 12월 16일 (토) 오후 7:29, Donna Rose Miller <donnarose.miller@xxxxxxxx>
님이 작성:
Dear Ed, and all,
Thanks for joining in the ‘rubbing up against’ with these comments,
especially your ‘nutshell’!, with which I wholly agree. Yes, “both thinkers
(Saussure & Hasan) are "too much" concerned with the nitty gritty of
linguistic patterning” for some. But I don’t think it’s only the
‘non-linguistically literate’ who are deeply disturbed by ‘too much’
complexity, alas! And I take particular pleasure from your “and at the same
time they both, like Whorf, shake the foundations of the "received" world
view, a largely monolingual, or at least Western European
culturo-linguistic one, in ways that seem to fatally undercut much
traditional philosophical and scientific thinking.” Of course, Whorf was a
special favourite of Ruqaiya’s … I also believe your suggestion on
Halliday’s preference for ‘resource’ over ‘tool’ is probably quite right,
both because of the conflicting definitions you summarize and his feasible
desire “to get away from the common idea of "language as the tool of
thought"…”. Simplistic metaphors are often die-hard.
Will just add *a PS for David* re his “there is no such thing as a
well-defined register of literature: the uses of literature are too
expansive for that.” True. But Hasan also offers another take on literature
as register.
For Hasan verbal art is indisputably a kind of language use in a
particular social context – so, by definition, a register – but not simply
a register in the same way as any other. The ways of meaning of literature
make it a ‘special’ register – a minority position among stylisticians
today of course. And such specialness is primarily due to the fact that the
context-language connection in verbal art is fraught with complexities
which other registers are simply not heir to (as she observed various times
in her writings). What she proposes is a “multiple contextual framework”
which is what cumulatively articulates the theme of verbal art. Called
into play are: the ‘real’ context of the story-telling itself and the
fictional context created by the text and also what she calls the ‘context
of creation’, encompassing the language, world view and artistic
conventions of the socially-situated writer, all seen vis-à-vis those of
the time/place of writing, and, in addition, a context of reception, which
impacts upon the meanings of the text for the equally socially-situated
reader. Halliday too observed that the context of situation’s connection to
fiction, to literature, is “about as complex as it is possible for it to
be”.
But I’ll stop here..
Best wishes to all,
Donna
Donna R. Miller
*Alma Mater* Professor
Department of Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures
*Alma Mater Studiorum* - University of Bologna
https://donnarosemiller.academia.edu/
*Da:* sys-func-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <sys-func-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> *Per
conto di *Edward McDonald
*Inviato:* venerdì 15 dicembre 2023 23:40
*A:* sys-func@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
*Oggetto:* [sys-func] Re: Halliday On The Evolution Of Semiotic
Complexity
Dear David and Donna and William and Chris:
I've been following this conversation with interest and enjoying the
different perspectives "rubbing up against" each other. I must also admit,
with some embarrassment, to have been one of those who paid less attention
to Ruqaiya's work until relatively late in my SFL apprenticeship - until in
fact we were briefly colleagues at the National University of Singapore in
1999-2000 when among other things, I discovered we shared an enthusiasm for
Saussure - someone else I had neglected until relatively late in my
linguistic apprenticeship. I think there is more than a superficial
similarity, not only between the Hasanian and Saussurean mode of thinking,
but in the reason why their ideas failed to achieve immediate acceptance.
In a (so far) unpublished paper which started out life as part of a tribute
to Ruqaiya delivered at a symposium in her memory at Sun Yat-Sen University
in September 2015, I summed up the reasons for this in the case of
Saussure, reasons which could *mutatis mutandis* also be applied to
Hasan:
1. Saussure’s conceptualisation of linguistic meaning so radically
undermines all our commonsense assumptions about language and the world as
to render both frighteningly unfixed, relative, and variable; showing up
what we commonly take to be the “natural” relationship between them, on
which so much of our ordinary behaviour depends, as the convenient fiction
that it is;
2. Saussure’s explanatory framework comes from within the centre
of linguistics, a linguistics, moreover, that is strongly grounded in the
philology which it supposedly replaced; and proceeds to account for the
relationship between language and the world by the paradoxical ploy of
ignoring the world altogether. This in hindsight can be seen as a necessary
move to analytically separate the two domains in order to clarify what
Halliday would call the “construing” role of language in relation to its
material and social contexts (Halliday 2005), but this seeming exclusive
focus on language has led many scholars to reject Saussure out of hand.
So in a nutshell, both thinkers are "too much" concerned with the nitty
gritty of linguistic patterning - which puts off both the
non-linguistically literate who are deeply disturbed to think that this
everyday "tool" or "resource"** could possibly be so complicated, as well
as the philosophers of language who want to be able to reduce everything to
a combination of lexical "primes", which turn out to be just English words
spelled in capitals, and logical relations largely limited to those
recognized by traditional logic; and at the same time they both, like
Whorf, shake the foundations of the"received" world view, a largely
monolingual, or at least Western European culturo-linguistic one, in ways
that seem to fatally undercut much traditional philosophical and scientific
thinking. (That was of course a McDonaldian "nutshell", which often turns
out to be much larger than the nut it supposedly encloses 🤭)
Anyhoo, let the "rubbing up against" continue!
best to all
Ed
** I would suggest that Halliday's preference for "resource" over "tool"
has to do with the fact that a "tool" is more likely to have been
specifically designed for a particular purpose, though that doesn't stop it
being repurposed for something different; while a "resource" is a set of
tools and strategies that may be drawn on, in different combinations, for a
range of different purposes. Very possibly also, Halliday was concerned to
get away from the common idea of "language as the tool of thought", a
simplistic but still influential metaphor that had already been blown out
of the water by Cassirer, Husserl, the later Wittgenstein, Merleau-Ponty
etc etc (if in quoting these names I am implying more than a superficial
acquaintance with their work, I hereby openly resist any such imputation).
On Fri, Dec 15, 2023 at 11:29 PM 데이브드켈로그/_교수_영어교육과 <dkellogg60@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Dear Donna (now that I may!):
Yes, you're right to add "just" to my unfortunate and hasty formulation
that the systemicist is not allowed to find any systematic and consistent
patterns in wording. So of course rhyme and alliteration in phonology,
grammatical parallelism, and cohesive chains are all worth finding in the
analysis of literature. But they do not inclusively characterize literary
language or exclude other forms of language. I only meant to say that there
is no such thing as a well-defined register of literature: the uses of
literature are too expansive for that. Halliday says:
"There are, of course, more or less codified genres of literature, text
types showing similar text structures such as narrative fiction or lyric
poetry: but there is no such thing as a literary register or "literary
English as a functional variety of English." (Collected Works 2, p. 177).
And Hasan:
"The 'art' of a poem consists not in the selection of any particular
linguistic pattern, nor in that of stylistic device; nor does it, in my
mind, consist in imagining the set of situations and hence the language
pattern--it consists rather in the symbolic, realizational relationship
between the three levels and results from an interaction of the three."
(Selected Work, p. 389).
I think that is why Hasan says that the patterning of patterns, and not
jthe ust patterns, are what characterizes literature.
Dear William (if I may):
I'm afraid I'm very old school. I reject "activity theory", which was the
(belated) creation of one A.N. Leontiev, a disciple of Vygotsky's who
abjured Vygotsky's "idealism" and his interest in semiotics and instead
conformed to Stalinism.and Stakhanovism (hence the emphasis on tools and
"activity" in the development of the working class and of socialist new
man). If I weren't afraid of offending people on this list, I would say
that "activity theory" has the same relationship to Vygotsky that
"appraisal theory" has to Hasan. It has always puzzled me that Martin and
company embraced a version of Vygotsky that was developed as a reaction to
and a criticism of Vygotsky's interest in word meaning as a unit of
analysis.
Vygotsky was Marxist, of course: but his Marxism was far closer to
Halliday's and Hasan's than to Leontiev's or Stalin's. Vygotsky, for
example, insisted on orthodox Darwinism and modern genetics, at least as
far as lower psychological functions were concerned. Leontiev, on the other
hand, was a devout Lysenkoist: Leontiev continued opposing genetics even
after Stalin died, Lysenko was condemned and Vavilov was rehabilitated.
Even in his notebooks (where he cites, for example, many unmentionable
names like Trotsky and Riazanov and Stolyakov), Vygotsky never quotes a
single line that Stalin wrote. In fact the only time Vygotsky even mentions
Stalin's name is when he's describing a little boy who has been sent to him
for treatment after being arrested for throwing pebbles at a picture of
Stalin.
About "psychological tools", Vygotsky says this:
“In this sense, based on the conventional, figurative meaning of the
term, we usually speak of tools when we have in mind the mediating function
of some object or means of some activity. True, such common expressions
like “language is a tool of thinking,” “auxiliary devices of memory” (aides
de memoire), “internal technique,” “technical auxiliary device” or simply
auxiliary devices with respect to any psychological operation
(Geistestechnik – “spiritual technique,” “intellectual tools,” and many
others), are found in abundance among psychologists, are devoid of any
specific content, and have scarcely any meaning beyond a simple metaphoric,
picturesque expression of the fact that some objects or operations or
others play an auxiliary role in the mental activity of man. (...)The
indeterminate, vague meaning that is usually connected with figurative use
of the word tool actually does not lighten the task of the researcher
interested in the real and not the picturesque aspect that exists between
behavior and its auxiliary devices. Moreover, such designations obscure the
road for research. Not a single researcher has yet deciphered the real
meaning of such metaphors. Must we think of thinking or memory as analogous
to external activity or do devices play a certain role as a fulcrum giving
support and help to the mental process? What does this support consist of?
What, in general, does it mean to be a means of thinking or memory? We find
no answers to these questions among psychologists who willingly use these
vague expressions.”
Vygotsky, L.S. (1931/1997). History of the Development of Higher
Psychological Functions, Chapter Two.
(Vygotsky does use the phrase "psychological tools" himself in some
earlier works, when he is addressing students. So this is something of a
self-criticism!)
dk
2023년 12월 15일 (금) 오전 11:05, William Armour <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
님이 작성:
Dear David
From what I have read about vygotsk’s activity theory, I’ve always had
the impression that language and signs are tools. Now I understand that
tools can be cultural and psychological and perhaps others. Tools are used
by humans (among others) and some would argue that humans are not the only
species to use signs/language. Also you mentioned affordances…are
affordances acknowledge in SFL theory?
Chris’s answer to my original question was opaque but I interpreted it as
resources are finite but I’m probably construing what he wrote incorrectly.
Get Outlook for iOS <https://aka.ms/o0ukef>
------------------------------
*From:* sys-func-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <sys-func-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> on
behalf of 데이브드켈로그/_교수_영어교육과 <dkellogg60@xxxxxxxxx>
*Sent:* Wednesday, December 13, 2023 6:05:38 AM
*To:* sys-func@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <sys-func@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
*Subject:* [sys-func] Re: Halliday On The Evolution Of Semiotic
Complexity
In Vygotsky, a "tool" is a mediating instrument for acting on objects in
the environment. By this light, language is not a tool (despite the
metaphoric use of the word by so many people in SFL--including, I notice,
Chris). Language doesn't and can't act on the material environment: people
do. What language does is to act on people--that is, on SUBJECTS in the
environment. This is what gives language an affordance that no tool can
ever have: it can act on the Subject him or herself.
Halliday remarks somewhere that when linguists use the term "infinite"
they simply demonstrate to mathematicians that they don't know what it
means. You notice that Halliday himself always says something like
"indefinitely large". It's an important distinction, because Halliday wants
us to understand how meaning potential expands, which doesn't make much
(common) sense if you think meaning potential was infinite to begin with
(you can make sense of it if you're a mathematician though--some infinities
are bigger than others).
Ruqaiya Hasan's theorization of second order and even third order
semiosis in verbal art is indefinitely more powerful than either
Hjelmslev's or Barthes's, in the same way that an adult, three-layered,
language system is more (indefinitely) powerful than a system of simple
signs with only two layers. David Lodge devotes a number of (rather
unsympathetic) pages to it, but then it's hardly used outside SFL. Even
within SFL, when linguists (including those from the Indian subcontinent)
write to this list with an interest in literature, they are referred to
Martin and White and not to their own compatriot Hasan. So why didn't it
take on?
It's tempting to say that it didn't take on because of the disdain of
white male academics. It is certainly true that Peter Jones (who calls
himself a Marxist as the result of a regrettable misunderstanding of both
Marx and Jones himself) unfairly pilloried Ruqaiya's work in 2013 (and
was, scandalously, given a whole issue of Language and Education in which
to do it). But Hasan could handily fend for herself in those days. For the
most part all Jones was really doing was recycling Labov's criticisms of
Bernstein, and Hasan disposed of all that in two words (if I remember
correctly the two words were "academic illiteracy").
I think that the real reason that Hasan's take did not take on is that it
does require you to say that there is something very special ("social
therapeutic") about literature themes. At the same time doesn't allow you
to find it anywhere in the grammar. On the one hand, this view is pretty
unpopular with pomods and post-structuralists, and even with new
historicists, whose idea of anti-elitism and contextualization is to blur
the line between literature and non-literature (Hasan took the opposite
tack--finding the line between literature and non-literature within texts
rather than between them). On the other hand, it's unpopular with
systemicists who are used to showing that text A differs quite
systematically from text B, and register C from register D.
Hasan is interested in realism. As Halliday points out (see, e.g. "The
De-automatization of Grammar" in Vol. 2 of the Collected Works) there
aren't any structural properties in realist literature that set it apart
from non-literature. It's hard to see how one could write realistic
dialogue that has any such properties. So the differences must lie outside
of language, in a second order of semiosis (symbolic articulation) and even
a third one (theme). And that means that Hasan's view also imposes a real
social responsibility on writer and reader.
Viewed from "below" and even from "around and about", the pomods and
post-structuralists and new historicists are dead right: realist literature
is no different from other text. But from above, literature is precisely
text that would make a difference.
dk
2023년 12월 11일 (월) 오전 10:20, Dr ChRIS CLÉiRIGh <c.cleirigh@xxxxxxxxx>님이 작성
:
Dear William,
My guess is that an infinite phylogenetic expansion of semiotic resources
would require an infinite amount of time,
which physics says the Universe doesn't have.
I can't think of an argument for preferring 'tool' to 'resource'.
What would be the advantage?
ChRIS
On Mon, 11 Dec 2023 at 11:27, William Armour <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Dear Chris
I have a question about the use of ‘resources’ in the above quote. My
impression is that, when we consider natural resources, there is a certain
finiteness to them. Is that the case with meaning-making resources? Or, are
they infinite? Would meaning-making tools be a better description?
Get Outlook for iOS <https://aka.ms/o0ukef>
------------------------------
*From:* sys-func-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <sys-func-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> on
behalf of Dr ChRIS CLÉiRIGh <c.cleirigh@xxxxxxxxx>
*Sent:* Monday, December 11, 2023 5:00:00 AM
*To:* sys-func@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <sys-func@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
*Subject:* [sys-func] Halliday On The Evolution Of Semiotic Complexity
Dear Scholars,
The following might be helpful for anyone interested in trying to
understand how a semiotic system as complex as language can evolve from a
minimal system of signs (of the type: stop ➘ red vs go ➘ green).
Halliday (2003: 5, 7):
In what ways is a language more complex than a minimal system of signs?
We need to spell out the kinds of additional complexity which could
transform a simple sign system into a language. The system is
"thickened" along a number of different dimensions. If we posed the
question in these terms, with the thought that language could be built
up by expansion from a simple system of signs, we might recognise four
dimensions along which such expansion would be taking place:
1. Signs may be combined, to form larger signs [syntagmatic complexity].
2. Signs may be uncoupled, to create new pairings [realisational
complexity].
3. Signs may be layered, one cycling into another [stratificational
complexity].
4. Signs may be networked, in relations of dependence [paradigmatic
complexity].
…
It is through this "thickening" of its meaning-making resources that human
language has evolved. What has been called the "architecture" of
language is the organisation of these resources within a space defined by
a small number of interrelated vectors, those of stratification,
metafunction,
and the two compositional axes (syntagmatic and paradigmatic); all, in
turn, predicated on the vector of instantiation (the relation between an
instance and the system that lies behind it) which is based on memory
and is a feature of all systematic behaviour.
From *Language And Linguistics*, Volume 3 in the Collected Works of M.
A. K. Halliday
--
dr chris cléirigh
Most quarrels amplify a misunderstanding.
— André Gide
====================================
Some Of My Sites
Review of Martin & Doran (2023) <https://subjacencyduplex.blogspot.com/>
Review of Doran (2021) <https://yaegandoran.blogspot.com/>
Review of Martin & Zappavigna (2019)
<https://sflparalanguage.blogspot.com/>
Review of Fontaine (2017) <https://lexisasmostlocalcontext.blogspot.com/>
Review of Martin (2013) <https://axial-relations.blogspot.com/>
Review of Fawcett (2010) <http://cardiff-grammar.blogspot.com.au/>
Review of Martin, Matthiessen & Painter (2010)
<https://deployingfunctionalgrammar.blogspot.com/>
Review of Martin & Rose (2007)
<http://workingwithdiscourse.blogspot.com.au/>
Review of Bateman (1998) <http://master-bateman.blogspot.com.au/>
Review of Matthiessen (1995)
<https://lexicogrammaticalcartography.blogspot.com/>
Review of Martin (1992) <http://discourse-semantics.blogspot.com.au/>
Email List Posts as Pedagogical Tools
<http://thoughts-that-cross-my-mind.blogspot.com.au/>
Appraisal Analyses of Email List Posts
<https://attitude-in-sfl.blogspot.com/>
The Culture of the SFL Community
<https://whatliesbeneathsfl.blogspot.com/>
SFL Theory <http://systemictheory.blogspot.com/>
Sample SFL Analyses <http://sys-func.blogspot.com.au/>
Answers to Analysis Questions on Email Lists
<http://sysfling.blogspot.com.au/>
General SFL Matters <http://thethoughtoccurs.blogspot.com.au/>
Intellectual Applications of SFL Theory
<http://informingthoughts.blogspot.com.au/>
Conclusions from Intellectual Applications of SFL Theory
<https://meta-sfl-theory.blogspot.com/>
The Opposite of Social Media <https://mental-projection.blogspot.com/>
====================================
--
David Kellogg
Sangmyung University
New article with Hailing Yu in *Integrative Psychological and Behavioral
Science. *
"Hot Wind, Cold Sun: Kuhn, Vygotsky, Halliday and Metaphors in Science
and Science Education"
https://rdcu.be/dsX2E
--
David Kellogg
Sangmyung University
New article with Hailing Yu in *Integrative Psychological and Behavioral
Science. *
"Hot Wind, Cold Sun: Kuhn, Vygotsky, Halliday and Metaphors in Science
and Science Education"
https://rdcu.be/dsX2E
--
David Kellogg
Sangmyung University
New article with Hailing Yu in *Integrative Psychological and Behavioral
Science. *
"Hot Wind, Cold Sun: Kuhn, Vygotsky, Halliday and Metaphors in Science
and Science Education"
https://rdcu.be/dsX2E
--
David Kellogg
Sangmyung University
New article with Hailing Yu in *Integrative Psychological and Behavioral
Science. *
"Hot Wind, Cold Sun: Kuhn, Vygotsky, Halliday and Metaphors in Science
and Science Education"
https://rdcu.be/dsX2E
--
dr chris cléirigh
Most quarrels amplify a misunderstanding.
— André Gide
====================================
Some Of My Sites
Review of Martin & Doran (2023) <https://subjacencyduplex.blogspot.com/>
Review of Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022)
<https://modelling-paralanguage.blogspot.com/>
Review of Doran (2021) <https://yaegandoran.blogspot.com/>
Review of Martin & Zappavigna (2019)
<https://sflparalanguage.blogspot.com/>
Review of Fontaine (2017) <https://lexisasmostlocalcontext.blogspot.com/>
Review of Martin (2013) <https://axial-relations.blogspot.com/>
Review of Fawcett (2010) <http://cardiff-grammar.blogspot.com.au/>
Review of Martin, Matthiessen & Painter (2010)
<https://deployingfunctionalgrammar.blogspot.com/>
Review of Martin & Rose (2007)
<http://workingwithdiscourse.blogspot.com.au/>
Review of Bateman (1998) <http://master-bateman.blogspot.com.au/>
Review of Matthiessen (1995)
<https://lexicogrammaticalcartography.blogspot.com/>
Review of Martin (1992) <http://discourse-semantics.blogspot.com.au/>
Email List Posts as Pedagogical Tools
<http://thoughts-that-cross-my-mind.blogspot.com.au/>
Appraisal Analyses of Email List Posts
<https://attitude-in-sfl.blogspot.com/>
The Culture of the SFL Community
<https://whatliesbeneathsfl.blogspot.com/>
SFL Theory <http://systemictheory.blogspot.com/>
Sample SFL Analyses <http://sys-func.blogspot.com.au/>
Answers to Analysis Questions on Email Lists
<http://sysfling.blogspot.com.au/>
General SFL Matters <http://thethoughtoccurs.blogspot.com.au/>
Intellectual Applications of SFL Theory
<http://informingthoughts.blogspot.com.au/>
Conclusions from Intellectual Applications of SFL Theory
<https://meta-sfl-theory.blogspot.com/>
The Opposite of Social Media <https://mental-projection.blogspot.com/>
====================================
--
David Kellogg
Sangmyung University
New article with Hailing Yu in *Integrative Psychological and Behavioral
Science. *
"Hot Wind, Cold Sun: Kuhn, Vygotsky, Halliday and Metaphors in Science
and Science Education"
https://rdcu.be/dsX2E
--
dr chris cléirigh
Most quarrels amplify a misunderstanding.
— André Gide
====================================
Some Of My Sites
Review of Martin & Doran (2023) <https://subjacencyduplex.blogspot.com/>
Review of Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022)
<https://modelling-paralanguage.blogspot.com/>
Review of Doran (2021) <https://yaegandoran.blogspot.com/>
Review of Martin & Zappavigna (2019)
<https://sflparalanguage.blogspot.com/>
Review of Fontaine (2017) <https://lexisasmostlocalcontext.blogspot.com/>
Review of Martin (2013) <https://axial-relations.blogspot.com/>
Review of Fawcett (2010) <http://cardiff-grammar.blogspot.com.au/>
Review of Martin, Matthiessen & Painter (2010)
<https://deployingfunctionalgrammar.blogspot.com/>
Review of Martin & Rose (2007)
<http://workingwithdiscourse.blogspot.com.au/>
Review of Bateman (1998) <http://master-bateman.blogspot.com.au/>
Review of Matthiessen (1995)
<https://lexicogrammaticalcartography.blogspot.com/>
Review of Martin (1992) <http://discourse-semantics.blogspot.com.au/>
Email List Posts as Pedagogical Tools
<http://thoughts-that-cross-my-mind.blogspot.com.au/>
Appraisal Analyses of Email List Posts
<https://attitude-in-sfl.blogspot.com/>
The Culture of the SFL Community
<https://whatliesbeneathsfl.blogspot.com/>
SFL Theory <http://systemictheory.blogspot.com/>
Sample SFL Analyses <http://sys-func.blogspot.com.au/>
Answers to Analysis Questions on Email Lists
<http://sysfling.blogspot.com.au/>
General SFL Matters <http://thethoughtoccurs.blogspot.com.au/>
Intellectual Applications of SFL Theory
<http://informingthoughts.blogspot.com.au/>
Conclusions from Intellectual Applications of SFL Theory
<https://meta-sfl-theory.blogspot.com/>
The Opposite of Social Media <https://mental-projection.blogspot.com/>
====================================
--
dr chris cléirigh
Most quarrels amplify a misunderstanding.
— André Gide
====================================
Some Of My Sites
Review of Martin & Doran (2023) <https://subjacencyduplex.blogspot.com/>
Review of Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022)
<https://modelling-paralanguage.blogspot.com/>
Review of Doran (2021) <https://yaegandoran.blogspot.com/>
Review of Martin & Zappavigna (2019)
<https://sflparalanguage.blogspot.com/>
Review of Fontaine (2017) <https://lexisasmostlocalcontext.blogspot.com/>
Review of Martin (2013) <https://axial-relations.blogspot.com/>
Review of Fawcett (2010) <http://cardiff-grammar.blogspot.com.au/>
Review of Martin, Matthiessen & Painter (2010)
<https://deployingfunctionalgrammar.blogspot.com/>
Review of Martin & Rose (2007)
<http://workingwithdiscourse.blogspot.com.au/>
Review of Bateman (1998) <http://master-bateman.blogspot.com.au/>
Review of Matthiessen (1995)
<https://lexicogrammaticalcartography.blogspot.com/>
Review of Martin (1992) <http://discourse-semantics.blogspot.com.au/>
Email List Posts as Pedagogical Tools
<http://thoughts-that-cross-my-mind.blogspot.com.au/>
Appraisal Analyses of Email List Posts
<https://attitude-in-sfl.blogspot.com/>
The Culture of the SFL Community
<https://whatliesbeneathsfl.blogspot.com/>
SFL Theory <http://systemictheory.blogspot.com/>
Sample SFL Analyses <http://sys-func.blogspot.com.au/>
Answers to Analysis Questions on Email Lists
<http://sysfling.blogspot.com.au/>
General SFL Matters <http://thethoughtoccurs.blogspot.com.au/>
Intellectual Applications of SFL Theory
<http://informingthoughts.blogspot.com.au/>
Conclusions from Intellectual Applications of SFL Theory
<https://meta-sfl-theory.blogspot.com/>
The Opposite of Social Media <https://mental-projection.blogspot.com/>
====================================
--
David Kellogg
Sangmyung University
New article with Hailing Yu in * Integrative Psychological and
Behavioral Science. *
"Hot Wind, Cold Sun: Kuhn, Vygotsky, Halliday and Metaphors in Science
and Science Education"
https://rdcu.be/dsX2E
--
dr chris cléirigh
Most quarrels amplify a misunderstanding.
— André Gide
====================================
Some Of My Sites
Review of Martin & Doran (2023) <https://subjacencyduplex.blogspot.com/>
Review of Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022)
<https://modelling-paralanguage.blogspot.com/>
Review of Doran (2021) <https://yaegandoran.blogspot.com/>
Review of Martin & Zappavigna (2019)
<https://sflparalanguage.blogspot.com/>
Review of Fontaine (2017) <https://lexisasmostlocalcontext.blogspot.com/>
Review of Martin (2013) <https://axial-relations.blogspot.com/>
Review of Fawcett (2010) <http://cardiff-grammar.blogspot.com.au/>
Review of Martin, Matthiessen & Painter (2010)
<https://deployingfunctionalgrammar.blogspot.com/>
Review of Martin & Rose (2007)
<http://workingwithdiscourse.blogspot.com.au/>
Review of Bateman (1998) <http://master-bateman.blogspot.com.au/>
Review of Matthiessen (1995)
<https://lexicogrammaticalcartography.blogspot.com/>
Review of Martin (1992) <http://discourse-semantics.blogspot.com.au/>
Email List Posts as Pedagogical Tools
<http://thoughts-that-cross-my-mind.blogspot.com.au/>
Appraisal Analyses of Email List Posts
<https://attitude-in-sfl.blogspot.com/>
The Culture of the SFL Community
<https://whatliesbeneathsfl.blogspot.com/>
SFL Theory <http://systemictheory.blogspot.com/>
Sample SFL Analyses <http://sys-func.blogspot.com.au/>
Answers to Analysis Questions on Email Lists
<http://sysfling.blogspot.com.au/>
General SFL Matters <http://thethoughtoccurs.blogspot.com.au/>
Intellectual Applications of SFL Theory
<http://informingthoughts.blogspot.com.au/>
Conclusions from Intellectual Applications of SFL Theory
<https://meta-sfl-theory.blogspot.com/>
The Opposite of Social Media <https://mental-projection.blogspot.com/>
====================================
--
David Kellogg
Sangmyung University
New article with Hailing Yu in * Integrative Psychological and
Behavioral Science. *
"Hot Wind, Cold Sun: Kuhn, Vygotsky, Halliday and Metaphors in Science
and Science Education"
https://rdcu.be/dsX2E
--
dr chris cléirigh
Most quarrels amplify a misunderstanding.
— André Gide
====================================
Some Of My Sites
Review of Martin & Doran (2023) <https://subjacencyduplex.blogspot.com/>
Review of Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022)
<https://modelling-paralanguage.blogspot.com/>
Review of Doran (2021) <https://yaegandoran.blogspot.com/>
Review of Martin & Zappavigna (2019)
<https://sflparalanguage.blogspot.com/>
Review of Fontaine (2017) <https://lexisasmostlocalcontext.blogspot.com/>
Review of Martin (2013) <https://axial-relations.blogspot.com/>
Review of Fawcett (2010) <http://cardiff-grammar.blogspot.com.au/>
Review of Martin, Matthiessen & Painter (2010)
<https://deployingfunctionalgrammar.blogspot.com/>
Review of Martin & Rose (2007)
<http://workingwithdiscourse.blogspot.com.au/>
Review of Bateman (1998) <http://master-bateman.blogspot.com.au/>
Review of Matthiessen (1995)
<https://lexicogrammaticalcartography.blogspot.com/>
Review of Martin (1992) <http://discourse-semantics.blogspot.com.au/>
Email List Posts as Pedagogical Tools
<http://thoughts-that-cross-my-mind.blogspot.com.au/>
Appraisal Analyses of Email List Posts
<https://attitude-in-sfl.blogspot.com/>
The Culture of the SFL Community
<https://whatliesbeneathsfl.blogspot.com/>
SFL Theory <http://systemictheory.blogspot.com/>
Sample SFL Analyses <http://sys-func.blogspot.com.au/>
Answers to Analysis Questions on Email Lists
<http://sysfling.blogspot.com.au/>
General SFL Matters <http://thethoughtoccurs.blogspot.com.au/>
Intellectual Applications of SFL Theory
<http://informingthoughts.blogspot.com.au/>
Conclusions from Intellectual Applications of SFL Theory
<https://meta-sfl-theory.blogspot.com/>
The Opposite of Social Media <https://mental-projection.blogspot.com/>
====================================
--
David Kellogg
Sangmyung University
New article with Hailing Yu in * Integrative Psychological and
Behavioral Science. *
"Hot Wind, Cold Sun: Kuhn, Vygotsky, Halliday and Metaphors in Science
and Science Education"
https://rdcu.be/dsX2E
--
David Kellogg
Sangmyung University
New article with Hailing Yu in * Integrative Psychological and
Behavioral Science. *
"Hot Wind, Cold Sun: Kuhn, Vygotsky, Halliday and Metaphors in Science
and Science Education"
https://rdcu.be/dsX2E
--
dr chris cléirigh
I have found you an argument; I am not obliged to find you an
understanding.
— Samuel Johnson
====================================
<di