Hi Mick, and friends,
Let's slow this down a little.
Essentially, I'm not a fan ofpluralism. But it seems that I can't do without it.
I'd like things to be right or wrong,and I am certainly not happy with things
being both right and wrong,and I am not happy with holding inconsistent views,
but with respectto language I do hold inconsistent views. This is 'the baby and
thebathwater' problem. I may encounter a problem with my views, my
viewsregarding language or anything, which suggests that I am wrong, butit
would be unwise from a one 'error' to throw over the entirety. And'the baby and
bathwater' problem remains after a second, a third, andquite a few more
problems with the overarching theory. And then, myenforced toleration for
inconsistencies is exacerbated when someaspects of the overarching theory are,
in my opinion, of enormousutility or explanatory power.
When someone uses the architecture of SFL,
they mean what thetheoretical architecture means.
Inconsistencies arise when thearchitecture is not understood." +
To begin with, it can seem to bedifficult to agree with or disagree with or
argue with SFL if youdon't understand understand the overarching SFL theory,
which directstowards what should constitute 'data', and the location/status
ofelements within the theory and so forth. But that is not really thecase is
it! I have, for example, my reasons for thinking that SFLdeploys a confused
analysis of the exchange of information and ofgoods and services. Those
arguments may be freestanding argumentswhich suggest flawed thinking around
those exchanges, particularlywith respect to the exchange of goods and
services, that the exchangeis not exchange but transfer, and the transfer is
notof goods and services, but specifically a transfer of control. Thechange of
understanding of a phenomenon of exchange of goods andservices may not appear a
dramatic variation, or you may think ithas consequences for the theory as a
whole. But the point here isthat I may look in detail at an aspect of SFL and
find problems, andthose problems may suggest problems with the theory. It seems
alittle odd to me to describe those problems as 'inconsistencies'.
'Inconsistencies' suggests to me that we are worried about theinternal
organisation of the theory, rather than the 'matter' onwhich the theory is
founded. Inconsistencies don't necessarilyindicate problems with inderstanding
the theory, they may arise fromproblems with the theory, unless the theory is
perfect.
I suggest that another matter withimplications for the architecture of SFL
might be the nominal group,or perhaps more precisely the systemic description
of the nominalgroup. In the following comment on 'the' from IFG the comments
on'the' suggest that 'language' doesn't work on its own, and thatlanguage needs
to be integrated with other 'semiosis', and materialsemiosis, in order to work.
There is one more item in this class, namely the. The word the isa specific,
determinative Deictic of a peculiar kind: it means ‘thesubset in question is
identifiable; but this will not tell you how toidentify it – the information is
somewhere around, where you canrecover it’ (367)
I haven't followed changes in the IFGdescription of the nominal group, and
specifically 'the' over thedecades, but this 2014 description sounds very much
like what Iremember from the late 1980s. (I understand that there have
beenrecent attempts to reconsider the nominal group and dependencies.) Aproblem
with 'the' is that it doesn't work, language internally, andHalliday
acknowledges that as a language phenomenon it doesn't work,that you need to go
outside language.
the information is somewhere around, where you can recover it
Halliday's quick acknowledgement of theinsufficiency of langauge is of a
character which would be consistentwith integrationist arguments that an
understanding of languageshould be integrated with immediate (socio-semiotic?)
locus ofutterance.
Is the problem of 'the' just a trivialside issue with few implications for the
architecture of IFH? No, Isee implications. With a problem of this kind, a lot
more care shouldhave been taken with systemic thinking around
endo-/exo-phoricreference, which we have taken too easily from other schools
ofthought. But also in the following example,
That is the cat!
That, as language, doesn't work.And neither does 'the cat'. For 'the cat' to
work it has toqualified. In order to work cognitively (or perhaps, if you
prefer,'discourse semantically'), , the 'clause' needs to be something ofthe
order of
that is the cat that ate my hamster
that is the catwe were talking about earlier
that is the catthat we were talking about earlier, the one that ate my hamster
That is the catfrom the hamster cage
And this seems to entail that for anidentifying relational clause to work, to
be an identifyingrelational clause from a language perspective, there needs to
be akind of embedding of semiosis within the Value. 'The cat' cannot be'the
cat', it has to be 'the cat which...' and this would carry someimplications for
the status of 'rankshifting', sincecognitive/discursive 'rankshifting' is being
required to make work asupposedly rankshifting free process-type.
To be clear, SFL does have only onetheoretical architecture.
Chris details the'theoretical architecture' in his blog, and says that
thearchitecture is shared across SFL. Within his description of thearchitecture
are the metafunctions. However, it is not clear to methat the metafunctional
hypothesis is shared across systemics. And Iuse the phrase 'metafunctional
hypothesis' because that is how themetafunctional hypothesis has been described
to me by a seniorsystemicist, stressing that it is and always has been an
hypothesis,except that people forgot it was an to hypothesis.
And, if there weresystemicists operating with a notion of 'subject Theme', for
example,then such systemicists would not be operating with a
particularlydistinct separation of the interpersonal and the textual.
I have my ownvarious heresies and/or apostacies, which underpin my
blasphemies.And also, apart from my apostacies, I (think I) see gaps in
thearchitecture, such as an inadequate consideration of the production
vreception of language/semiosis.
Nevertheless, Iregard myself as working within the systemic framework, at the
leastbecause of the varieties of tools which allow me to approach
anunderstanding of how language works.
But my evil andirrelevance are an aside to the question 'Does systemics
wantthose who may not accept all aspects of the architecture, of thetheory, of
the architecture of the theory, to go away?'And there may perhaps be a
corollary to this question.' How would/should we deal with insights from
alternative conceptions of language/semiosis?
On Tuesday, 28 June 2022 at 10:37:32 BST, Michael O'Donnell
<micko.madrid@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi Chris,
"When someone uses the architecture of SFL,
they mean what the theoretical architecture means.
Inconsistencies arise when the architecture is not understood."
Your language implies that you believe that there is one architecture
of SFL. I have always enjoyed the plural nature of SFL, with multiple
alternative architectures to choose from.
To me, the biggest threat to SFL as a continuing school is the
attitude that only the word of God (MAKH) is true, and everything else
is heresy. As the old marxists used to say, we need to be in a process
of constant revolution, challenging the established Truth. Halliday
was a good instance of revolutionary, continually redefining
linguistics, and opening new applications for it. He also continually
re-defined his own architecture,with the movement from a single
layered grammar in the 60s, to socio-semiotics in the 1970s, and to a
generalised functional grammar (IFG) in the 1980s.
What pisses me off is all the faction fighting we have got into over
the last 20 years. Macquarie-Hong Kong in one corner, Sydney School in
another, and Cardiff Grammar in another. And then the rest of us
either choosing a corner, or, as many do, take the best of what each
school has to offer. Or cease to be a card-carrying SFLer, moving to
other fields.
Pluralism is good. Even if it involves different choices in
fundamental architecture. Choice is good.
What is not good is continual sniping at those who choose to differ
from Halliday in details (but not in fundamentals).
Chris, your blogspot is a place where you choose to insult those who
are not as pure as you. In some cases, your misogynist tendencies
shine through. This is the worst of what we have become.
Mick
On Tue, 28 Jun 2022 at 03:54, Dr ChRIS CLÉiRIGh <c.cleirigh@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
David,
Perhaps you'd feel less addled if I clarify that what I wrote
was a succinct summary of the theoretical inconsistencies in Martin's model.
When someone uses the architecture of SFL,
they mean what the theoretical architecture means.
Inconsistencies arise when the architecture is not understood.
ChRIS
On Tue, 28 Jun 2022 at 07:54, 데이브드켈로그_교수_영어교육과 <dkellogg60@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Chris:
But isn't Martin also using "expression" in a way that is quite different
from the way it is used in Halliday?
Halliday sometimes uses "expression" as a narrow, technical term to mean
realization as phono- or graphology. So for example on p. 25 of IFG 4 he
says that only infant proto-language is really expression of the content
plane: as soon as there is differentiation of the content plane into
lexicogrammar and semantics we have to use the more general and abstract
term realization if we want to trace how a meaning makes it into a sounding
or into a spelling.
Hjelmslev, on the other hand, uses "express" much more broadly--even beyond
realization. "To express" just means to make a "functive" link between any
sign-expression and its sign-content referent. (Prolegomena, section 13). So
for example red leaves in autumn express the coming of winter (but they do
not in any linguistic sense "realize" that coming)..
Maybe Martin means that expression is "actual" while content is somehow
merely potential: So for example "register" is a potential rather than an
actual use of language, and genre is a potential rather than an actual
register?
Addled,
dk
2022년 6월 27일 (월) 오전 7:59, Dr ChRIS CLÉiRIGh <c.cleirigh@xxxxxxxxx>님이 작성:
Dear Colleagues,
The following quote might be helpful to anyone who is unclear about
Martin's model of context.
Martin (1992: 495):
The tension between these two perspectives will be resolved in this chapter
by including in the interpretation of context two communication planes,
genre (context of culture) and register (context of situation), with
register functioning as the expression form of genre, at the same time as
language functions as the expression form of register.
As Martin explains, his model interprets the instantiation relation at the
level of context
as a realisation relation between systems that are varieties of language.
--
dr chris cléirigh
No rational argument will have a rational effect
on a man who does not want to adopt a rational attitude.
— Karl Popper
====================================
My Linguistics Sites
Thoughts That Cross My Mind
Attitude In Systemic Functional Linguistics
Working With Discourse: Meaning Beyond The Clause
Martin's Discourse Semantics, Register & Genre
Deploying Functional Grammar
Martin's Model Of Paralanguage
Sys-Func
Sysfling
The Thought Occurs…
Thoughts That Didn't Occur…
The Cardiff Grammar
Lexis As Most Local Context
Factoring Out Structure
Systemic Functional Linguistics
Informing Thoughts
Making Sense Of Meaning
====================================
--
David Kellogg
Sangmyung University
정서 학설 2 - 역사-심리학적 연구 | 비고츠키 선집 14
레프 세묘노비치 비고츠키 (지은이),비고츠키 연구회 (옮긴이)살림터2022-06-18
https://www.aladin.co.kr/shop/wproduct.aspx?ItemId=296200809
--
dr chris cléirigh
Nowadays to be intelligible is to be found out.
— Oscar Wilde
====================================
My Linguistics Sites
Deploying Functional Grammar
Martin's Model Of Paralanguage
Informing Thoughts
Making Sense Of Meaning
Systemic Functional Linguistics
Sys-Func
Sysfling
The Thought Occurs…
Thoughts That Cross My Mind
Martin's Discourse Semantics, Register & Genre
Thoughts That Didn't Occur…
Working With Discourse: Meaning Beyond The Clause
The Cardiff Grammar
Lexis As Most Local Context
Factoring Out Structure
Attitude In Systemic Functional Linguistics
====================================
