Hi all,
On David K's request, the example I posted was:
Talking about the e predictivity of language instances from known context
: in a conference in 1996 I made the point that some language choices,
while possible, are inappropriate, thus unlikely. I gave the example of
getting on a bus and saying to the busdriver "pound of sausages please". A
Scotsman in the audience said that in his remote village, that is exactly
what you would say to the busdriver, who would pick up the sausages in the
next village and bring them back to you.
So, whatever we think about the predictability of language needs to be
taken along with a wide allowance of cultural variation in context-meaning
appropriacies.
Now, Kieran was spot-on when he said I basically posted it for
interpersonal rather than ideational motives, I was trying to lighten the
tone of a conversation getting a little tense. But not aimed at you Kieran
as an individual, but rather at the whole chain getting too personal. And
you are not a 'coldhearted, completely insensitive, vicious batard'. You
are a pussycat inside.
Although I do think that the tension in the air brings us to our best. I
think Keiran has never expressed his ideas so clearly, and DavidK has been
forced to put into words his position (and his reading of Keiran's) more
explicitly than ever, which is only good.
It reminds me with a biff we were having with David Rose on Sysfling a
decade ago. For me, it was getting to the point of resolving key Martin vs
Hallidayan model differences when the thread was shut down for being too
rowdy.
Ths my injection. Be polite and considerate guys, but keep moving towards
the truth.
Mick
On Mon, 20 Jun 2022 at 09:12, Kieran McGillicuddy <
dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Yo David 2 and whatever remaining others,
I took Mick's 'example' as a generally directed attempt to inject a
friendlier tenor into the exchanges. I didn't pick up that it was also a
good illustration of a particular point, as Geoff Williams observed, but
the quality of Mick's example, I think, would have been 'in addition' to
the attempt to introduce a friendlier tone.
I don't think Mick's attempt to introduce a friendlier tone would have
been directed towards me, either to protect me from attack or discouraging
my attacking. Mick has plenty of reasons to believe in my gross
insensitivity, and related utter imperviosity to personal attacks, or
reasons.
On the other hand, I would endorse Mick's implied call for a more
civilized discourse, if that is what he was implying, but no-one would take
me seriously. I observe, if anyone were to care what I observe, that there
are many reasons for people to care, and to care deeply, about what is said
in systemic fora. I understand, that for me to say that the weather/climate
analogy is silly or stupid, especially when I write stupid 'stoopid', is
offensive to the memory of Michael Halliday, even though I seem to think
that I have huge respect for Michael Halliday, and Ruqaiya incidentally,
but bugger it, the analogy is stoopid, and in saying that, I am also
insulting people who have accepted the analogy, implying that they who
accept it are 'stoopid', but luckily my thinking is sufficiently shallow, I
am so insensitive, that I am not aware of that offensiveness.
If you take offense, well, yeah, fair enough, and if I was someone else,
with power within the systemic community, then perhaps I would behave
otherwise, and I would be a little bit more careful about insulting people
directly, rather than Halliday, who is a big boy who can look after
himself. I remember in 94? I gave a paper somewhere, a systemic conference,
which attacked Halliday's discussion of modality in the then current IFG,
but in a very rare attempt to be civil I identified another very close
version of Halliday's position and attacked that instead. And after the
talk a senior systemicist praised me on the quality of my arguments but
said that I should have highlighted the quality of Halliday's alternative
approach. What moral was I to take from that?
I'm going to quote David 2, momentarily, but firstly, to show that Mick
O'Donnell is correct in describing me as a 'coldhearted, completely
insensitive, vicious batard', I am going to agree with a point that David 2
makes, or implies, at least in his capitalisation. I did not address a
delicacy in Michael's arguing, that 'we invest' a theory with explanatory
power. I ignored the 'we invest'. I was aware that I was ignoring it. And I
am not going to unignore it now.
As for the '*monstrously bad*' in *the monstrously bad atheoretical and
even anti-theoretical pose*, and even the use of '*pose*' instead of,
say, '*stance*', I can cope with that, I can perhaps even cope with '
*atheoretical*', but '*antitheoretical*', I will see you sir at dawn.
Roy? I am not his fault. My position, which you identify as the
integrationist stance, comes from reading Bhaskar and Harre between 94 and
97. Admittedly, I was shocked when I finally learnt of Roy Harris'
existence, and that he agreed me with me on so many points.
*First of all, there is the monstrously bad atheoretical and even
anti-theoretical pose. In defense of Kieren, it's not original; it's the
stance that Roy Harris and the integrationists take. Any attempt to try to
INVEST a theory with explanatory power is halted by their stout insistence
that a theory of language cannot explain anything because it leaves out the
non-linguistic channels of communication. This "refusal to rise to the
level of theory" (as Halliday called it) is also category error: if it is a
mistake to go by a field with two cows and insist that there are three
objects there--a cow, a calf and a pair of animals--then it is likewise a
mistake to stoutly insist that there are no cattle there (only two cows)
and no such "thing" as cattle to begin with. Yes, of course, a theory
explains no actual "thing" by itself; a theory is a virtual object and not
a sentient being and "explaining" is a verbal process. That is precisely
why Halliday says that WE invest the theory with explanatory power. *
Now, I don't take the integrationist position..., let's not get into that,
but
*Any attempt to try to INVEST a theory with explanatory power is halted by
their stout insistence that a theory of language cannot explain anything
because it leaves out the non-linguistic channels of communication. *
that's not really the integrationist position is it? There must be
something I misunderstood. And, do I take that integrationist position? I
wouldn't have thought so, but who am I to disagree with David 2?
I observe, if anyone were to care what I observe, that there are many
reasons for people to care, and to care deeply, about what is said in
systemic fora. And when people care so deeply, and have so much of their
lives invested in the theory, and the good that the theory does, (I mean
'invested' in a non-financial sense) at times things go wrong, and
sometimes rather profoundly wrong. But, I certainly don't think David 2's
attack on me is a 'going wrong', it's Mick O'Donnell I can't forgive.
There's a string of issues that David 2 has (re-)introduced, such as
propositions/proposals
*But I am not deceived or disarmed when he breaks off before he tackles
propositions and proposals--in fact, the distinction between proposals and
propositions--that is, between language as action and language as
meaning--is just what we were talking about. *
I broke off at that point. Fair enough. The propositions/proposals
distinction is a crucial issue. I have to be careful, because I might say
something about the non-existence of the imperative, when the existence of
the imperative is obvious to anyone with half a brain, and obviously it has
existed since, well, forever. And then, there is risk that I might say that
the distinction is not between language as action and language as meaning,
and we would be down a rabbit hole, at least I would be and David and most
others would be refusing to follow.
*Kieren misconstrues Halliday... for the integrationist, text cannot
include context, because context is always and only what Ruqaiya Hasan
called the material situational setting.*
*context is always and only (…) the material situational setting*
And again here, I break off, as I see 'the material situational setting'
as an oxymoron, and explaining how I see it as oxymoronic, would be..., to
start off with, not now the important issue.
I'd kind of like to apologise to David 1, but explaining why there might
be a need to apologize would be a pain in the ar.e, at a time when I have
some sciatica, and I certainly don't trust me not to do it again. Who
would? Perhaps though, David 2, you need to appreciate the extent of insult
to David 1 when you say,
*Kieren misconstrues Halliday in very much the same way that David Rose
was misconstruing him*
That is borderline unforgiveable.
And finally, a personal explanation as to why I broke off with respect to
some issues in my previous post,
*But I am not deceived or disarmed when he breaks off before he tackles
propositions and proposals*
To my mind, the post wasn't 'about' those kinds of issues. I see a great
(huge? enormous?) streak of intensity and faith and commitment and
community within the systemic community, which I don't share, and which I
have consciously chosen, from my earliest engagement with systemics, not to
share, for reasons which muchly don't matter to you guys. However, also,
over the years, repeatedly, there have been outbreaks of intolerance and
malevolence, and paranoia and misinterpretations, directed internally and
externally, and perhaps the community might like to get a grip on it.
A suggestion in that respect, consider blaming Mick O'Donnell.
On Sunday, 19 June 2022 at 23:22:37 BST, 데이브드켈로그_교수_영어교육과 <
dkellogg60@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Geoff:
I don't think that Kieren's example is a beautiful one--I find it, to coin
a phrase, "monstrously bad".
First of all, there is the monstrously bad atheoretical and even
anti-theoretical pose. In defense of Kieren, it's not original; it's the
stance that Roy Harris and the integrationists take. Any attempt to try to
INVEST a theory with explanatory power is halted by their stout insistence
that a theory of language cannot explain anything because it leaves out the
non-linguistic channels of communication. This "refusal to rise to the
level of theory" (as Halliday called it) is also category error: if it is a
mistake to go by a field with two cows and insist that there are three
objects there--a cow, a calf and a pair of animals--then it is likewise a
mistake to stoutly insist that there are no cattle there (only two cows)
and no such "thing" as cattle to begin with. Yes, of course, a theory
explains no actual "thing" by itself; a theory is a virtual object and not
a sentient being and "explaining" is a verbal process. That is precisely
why Halliday says that WE invest the theory with explanatory power.
Secondly, Kieren misconstrues Halliday in very much the same way that
David Rose was misconstruing him (i.e. a semantics without discourse). For
the integrationist, text cannot include context, because context is always
and only what Ruqaiya Hasan called the material situational setting.
Similarly, language is always and only embodied language. Yes, it is
impossible to order a macchiato without a coffee shop to order it in--an
admirable grasp of the utterly obvious that makes these protestations about
being taken to be an idiot somewhat more ironic than the protestor
intended. It is likewise unnecessary to order it without a body to drink it
with. But it is also impossible to order a macchiato without the word
"macchiato" and something very much like a system network (i.e. a menu),
not to mention some aliquot and fungible form of value (cash or credit),
and that's a little hard to explain without investing in some form of
abstraction.
Thirdly, and more generally, Annabelle is right. An important lesson of
this whole sorry-cum-wacky thread is the amount of crudely
anti-intellectual "thinking" that can be disguised behind appeals to good
or bad feelings, onomatopoeia, grunts, moans, gestures, etc. Kieren would
like to fit his acute content to a cutesy form, and I am willing to accept
it and even admire it--for a moment. But I am not deceived or disarmed when
he breaks off before he tackles propositions and proposals--in fact, the
distinction between proposals and propositions--that is, between language
as action and language as meaning--is just what we were talking about. It's
the whole meta-functional distinction between the interpersonal and the
ideational that was the chief difference between Halliday 1961 and Halliday
1985. More importantly for me (because I work on child language) it is the
"macrofunctional breakthrough" that Halliday notes in Learning How to Mean:
it's the distinction between the pragmatic orientation and the mathetic
one.
In the end, I think all that Kieren does is to prove my argument and not
his own. He accidentally slips back into the non-relational one-to-one
analogy between weather and text and climate and language in that very
email (there is no reason to accept the cogency or even relevance of his
argument that a theory of climate explains nothing about climate unless you
accept the climate-to-language analogy). He also shows how little
explanatory power we can invest in anti-theoretical integrationist
posturing. It will butter no parsnips, and code no clauses. To coin another
phrase, it is language that doesn't do stuff.
dk
2022년 6월 18일 (토) 오후 7:26, Geoff Williams <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>님이
작성:
Beautiful example, Mick!
Geoff
Geoff Williams
mobile: +61 (0)417540821
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