Dear Colleagues,
The following might be helpful for anyone who is less than familiar with
how SFL's "*immanent*" view of meaning
differs from the two main traditions of the "*transcendent*" view of
meaning: the *world*-oriented and the *mind*-oriented.
The quote is from a work whose subtitle is *A Language-Based Approach To
Cognition*.
Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 415-7):
We can identify two main traditions in Western thinking about meaning (see
Halliday, 1977):
(i) one oriented towards logic and philosophy, with language seen as a
system of rules;
(ii) one oriented towards rhetoric and ethnography, with language seen as
resource.
… the orientations differ with respect to where they locate meaning in
relation to the stratal interpretation of language:
(a) intra-stratal: meaning is seen as *immanent* — something that is
constructed in, and so is part of, language itself. The immanent
interpretation of meaning is characteristic of the rhetorical-ethnographic
orientation, including our own approach.
(b) extra-stratal: meaning is seen as *transcendent* — something that lies
outside the limits of language. The transcendent interpretation of meaning
is characteristic of the logico-philosophical orientation.
… The modern split within the "transcendent" view is between what Barwise
(1988: 23) calls the *world-oriented* tradition and the
*mind-oriented* tradition,
which he interprets as public vs. private accounts of meaning …
The world-oriented tradition interprets meaning by reference to (models of)
the world; for example, the meaning of a proper noun would be an individual
in the world, whereas the meaning of an intransitive verb such as *run* would
be a set of individuals (e.g. the set of individuals engaged in the act of
running).
The mind-oriented tradition interprets meaning by reference to the mind;
typically semantics is interpreted as that part of the cognitive system
that can be "verbalised".
--
dr chris cléirigh
*To free a person from error is to give, and not to take away.*
— Arthur Schopenhauer
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Factoring Out Structure <https://yaegandoran.blogspot.com/>
Martin's Discourse Semantics, Register & Genre
<http://discourse-semantics.blogspot.com.au/> (凌遲
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingchi>)
Working With Discourse: Meaning Beyond The Clause
<http://workingwithdiscourse.blogspot.com.au/> (凌遲
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingchi>)
The Cardiff Grammar <http://cardiff-grammar.blogspot.com.au/> (凌遲
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingchi>)
Thoughts That Cross My Mind
<http://thoughts-that-cross-my-mind.blogspot.com.au/>
The Thought Occurs <http://thethoughtoccurs.blogspot.com.au/>…
Thoughts That Didn't Occur <http://master-bateman.blogspot.com.au/>…
Informing Thoughts <http://informingthoughts.blogspot.com.au/>
Systemic Functional Linguistics <http://systemictheory.blogspot.com/>
Sysfling <http://sysfling.blogspot.com.au/>
Sys-Func <http://sys-func.blogspot.com.au/>
Attitude In Systemic Functional Linguistics
<http://attitude-in-sfl.blogspot.com.au/>
Martin's Model Of Paralanguage <https://sflparalanguage.blogspot.com/>
Lexis As Most Local Context <https://lexisasmostlocalcontext.blogspot.com/>
Making Sense Of Meaning <https://meta-sfl-theory.blogspot.com/>
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