Very Serious Problems With Exercise 9: Identifying Participants (Behavioural Clauses)

Martin, Matthiessen & Painter (2010: 140)

Analyse the following clauses for Behaver, Scope (or Behaviour) and Target as required. See Section 3.8 (iii). 

1. She has described the problem clearly.

2. He insulted his audience.

3. He was talking rubbish.

4. She flattered her teacher.

5. They uttered a cry of joy.

6. He slandered his rival.

7. She blamed the judges.

8. She gave a speech.

9. He smiled a most compelling smile.

10. He pondered the problem.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, Exercise 9 is highly problematic, because it requires the reader to analyse clauses that are not behavioural (1,2,3,4,6,7,8,10) as behavioural, and to identify material (Scope) and verbal (Target) participants as behavioural participants. See further below.

[2] To be clear, in SFL Theory, the example clause They praised Cæsar is a targeted verbal clause, not a behavioural clause:

[3] To be clear, clause 1 is not a behavioural clause. As previously explained, in such instances the clause is verbal (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 306, 347), not least because it construes the Medium as a symbol source and the Range as the content of what is said (Verbiage):

Likewise, clause 3 is not a behavioural clause, but a verbal clause:

The Range rubbish is not a behaviour, but an assessment of what was said.

And again, clause 8 is not a behavioural clause, but a verbal clause:

The Range a speech is not a behaviour, but a name for what was said.

[4] To be clear, clauses 2,4,6 & 7 are not behavioural clauses. As Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 307) explain, these are targeted verbal clauses. Importantly, these clauses are effective in voice, and so operative or receptive, whereas behavioural clauses — apart from those like you make me laugh — are middle:

[5] To be clear, clause 10 is not a behavioural clause, but a mental clause: 

The verb ponder can serve as a projecting mental Process, as in she pondered whether it was true: 

It might be argued that the lexical choice adds a behavioural feature to the mental Process.

∞

In sum, of the 10 clauses presented for analysis as behavioural clauses, only 2 (5 & 9) are genuine behavioural clauses on the criteria of SFL Theory.