Misrepresenting "The Theoretical Map Within Which Halliday's Grammar Of English Has Been Proposed"

Martin, Matthiessen & Painter (2010: 295, 298):

 

 

Our tour of the levels outlined in Table 9 is far from complete. Our main point here is to give some indication of the theoretical map within which Halliday's grammar of English has been proposed. As far as text analysis is concerned, every cell in the Table affords a glimpse of what is going on; and we have to take care in privileging one cell over another – for reasons of time, or interest, or familiarity with analysis of one kind or another. Halliday has given us a far richer grammar than any other grammarian of ours or any other time, and thus a sound foundation, and a resounding mandate, to push on.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is very misleading indeed. Table 9 presents Martin's misunderstandings (evidence here) of "the theoretical map within which Halliday's grammar of English has been proposed". The theoretical map that Halliday (2005 [1995]: 254, 255) proposes for his systemic theory of grammar is:

elaborated as:

[2] To be clear, as far as Halliday is concerned, text analysis is carried out using the grammar, including the systems of cohesion, which the authors have ignored and replaced with Martin's rebranding of them as discourse semantic systems. Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 57, 731):

The description of English grammar presented here is not designed as a reference grammar. However, unlike the recent reference grammars — or all previous ones for that matter, this description has been designed as one that can be used in text analysis — a task that imposes quite stringent demands on the description. …

A text is meaningful because it is an actualisation of the potential that constitutes the linguistic system; it is for this reason that the study of discourse (‘text linguistics’) cannot properly be separated from the study of the grammar that lies behind it.

Some Of The Theoretical Inconsistencies In Modelling Genre As Realised By Register

Martin, Matthiessen & Painter (2010: 296):

The other factor interacting with mode is genre staging, since one of the story's early stages is more abstract than the rest of the text. To explore this, we'll have to move from register (field, tenor and mode) to genre. Martin & Rose (2008) treat genre as a recurrent configuration of meanings, which phases field, mode and tenor variables together into stages which enact its social purpose.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, from the perspective of SFL Theory, Martin's 'genre' conflates text type (register viewed from the instance pole), rhetorical mode (textual context) and semantic structure (of a text type that realises a rhetorical mode). This is why the authors relate (rhetorical) mode to genre staging (semantic structure).

[2] To be clear, Martin (1992: 390, 488) misunderstands the dimensions of SFL Theory as interacting modules:

6.1.3 Modularity and interaction

Each of the presentations of linguistic text forming resources considered above adopted a modular perspective. As far as English Text is concerned this has two main dimensions: stratification, and within strata, metafunction. …

The problem addressed is a fund[a]mental concern of modular models of semiosis — namely, once modules are distinguished, how do they interface? What is the nature of the conversation among components?

[3] To be clear, this is a non-sequitur, deriving from the previously noted confusion of mode, the role played by language in a situation, with the ideational abstraction in the text that realises a situation.

[4] To be clear, to put it most simply, Martin (1992) distinguishes functional varieties of language (register/text type) from language. This is analogous to distinguishing functional varieties of cattle (dairy vs beef) from cattle.

More technically, from the perspective of SFL Theory, Martin (1992) mistakes the two perspectives (register vs text type) on the midpoint of the cline of instantiation of language for two strata of the context that is realised by language. This also entails treating subpotentials (diatypic varieties) of language for full potentials (stratal systems).

In the case of register, Martin (1992) confused register with the configuration of field tenor and mode features of the situation type that the register realises. In the case of genre, Martin (1992) confused text type with the rhetorical mode of the situation type that the text type realises, and mistakes the semantic structure of such variants as genre structure (at the higher stratum of context).

If these theoretical confusions weren't enough, Martin (1992: 495) also identifies the instantial relation between culture and situation with the realisation relation between his strata of genre and register:

The tension between these two perspectives will be resolved in this chapter by including in the interp[r]etation 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.

[5] To be clear, by stratifying context as genre and register, Martin (1992) incongruously models systems of genre (text type conflated with rhetorical mode) as a higher level of symbolic abstraction that is realised by his systems of register, which, in SFL Theory, are the contextual systems of (i) what the text is about (field), (ii) who is taking part (tenor), and (iii) the role played by language (mode).

On the other hand, the formulation by Martin & Rose (2008) 

genre as a recurrent configuration of meanings, which phases field, mode and tenor variables together into stages which enact its social purpose

does not distinguish genre and register as different levels of symbolic abstraction. Instead, they present genre, field, mode, tenor, semantic structure and social purpose (rhetorical mode) as being of the same level of symbolic abstraction, wherein genre "phases" register into semantic structures which "enact" social purpose (rhetorical mode).

Confusing The Context Plane With The Content Plane

Martin, Matthiessen & Painter (2010: 295-6):

As far as abstraction is concerned, the text shifts back and forth from more abstract to more concrete, partly in relation to periodicity. The higher level Themes and New reviewed above draw on nominalisation and text reference to preview and consolidate events (a strength, the slightest clue, utter chaos; this, it, that, this):

[macro-Theme] Big waves and Bondi Beach have always gone together, writes Peter FitzSimons, but no one had ever seen the ocean rise up with a strength such as this …

[hyper-Theme] At three o'clock there was still not the slightest clue [[that this afternoon would forever be known as 'Black Sunday' in the annals of Sydney]]. Then it happened.

[hyper-New] In no more than 20 seconds, that peaceful scene had been tragically transformed into utter chaos.

[hyper-Theme] In their long and glorious history, this still stands as the finest hour of the Australian surf lifesaving movement.

And the marked Themes flagging the waves' attack and the rescue involve key nominalisations (roar, peril).

With a roar like [[a Bondi tram running amok]]

<<ignoring their own possible peril>>

Once the incursion and rescue get underway, however, events unfold chronologically with text time matching field time (and thus temporal connections realised between clauses); and figures by and large are realised congruently (with events as verbs, qualities as adjectives, entities as nouns).

Blogger Comments:

[1] Here the authors confuse mode, the role played by language and other semiotic systems in the situation (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 33-4), with the ideational abstraction in the text that realises the situation. That is, the authors again confuse the cultural context with the content plane of language.

[2] Here the authors confuse mode with what they take to be discourse semantics (periodicity). Again, the authors confuse the cultural context with the content plane of language.

[3] Here the authors confuse mode with lexicogrammar (nominalisation, reference and Theme). Again, the authors confuse the cultural context with the content plane of language.

[4] As previously explained, macro-Theme, hyper-Theme and hyper-New are Martin's rebrandings of terms from writing pedagogy: introductory paragraph, topic sentence and paragraph summary, respectively. Importantly, writing pedagogy is not linguistic theory; writing pedagogy involves proposals for effective writing, whereas a functional linguistic theory involves propositions about how language functions.

[5] Here the authors confuse mode with what they take to be discourse semantics (conjunction), or with what SFL takes to be lexicogrammar (cohesive conjunction and clause complexing). Again, the authors confuse the cultural context with the content plane of language.

[6] Here the authors confuse mode with the natural relation between ideational semantics (events, qualities, entities) and lexicogrammar (verbs, adjectives, nouns). Again, the authors confuse the cultural context with the content plane of language.

Confusing The Context Plane With The Content And Expression Planes

Martin, Matthiessen & Painter (2010: 295):

Mode deals with the role language is playing in relation to other modalities of communication and the concreteness of its rendering of the field. As we have seen, the text is an inter-modal one, with explicit exophoric connections between verbiage and image early on. In addition, there are many experiential connections between the beachside lexis of the verbiage and the image of people on the beach. Blue colour cohesion also ties the graphology explicitly to the ambience of the image.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, mode is the textual metafunction applied to the cultural context of language and its instantiations as situations. Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 33-4) specify the dimensions of mode:

mode – what role is being played by language and other semiotic systems in the situation: 

(i) the division of labour between semiotic activities and social ones (ranging from semiotic activities as constitutive of the situation to semiotic activities as facilitating); 
(ii) the division of labour between linguistic activities and other semiotic activities; 
(iii) rhetorical mode: the orientation of the text towards field (e.g. informative, didactic, explanatory, explicatory) or tenor (e.g. persuasive, exhortatory, hortatory, polemic); 
(iv) turn: dialogic or monologic; 
(v) medium: written or spoken; 
(vi) channel: phonic or graphic.

Here the authors are following Martin (1992) in misunderstanding mode (along with tenor and field) as a system of a stratum of register, a functional (diatypic) variety of language. It will also be seen that the authors follow Martin (1992) in misunderstanding rhetorical mode as a system ('social purpose') of a stratum of genre.

[2] To be clear, this confuses context with lexicogrammar: the systems of reference ('exophoric') and lexical cohesion ('experiential connections between the lexis and the image '). 

[3] To be clear, on the one hand, this confuses the context plane (mode) with the expression plane (blue ink). On the other hand, it repeats the earlier (p293) the bare assertion, again unsupported by evidence, that blue ink coheres the representation of author to the representation of the sky: 

Blue colour cohesion resonates across the landscape sky and the portrait (loud saturated blue in the landscape, more muted in the portrait). Inter-modally, the blue of the portrait is picked up typographically by Peter FitzSimons' name in the Kicker

Trying To Make The Data Fit The Theory

 Martin, Matthiessen & Painter (2010: 295):

Solidarity is also inter-modally construed – imagically, mateship is emphasised, as he faces us directly, in his casual dress, looking us in the eye with a smile.  Verbally the bonds have more to do with regional pride in the accomplishments of the Bondi Boys; graduation dramatises events, positioning us to appreciate all the more the historical significance of the rescue. FitzSimons' elegiac tones confirm us in the heritage he shares.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, this is simply trying to make the data fit the theory. Firstly, no argument has been offered as to why a photograph of a smiling man, in casual dress, looking at the camera should enhance a relation of mateship with male and female viewers of the photograph. Consider a similar picture of a politician being viewed by people who disapprove of him. 

Secondly, since the authors associate solidarity with 'horizontal' relations, this claim contradicts their previous claim that the text presents the columnist as authoritative, thereby placing him in a 'vertical' (power) relation with the reader.

[2] To be clear, experiential meaning is construed (language as reflection); interpersonal meaning is enacted (language as action).

[3] Here the authors have again switched from the meanings instantiated in the text to what are claimed to be its effects on the reader.

[4] To be clear, 'elegiac' means mournful or sorrowful. A read of FitzSimons' text reveals that its tone is not mournful or sorrowful. Moreover, this assessment is also inconsistent with the authors' previous observations (p289):

So instead of highlighting the emotional reactions of people, or their character, FitzSimons invites us to share attitudes to things (both concrete, like the ocean, and abstract, like history). …

For FitzSimons then it is the significance of the moment that matters, not directly the character or emotional reactions of the lifesavers or the people they rescue. In this respect, his stance is more that of a historian than narrator, since in narrative proper we typically use both inscribed affect and judgement to engage reader/listeners in our tale.

Misrepresenting Tenor And Misunderstanding Power And Solidarity

Martin, Matthiessen & Painter (2010: 295):

Tenor is concerned with the kind of relationship FitzSimons constructs with his readers. Its key dimensions are power and solidarity. Power is concerned with hierarchical social relations, solidarity with horizontal ones. As far as power is concerned, FitzSimons' position is an authoritative one – he writes for us to read and we read what he writes. The only real say we have is a yet to be realised one, solicited in his invitation to e-mail him with suggestions for historical anecdotes he might use. As we have seen, FitzSimons' authority is enhanced inter-modally – verbally through his blue coloured by-line in the text's macro-Theme and imagically through his Ideal/New position above the image of the beach.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 33) explain the interpersonal dimension of context as follows:

tenor – who is taking part in the situation: (i) the roles played by those taking part in the socio-semiotic activity – (1) institutional roles, (2) status roles (power, either equal or unequal), (3) contact roles (familiarity, ranging from strangers to intimates) and (4) sociometric roles (affect, either neutral or charged, positively or negatively); and (ii) the values that the interactants imbue the domain with (either neutral or loaded, positively or negatively)

[2] This is misleading. To be clear, power is but one system of tenor, and it distinguishes between equal ("horizontal") and unequal ("vertical") status. Relations of solidarity, contrary to the authors' claim, can obtain both between those of equal status ("horizontally") and between those of unequal status ("vertically") — the latter demonstrated by the solidarity between Martin (high status) and his students (low status).

[3] This is misleading, because it confuses dialogic role (writer vs reader) with interpersonal status (unequal vs equal). Clearly, it is not the role of writer that confers higher status in an exchange, as demonstrated by texts written by job applicants.

[4] This is misleading, because neither of these claims about authority have been previously argued for. That is, no argument has been offered as to why a by-line expressed in the colour blue should enhance the authority of the columnist, and no argument has been offered as to why the mere positioning of the columnist's name at the top of his newspaper column should enhance his authority. 

And, as previously explained, this usage of 'ideal' mistakes a construal of experience for textual status, and no argument has been offered as to why the name of the regular columnist should be interpreted as presented as New information.

Moreover, even in their own terms, the authors here have confused textual status (Ideal, New) with interpersonal status (power, authority).

Confusing Ideational Context (Field) With Ideational Content (Language) [2]

 Martin, Matthiessen & Painter (2010: 294):

As we have illustrated above, analysing clause complexes (grammar) in tandem with conjunctive relations (discourse semantics) is a good way of exploring activity sequences. To analyse each step in these sequences more closely we need to look at transitivity (from both transitive and ergative perspectives). And to understand participant relations we need to look at nominal group structure (Epithet, Classifier, Thing in particular), relational clauses (identifying and attributive), and relationships of hyponymy (class/subclass) and meronymy (part/whole) between nominal groups. We looked at FitzSimons' field in all these ways, in order to bring more fully to consciousness the senses in which he was concerned with the leisure activity of going to the beach in relation to the semi-professional activities of the Australian surf lifesaving movement.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, in SFL Theory, 'conjunctive relations' are lexicogrammatical, one of the systems of textual cohesion, first theorised by Halliday & Hasan (1976), and included in all editions of IFG. Martin's discourse system, on the other hand, is a confusion of their cohesive conjunction (textual metafunction) and Halliday's clause complexing (logical metafunction) which is misunderstood and relocated from lexicogrammar. Evidence here (Martin 1992) and here (Martin & Rose 2007).

[2] This is misleading. To be clear, analysing clause complexes and conjunctive relations is analysing the content of a text, whereas exploring activity sequences, here, is exploring the context of the text, its field, not the content of the text itself. In Martin & Rose (2007), on the other hand, activity sequences are interpreted as experiential semantics. See, for example:

• Activity Sequences: A Cornucopia Of Theoretical Inconsistencies

[3] This further demonstrates the authors' confusion of contextual field with the ideational content of the text.

[4] To be clear, in SFL Theory, the field of a text is 'what is going on' and 'what it is about'. The 'culturally recognised practice and its concerns' in this instance is the writing of a newspaper column about the 'Black Sunday' incident of Sunday, 6 February, 1938.

[5] This is misleading. Surf life saving in Australia has always been a volunteer movement, since its beginnings in 1907. The life savers at Bondi Beach in 1938 were volunteers, not "semi-professional".

Confusing Ideational Context (Field) With Ideational Content (Language) [1]

Martin, Matthiessen & Painter (2010: 294):

Field focuses our attention on the institutional context of a text – including domestic, work and leisure activities. A field can be defined as a set of activity sequences defining participation in a specific walk of life – for example doing the rounds, writing stories, attending staff meetings, reading newspapers, viewing current affairs programs on TV etc. as a print media journalist. Each step in each of these activity sequences consists of configurations of participants, processes and circumstances. And each participating entity, human or non-human, abstract or concrete, is organised within each field into distinctive taxonomies – of both subclassification ('is a kind of ') and composition ('is a part of').

Blogger Comments:

[1] This metaphor is potentially misleading. Field does not "focus our attention". Field is the ideational dimension of culture that is both realised and intellectually constructed (construed) by language and parallel semiotic systems.

[2] To be clear, for Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 320), 'field' means 

the field of activity and subject matter with which the text is concerned ('what's going on, and what is it about?' … The field is thus the culturally recognised repertoires of social practices and concerns …

expressed by Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 33) as:

what’s going on in the situation: (i) the nature of the social and semiotic activity; and (ii) the domain of experience this activity relates to (the ‘subject matter’ or ‘topic’)

[3] As previously mentioned, Martin has variously located 'activity sequences' at the level of context in field (Martin 1992) and at the level of discourse semantics in his experiential system of IDEATION (Martin & Rose 2007). This reflects Martin's inability to distinguish cultural context from language and its varieties (register, text type), which follows from his inability to understand stratification as levels of symbolic abstraction, rather than as interacting modules (Martin 1992: 390, 488). 

The chief source of his confusion seems to be between field in the sense of what the text is about, in terms of social concerns, and the ideational content of the text itself. As Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 407) diplomatically put it:

[Martin's] "field" corresponds to what has been discussed here in terms of ideational semantic networks in the ideation base.

[4] To be clear, this nicely demonstrates Martin's confusion between field (e.g. the social practice that the newspaper columnist Peter FitzSimons is engaged in) and the ideational content of a text (participants, processes and circumstances in the newspaper article).

Textual Meaning And Higher Levels Of Contextualisation

Martin, Matthiessen & Painter (2010: 294, 295):

The only generalised advice we feel confident to give has to do with remembering to look right to textual meaning and look up to higher levels of contextualisation, whatever analysis we are working on. Looking up means moving beyond discourse semantics into a model of social context – the register and genre rows in Table 7.9.

Blogger Context:

[1] To be clear, it is the textual metafunction that is the resource for creating text, through both structural and non-structural grammatical realisations. Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 30-1, 650):

But the grammar also shows up a third component, another mode of meaning that relates to the construction of text. In a sense this can be regarded as an enabling or facilitating function, since both the others – construing experience and enacting interpersonal relations – depend on being able to build up sequences of discourse, organising the discursive flow, and creating cohesion and continuity as it moves along. This, too, appears as a clearly delineated motif within the grammar. We call it the textual metafunction. …

We have identified the following features as those which combine to make up the textual resources of the lexicogrammar of English:

(A) structural

1 thematic structure: Theme and Rheme

2 information structure and focus: Given and New

(B) cohesive

1 conjunction

2 reference

3 ellipsis (that is, ellipsis and substitution)

4 lexical cohesion

Looked at ‘from below’, these textual resources fall into two categories – those that engender grammatical structure (theme and information) and those that do not (conjunction, reference, ellipsis, lexical cohesion).

[2] Again, this model confuses the social context (field, tenor, mode) realised in language with functional varieties of language (registers/text types), with the term 'genre' confusing text type with textual context ('purpose') and non-metafunctional semantic structure ('stages').

Misconstruing Social Context As Language Varieties

Martin, Matthiessen & Painter (2010: 294):

Martin & Rose (2003) interface with grammar on the discourse semantic side, and we've illustrated how to move from ideational, interpersonal and textual meaning in grammar to the discourse structuring resources which they realise. Working with Discourse in turn interfaces with models of social context, specifically the model of register (field, tenor and mode) outlined in Martin (1992) and the work on genre consolidated in Martin & Rose (2008).

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, this claim is based on the sub-headings 2.1 Theme and information flow, 2.2 Clause complexing and conjunction, 2.3 Transitivity and ideation, and 2.4 Nominal Groups, ideation and identification. See the relevant previous posts for the theoretical problems with each of these "illustrations":

• Misrepresenting Theme
• Misrepresenting Rhematic And Ellipsed Subjects As Theme [1]
• Misrepresenting Rhematic And Ellipsed Subjects As Theme [2]
• Misrepresenting Rhematic And Ellipsed Subjects As Theme [3]
• Misrepresenting Rhematic And Ellipsed Subjects As Theme [4]
• Misrepresenting The General Thematic Pattern Of A Text
• The Problem With Hyper-Theme As Linguistic Theory
• The Problems With Hyper-Theme And Hyper-New As Linguistic Theory
• The Problem With Macro-Theme As Linguistic Theory
• Misrepresenting IFG On Temporal Relations
• Misrepresenting Temporal Relations In A Text
• Misrepresenting IFG And Mistaking Continuity For Internal Conjunction
• Failing To Distinguish Continuity From Conjunction
• Misrepresenting Internal Relations
• Confusing Two Distinct Texts
• Misrepresenting Ellipsed Subjects As Unmarked Themes
• Misrepresenting The Ergative Model As The Transitive Model
• The Difference Between Martin's 'Activity Sequence' And Halliday's 'Sequence'
• Confusing Nominal Group Structure With Lexical Cohesion
• The Discourse Semantic System Of Participant Identification
• Misconstruing Reference As Tracking And Confusing Reference With Lexical Cohesion
• Identity Chains As The Confusion Of Reference And Lexical Cohesion [1]
• Problems With 'Tracking' And 'Esphora'
• Identity Chains As The Confusion Of Reference And Lexical Cohesion [2]
• Misrepresenting Writing Pedagogy As Linguistic Theory
• Misrepresenting Text Reference

[2] To be clear, Martin ± Rose (1992, 2003, 2007, 2008) confuse the social context (field, tenor, mode) realised in language with functional varieties of language (registers/text types), with the term 'genre' confusing text type with contextual mode ('purpose') and non-metafunctional semantic structure ('stages').

Problems With Key Resources For Text Analysis (By Strata And Metafunction)

 Martin, Matthiessen & Painter (2010: 293, 295):

In this chapter we've tried to build some bridges from the grammar analyses developed in Chapters 2-6 towards the analysis of discourse. An outline of these and related resources is presented in Table 7.9 below, which aligns columns by metafunction and rows by levels of abstraction (stratification).

 Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, it is the grammar that is the resource for discourse analysis. Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 57):

The description of English grammar presented here is not designed as a reference grammar. However, unlike the recent reference grammars — or all previous ones for that matter, this description has been designed as one that can be used in text analysis — a task that imposes quite stringent demands on the description.

The grammar includes the systems of COHESION which the authors have ignored to make way for Martin's discourse semantics. 

[2] To be clear, there are many theoretical inconsistencies in Table 7.9.

a. Martin's stratum of genre confuses text type, rhetorical mode ('purpose') and semantic structure ('stages'), and contrary to the implication made by including structure types in the table, does not include the metafunctions in the model. See the evidence here (Martin 1992) and here (Martin & Rose 2007).

b. Martin's stratum of register confuses diatypic variation in language with the cultural context that language realises. See the evidence here (Martin 1992) and here (Martin & Rose 2007).

Here 'activity sequences' are located in field, contradicting their location in experiential discourse semantics in Martin & Rose (2007). For evidence of such contradictions, see here (Martin 1992) and here (Martin & Rose 2007).

c. Martin's stratum of discourse semantics confuses, misunderstands, and renames lexicogrammatical cohesion (Halliday & Hasan 1976) and Halliday's semantic system of speech function. See the evidence here (Martin 1992) and here (Martin & Rose 2007).

Here external conjunction is classified as ideational and internal conjunction as textual despite both being classified as logical in both Martin (1992) and Martin & Rose (2007). This reflects Martin's confusion of the external vs internal distinction with the structural (logical) vs cohesive (textual) distinction in the grammatical realisation of the semantic system of enhancement. See the evidence here Martin (1992) and here Martin & Rose (2007).

Confusing Subject English With Text Analysis

 Martin, Matthiessen & Painter (2010: 293):

Inter-modally then both the images and verbal text position readers to look back from a safe distance on what went on. The early affect (happily, happy, felt… at peace) invites us to empathise positively with the people on the beach. But then we are repositioned to back off, historically, to oversee the tragedy and its glorious redemption as the events of the day unfold. The overall effect is one of balance – the moral being that there's no stopping accidents at the beach but there are lifesavers on hand to see us through. We have the yin of mateship complemented by the yang of nature. Our place, contextualised in time.

Blogger Comments:

[1] Here the authors have stopped speculating on the meanings expressed and started speculating on effects on the reader.

[2] To be clear, the images are contemporary, only the text reports on the events of February 6, 1938. Given that it is impossible not to view past events from 'a safe distance', it is not the images and text that do this "positioning".

[3] To be clear, the moral of a story is the lesson that it teaches about how to behave in the world. That is, in terms of speech function, a moral is a proposal, whereas the authors present a proposition as the moral of this retelling of the events of 1938.

[4] To be clear, the 'place in time' is Bondi Beach in February 1938.

Problems With The Summary Analysis Of The Images

 Martin, Matthiessen & Painter (2010: 293):

Imagically speaking then the overall tone is cool, calm and distanced, with FitzSimons himself as a warm engaging guide. This foregrounds the order restored over the calamity described, and reinforces the historically distanced stance FitzSimons constructs for us in the verbal text through appraisal resources. The order construed by the images can also be read as counterpointing the waves unsuspected eruption in the verbal text, a point we'll return to when considering narrative structure below.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the authors claim that the photographic representation of a beach on a sunny day, and of Peter FitzSimons, realise the meaning 'cool', simply because the representations of the sky and Peter FitzSimons are blue, and the representation of the sea is green, and blue and green are classified as 'cool' colours in fields such as painting.

[2] To be clear, the claim that the meaning 'calm' is realised the photographic representations has not been argued for; it is a collocation of 'cool' and 'distanced'. On the other hand, the claim that the photographic representations realise the meaning 'distanced' derives from misconstruing the experiential distance between the photographer and the beach as a distant social relationship across different orders of experience: between viewers (phenomena) and a representation of anonymous people on a beach (metaphenomena).

[3] To be clear, the claim that the photographic representation of Peter FitzSimons expresses the meanings 'warm and engaging' rests on the claim that 'a close shot (head and shoulders), front on, level with the viewer and involving eye contact and a smile' expresses a 'trusty friend' — a claim that is invalidated by every photograph that does not, such as police mugshots.

[4] To be clear, these are bare assertions unsupported by evidence. As previously explained, because images lack a grammatical stratum, much of what passes for image analysis is little more than a private exercise, where one explanation is as good as another. As Halliday (1985/1994: xvi-xvii) wrote for verbal discourse analysis:

A discourse analysis that is not based on grammar is not an analysis at all, but simply a running commentary on a text … the exercise remains a private one in which one explanation is as good or as bad as another.

Problems With The 'Ambience' Analysis Of The Image

Martin, Matthiessen & Painter (2010: 293):

Blue colour cohesion resonates across the landscape sky and the portrait (loud saturated blue in the landscape, more muted in the portrait). Inter-modally, the blue of the portrait is picked up typographically by Peter FitzSimons' name in the Kicker; and the green of the sea is similarly replayed on the word in in the 'placeintime' title of the column on the portrait. The general ambient effect is a cool Ideal in relation to the lightness of the sand on the beach (the Real).

 

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the chief difficulty posed by image analysis is that images are only bi-stratal: content and expression, without a grammar (despite the use of the term 'grammar' by Kress and Van Leeuwen for images). The proof that images do not have a grammatical stratum is that, unlike verbal texts, they cannot be read aloud (despite the use of the term 'Reading Images' by Kress And Van Leeuwen). Because of this, much of what passes for image analysis is little more than a private exercise, where one explanation is as good as another. As Halliday (1985/1994: xvi-xvii) wrote for verbal discourse analysis:

A discourse analysis that is not based on grammar is not an analysis at all, but simply a running commentary on a text … the exercise remains a private one in which one explanation is as good or as bad as another.

[2] To be clear, here the authors characterise the 'ambient effect' of a photographic representation of a beach on a sunny day as 'cool', simply because the sky is blue and the sea is green, and blue and green are classified as 'cool' colours in fields such as painting. Summer temperatures on Bondi Beach can exceed 40°C.

[3] Again, 'ideal' and 'real' are construals of experience, not textual statuses, and the photographer has little choice in where the sky appears relative to the sand in a photograph.

Problems With The Interpersonal Analysis Of The Image

Martin, Matthiessen & Painter (2010: 293):

Interpersonally, FitzSimons' portrait is a close shot (head and shoulders), front on, level with the viewer and involving eye contact and a smile – rendering him a trusty friend. The landscape on the other hand is a long shot, from an oblique angle, positioning viewers well above the beach and involving no eye contact or affect – a very distancing effect.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, a google image search of police mugshots quickly demonstrates that 'a close shot (head and shoulders), front on, level with the viewer and involving eye contact and a smile' does not necessarily render the meanings 'trust' or 'friend'. For example, consider the photograph, below, of someone who was arrested for putting her children, aged 3 and 5, in the boot of her car before going for a drive with a friend:

[2] To be clear, the interpersonal metafunction is concerned with 'our construction of social relationships, both those that define society and our own place in it, and those that pertain to the immediate dialogic situation' and thus 'constructs our social collective and, thereby, our personal being' (Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 511).

Here the authors have misinterpreted the photograph's construal of experiential distance, between the photographer and the beach, as the photograph's construction of a distant social relationship between viewers and a representation of anonymous people on a beach.

To be clear, social relationships can only obtain at the same order of experience, in this case, at the order of viewer, or at the order of the representation. That is, a viewer cannot have a social relationship with a photographic representation of a person, but can, of course, with the person who was photographed. By the same token, a representation of a person, in a photograph or novel, cannot have a social relationship with a viewer or a reader, but can, of course, with other representations in a photograph or novel.

Problems With The Experiential Analysis Of The Image

Martin, Matthiessen & Painter (2010: 292-3):

As far as experiential meaning is concerned, the FitzSimons’ portrait is what Kress & van Leeuwen call conceptual (as opposed to narrative). He is bald, with a full beard, closely trimmed, and an open necked shirt; there is no circumstantiation. If we needed reminding, the portrait confirms that this is in fact the Peter FitzSimons, a well known sports journalist and pay TV commentator, who played rugby for Australia in his sporting prime.

The beach landscape conversely has little attribution, since individual participants are barely distinguishable; but there is rich circumstantiation for the sky (with feathery clouds), the sea (small surf and a few bathers), the beach (with many sunbathers) and the buildings on the border between land and sky. The orientation of the people and blankets on the beach along with the north of the beach and suburbs compose release vectors (lower left to upper right); these are counter-balanced by hold vectors (lower right to upper left) construed by the sea and feathery clouds in the sky¹⁵. From a narrative perspective, the vectors thus oppose man and nature, more specifically people's urge to get into the water contained by the sea's incursion into the curving sand.

¹⁵ The notion of hold and release vectors is taken from Arnheim 1982.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, 'with a full beard, closely trimmed, and an open necked shirt' is circumstantiation. But this is a verbal description of the image. No argument is provided as to what does, or does not, constitute circumstantiation in a modality without a lexicogrammatical stratum.

[2] To be clear, the grey-scale portrait photograph (Token) identifies, and is identified by, the grey-scale text Peter FitzSimons (Value).

[3] Again, no argument is provided as to what does, or does not, constitute circumstantiation in a modality without a lexicogrammatical stratum. Wording that describes the photograph can include or exclude circumstantiation, as the describer wishes.

[4] To be clear, the notion of 'vector' is a way of modelling the expression plane of images. The content plane meanings that a vector realises are direction and magnitude.

[5] To be clear, these meanings attributed to the expression plane 'vectors' are entirely arbitrary, since few (if any) people could come up with this specialised interpretation independently. As such, it lies closer to the field of art appreciation than semiotics. It is analogous to speculating on the 'meaning' of the absence of the letter 'e' or capitalisation or punctuation in a poem.

Problems With The Textual Analysis Of The Image

Martin, Matthiessen & Painter (2010: 292):

And since our text is a multimodal one, we need to move on. Working with Discourse Chapter 9 offers some pointers in this direction (see also Kress & van Leeuwen 1996), and we'll make just a small sortie into images here.

As Figure 7.1 shows, there are two pictures, positioned to the left of the verbal text. Inspired by IFG's analysis of information structure, Kress & van Leeuwen suggest interpreting left position as Given and right as New. Turning to the vertical axis, FitzSimons' portrait is above the landscape photo of the beach, an arrangement they interpret as Ideal above and Real below. The beach landscape is itself polarised into Ideal (sky) and Real (land and sea), and FitzSimons is positioned to the right of the top image in New position. In short then horizontally speaking we have the familiar beach and columnist as Given and the story as news; vertically FitzSimons is an oracular Ideal to the landscape's Real (a God-like figure up in the sky perhaps), and the sky is Ideal in relation to the people on the beach as Real. These textual meanings are outlined in Figure 7.3.

Blogger Comments: 

[1] For some of the problems with the discussions of multimodality in Chapter 9 of Working With Discourse (Martin & Rose 2007), see the clarifying critiques here.

[2] To be clear, in language, Given^New is only the unmarked structure. Other structures include Given^New^Given, New^Given, and New.

[3] To be clear, 'ideal' and 'real' are experiential construals — concerning ideas and things — not textual statuses.

[4] To be clear, no argument is provided as to why, in such a photograph, a sky is presented as ideal and the beachgoers as real, or indeed, how such a presentation is a choice of the photographer.

[5] To be clear, no argument is provided as to why a regular columnist should be presented as New.

[6] To be clear, even ignoring the fact that ideal and real are experiential construals, not textual statuses, the authors are here just trying to make the data fit the theory, using the inappropriate descriptions of the footballer-turned-journalist as 'oracular' and 'God-like'.

Misrepresenting Text Reference

Martin, Matthiessen & Painter (2010: 288, 288n):

Note that in three of the text's higher level Themes we find text reference¹⁰ used to point forward to the discourse these Themes dominate (this, it and this as boxed below):

Text reference is also used retrospectively to consolidate the waves’ attack and withdrawal:

¹⁰ Text reference refers to the use of deixis, sometimes in conjunction with a metadiscursive lexical item (e.g. the process), to treat text itself as if it was a participant, and track it accordingly; it is much more frequently cataphoric (i.e. pointing forward) than identification of other kinds.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, Halliday & Hasan (1976: 52, 66) distinguish between extended reference, where the referent is some portion of text, and text reference, where the referent is a fact. They illustrate the difference with:

[The Queen said:] 'Curtsey while you're thinking what to say. It saves time.' Alice wondered a little at this, but she was too much in awe of the Queen to disbelieve it.

The first it refers to the previous clause complex, curtsey while you're thinking what to say, and is an instance of extended reference. The second it refers to the fact 'that curtseying while you think what to say…saves time' and is an instance of text reference.

[2] To be clear, in terms of Halliday & Hasan (1976), these are instances of extended reference, not text reference, since they refer to extended portions of text, not facts.

[3] To be clear, neither of the boxed wordings, that or the process is an instance of text (or extended) reference. On the one hand, just like that is an idiomatic expression that means 'out of the blue', so its that does not refer to portion of text or a fact. 

On the other hand, the only words that serve as extended or text reference items are it, this and that. In the wording in the process, the lexical item process is is not "metadiscursive", but lexically cohesive with the lexical items of the material processes mediated by the three waves, and the word the refers anaphorically to those processes.

[4] On the one hand, if these typically function cataphorically, it is clearly not a matter of the author using them to "track" participants through the text. On the other hand, all the examples examined by Halliday & Hasan (1976: 52-3, 66-7) refer anaphorically, not cataphorically.

Misrepresenting Writing Pedagogy As Linguistic Theory

Martin, Matthiessen & Painter (2010: 287, 287n):

As far as tracking these people is concerned the text is a much more stop and start affair. It begins by referring exophorically⁹ to the people in the image…

 ⁹ Exophoric reference is resolved between modalities – from verbiage to image here.

Martin, Matthiessen & Painter (2010: 288):

FitzSimons' text also features an important interaction between identification and periodicity. …

[macro-Theme] Big waves and Bondi Beach have always gone together, writes Peter FitzSimons, but no one had ever seen the ocean rise up with a strength such as this …

[hyper-Theme] At three o'clock there was still not the slightest clue that this afternoon would forever be known as ‘Black Sunday’ in the annals of Sydney. Then it happened.

[hyper-Theme] In their long and glorious history, this still stands as the finest hour of the Australian surf lifesaving movement.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, in claiming that the reference to the image is exophoric, the authors are claiming that the image is outside the text.

[2] To be clear, the text designated as macro-Theme is not written by FitzSimons, but is nevertheless analysed as if it were part of his text.

[3] To be clear, 'macro-Theme' is Martin's (1992) rebranding of 'introductory paragraph', and 'hyper-Theme his rebranding of 'topic sentence, both of which are writing pedagogy (proposals on how to write), not linguistic theory (propositions about the nature of language). No mention is made of the complementary 'macro-Rhemes' or 'hyper-Rhemes'.

Identity Chains As The Confusion Of Reference And Lexical Cohesion [2]

Martin, Matthiessen & Painter (2010: 286-7):

Two related participants, the Australian surf lifesaving movement and the Bondi clubhouse, are bridged from these lifesavers:

Table 7.7 Identity chains for the Bondi Boys

Blogger Comments:

[1] Again, 'bridging' (Martin 1992) confuses two distinct types of textual cohesion: reference and lexical cohesion. Evidence here.

[2] Again, the identity chains in Table 7.7 confuse relations between reference items (those, their, their, they, the) and their referents, with relations of repetition and synonymy between lexical items (boys, boys, lifesavers).

Problems With 'Tracking' And 'Esphora'

Martin, Matthiessen & Painter (2010: 286, 286n):

The Bondi Boys are a little easier to keep track of, since they are treated as a group (except for partitioning into those attached to reels and those not). The boys are introduced esphorically⁸, with Deictic those resolved in the Qualifier of the Bondi Surf Bather's Life Saving Club. Thereafter they are tracked through the, their, they (and elided them).

 

⁸ With esphoric reference, deixis is resolved inside the same nominal group, typically from Deictic to Qualifier.

Blogger Comments:

[1] Clearly, it is not the author of the newspaper article who has difficulty in keeping track of the participants in his texts. The notion of 'tracking' misrepresents a need of the reader as the meaning potential of the writer.

[2] Trivially, the twice-used some marks each as subsets of the same 'group'.

[3] To be clear, 'esphoric reference' (Martin 1992: 123) is his discourse semantic rebranding of grammatical 'structural cataphoric reference' (Halliday & Hasan 1976: 56).

[4] To be clear, in terms of SFL Theory, these are demonstrative (the) and personal (their, they) reference items whose meaning is resolved by a cohesive relation with their referent Bondi Boys. On the other hand, the ellipsis of them was the author's choice not to deploy personal reference.

Identity Chains As The Confusion Of Reference And Lexical Cohesion [1]

Martin, Matthiessen & Painter (2010: 285-6):

The identity chains reviewed here are outlined in Table 7.5 below (with bridging items connected to their referent by dotted lines).

Table 7.5 Identity chains for the waves

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, from the perspective of SFL Theory, identity chains (± bridging) confuse referential cohesion with lexical cohesion. In referential cohesion, which is endophoric, the meaning of a personal, demonstrative or comparative reference item is provided elsewhere in the text. Lexical cohesion, on the other hand, involves relations between lexical items in terms of repetition, synonymy, hyponymy, meronymy or collocation (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 644).

The identity chains in Table 7.5 confuse relations between reference items (it, another, another, their, they, it, (yet) more, the) and their referents, with relations of repetition and synonymy between lexical items (wave, wave, waves, surf, surf, waves, waves, water).

Misconstruing Reference As Tracking And Confusing Reference With Lexical Cohesion

 Martin, Matthiessen & Painter (2010: 285):

Collectively, these waves are then tracked using the definite article the, possessive pronoun their, and the pronouns they and it (strangely for the latter, since there is more than one wave involved at this stage of the text). In addition there are two examples of indirect reference (or bridging), which make use of meronymy to treat the boiling surf and the water as if already given (in relation to the waves).

 

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, in SFL Theory, what the authors describe as the writer "tracking" the waves is the writer using various types of cohesive anaphoric reference:

• personal (it, their, they, it)
• comparative (another, another, yet more)
• demonstrative (the)

[2] To be clear, 'bridging' (Martin 1992) confuses two distinct types of textual cohesion: reference and lexical cohesion. Evidence here.

The Discourse Semantic System Of Participant Identification

Martin, Matthiessen & Painter (2010: 285):

Textually, from the discourse semantic perspective of participant identification (Working with Discourse Chapter 5), we also have to keep track of which wave we're talking about, since the text involves more than one of them. Decitic [sic], Post-Deictic, Numerative and Thing functions make important contributions to this process. The comparative another introduces the second wave in relation to the first and the third set of waves in relation to the second; and more presents further waves in relation to these.

 

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the discourse system of IDENTIFICATION (Martin 1992) is a confusion of two grammatical systems: cohesive reference and deixis, further confused with reference in the sense of ideational denotation. Evidence here.

[2] For a close examination of some of the theoretical problems with the discourse system of IDENTIFICATION in Chapter 5 of Working with Discourse (Martin & Rose 2007), see the clarifying critiques here.

[3] To be clear, it is not the speaker who has to "keep track" of which wave he is talking about, but the addressee.

[4] To be clear, this confuses subcategorisation of the Thing in nominal group structure (Deictic, post-Deictic, Numerative, Thing) with the cohesive relation between a reference item and its referent, and the lexically cohesive relation between repeated instances of the same word (wave).

[5] To be clear, in SFL Theory, this is known as comparative reference; see Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 632-4).

Confusing Nominal Group Structure With Lexical Cohesion

Martin, Matthiessen & Painter (2010: 284-5):

Tables 7.2 and 7.3 have introduced the three major participants in FitzSimons' text, namely the waves, their victims and the Bondi Boys. Each of these entities has to be constructed grammatically in nominal groups, so let's look more closely at how this is done, beginning with the waves – this time taking into account the whole of the article. 

Experientially, the basic pattern here is to realise the waves as Thing and deploy Epithets to describe their size. From a discourse semantic perspective relations between Things are meronymic (part/whole relations): we have nature, including oceans, involving surf, consisting of waves, made up of water (Working with Discourse Chapter 3). Taken together the Epithet Thing structure of nominal groups and their meronymic relations to one another tell us what we are talking about.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the nominal group is the congruent grammatical realisation of a participant.

[2] To be clear, in SFL Theory, meronymic relations obtain between lexical items — rather than grammatical Things — as one type of lexical cohesion. The function is thus textual, rather than experiential. Martin's (experiential) discourse semantic system of IDEATION is a rebranding of Halliday & Hasan's (textual) lexical cohesion, confused with logical relations between transitivity elements. Evidence here.

[3] For the theoretical problems with Chapter 3 of Working With Discourse (Martin & Rose 2007), see the clarifying critiques here.

[4] Clearly, the vast majority of speakers do not need to be told what they are talking about.