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.