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

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.

The Difference Between Martin's 'Activity Sequence' And Halliday's 'Sequence'

  Martin, Matthiessen & Painter (2010: 283-4):

Both effective and middle clauses interact with the temporal relations discussed above to construct the activity sequences comprising a disaster and rescue operation of this kind. A transitive perspective on what happened is presented in Table 7.3 below. The experiential grammar builds the figures (participant, process and circumstance configurations) which constitute the predictable sequences the story recounts. Once the waves roll in, there are no surprises, which accounts for the absence of external concessive relations in FitzSimon's article. For more on ideational semantics in relation to field, see Working with Discourse Chapter 3.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, clauses don't "interact" with temporal relations; temporal is one type of enhancing relation, structural or cohesive, between clauses.

[2] To be clear, Martin's 'activity sequence' is theoretically distinct from Halliday's 'sequence'. In Halliday's semantics (Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 49), a sequence (of figures) is the ideational phenomenon that is congruently realised grammatically by a clause complex (logical metafunction). 

In Martin's model, an activity sequence is variously construed as a unit of field, misconstrued as register, misconstrued as context (Martin 1992), evidence here, or as an experiential unit of discourse semantics (Martin & Rose 2007), distinct from the logical system of conjunction; evidence here.

[3] To be clear, 'figure' is not a discourse semantic unit (Martin 1992; Martin & Rose 2007), but a phenomenon in Halliday's ideational semantics that is congruently realised grammatically as a clause (Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 49).

[4] This confuses supposed reader reactions (surprise) to events in the text with the author's (FitzSimons') use of logical relations (concessive). On the one hand, what happened after the waves rolled in was surprising to this reader. On the other hand, the author simply chose not to use any concessive logical relations, such as although everyone was surprised by the sudden horror of the unfolding events, the rescue operation began almost immediately. 

[5] For a close examination of the experiential discourse semantics in Working with Discourse Chapter 3, see the clarifying critiques here.

Misrepresenting Ellipsed Subjects As Unmarked Themes

Martin, Matthiessen & Painter (2010: 282):

As noted above however, the text does feature a number of non-finite clauses, many with an implicit Subject/unmarked Theme. All except one (to be restored...) are imperfective and construct action that is underway and overlapping with the alpha clause on which they depend for temporal deixis (past) and to which they defer in terms of arguability (declarative). These clauses in effect help the text accelerate as a number of synchronous events are canvassed, thereby foregrounding the encompassing chaos of the waves' incursion and the cooperative intensity of the Bondi Boys' rescue.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is misleading. Ellipsed Subjects are not unmarked Themes. The absence of elements through ellipsis iconically marks lack of textual prominence, and the analysis of these elements as Themes misrepresents them as textually prominent. Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 635):

Ellipsis thus assigns differential prominence to the elements of a structure: if they are non-prominent (continuous), they are ellipsed; if they are prominent (contrastive), they are present. The absence of elements through ellipsis is an iconic realisation of lack of prominence.

[2] To be clear, this is merely an impressionistic interpretation, unsupported by grammatical evidence. Synchronous events can be construed paratactically or hypotactically, and through finite or non-finite clauses. Moreover, foregrounding is a function of the textual metafunction, not of non-finite dependent clauses.

Failing To Distinguish Continuity From Conjunction

 Martin, Matthiessen & Painter (2010: 282):

Similarly Ah, but marks the resigned counterexpectation of shifting from viewing the image in the present to reconstructing events from the past – the meaning is something like ‘although we've been looking at the picture for a bit, it's time now to begin our tale’:

Ah, but those 35,000 Sydneysiders [[who were lying in those very spots on the afternoon of February 6, 1938]], surely felt equally at peace. |||

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, from the perspective of SFL Theory, the Ah and but in this clause serve different functions, as recognised graphologically by the intervening comma that assigns them to different information units. The Ah is a continuative, and its function is to signal a new turn in the discourse. The previous clauses had described a contemporary photograph of Bondi Beach, and the continuative signals the beginning of the historical recount:

And so there they lie, happily sweltering in the summer sun on Australia's most famous beach, just as they have for so many generations past. It is such a wonderfully peaceful scene – of people and nature as a happy whole – that it is simply unimaginable that in a few seconds nature could ever rear up and savage the lot of them.

Ah, but those 35,000 Sydneysiders who were lying in those very spots on the afternoon of February 6, 1938, surely felt equally at peace.

The but, on the other hand, is a conjunction, and its function is to cohesively relate its clause to the previous text in terms of a logical relation of concessive condition ('even so').

Misrepresenting The General Thematic Pattern Of A Text

Martin, Matthiessen & Painter (2010: 278):

The general pattern, as we can see, is for marked Themes to punctuate the text at intervals, shifting our gaze, and for unmarked Themes to sustain our orientation to the field in between.

 

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, this assessment is based on a misapplication of Theme to a single text. Compare the following SFL-consistent analysis:

To be clear, the marked Themes are:

• With a roar like a Bondi tram running amok
• In no more than 20 seconds
• In their long and glorious history
• As one
• On the shore

and the unmarked Themes are:

• it (an enormous wave)
• three huge waves
• the boiling surf
• yet more large waves
• some (Bondi boys)
• some (Bondi boys)
• the Bondi clubhouse
• ambulances from all over Sydney town

It can seen that the context for what follows can be switched by either marked or unmarked Themes, and that continuity is maintained by the ellipsis of Subjects that would otherwise have been Themes. Importantly, the authors ignore the role of textual Themes in organising the text.

Misrepresenting Rhematic And Ellipsed Subjects As Theme [1]

Martin, Matthiessen & Painter (2010: 277):

The incursion proper begins with a marked Theme highlighting the sound of the first wave, and an unmarked Theme introducing the wave itself. Subsequently, the waves are unmarked Theme in every ranking clause. Alongside explicit unmarked Themes we've added boxes for Themes that have been ellipsed in non-finite and paratactic extending clauses; these missing Subjects all refer to the waves as well. In this respect, English is operating here like many languages that use an unmarked Theme to establish an orientation to a field and then don't mention Theme again until this orientation needs to be reinforced or changed (Caffarel et al. 2004).

Blogger Comments:

[1] Here the marked Theme is misanalysed for constituency; the embedded clause serving as Qualifier includes the conjunction like:

with a roar [[like a Bondi tram running amok]].

[2] This is misleading. Since this clause has a marked Theme, the Subject/Actor is not thematic, but falls within the Rheme (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 105). 

[3] This is misleading. Ellipsed Subjects are not unmarked Themes. The absence of elements through ellipsis marks lack of textual prominence, and the analysis of these elements as Themes misrepresents them as textually prominent. Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 635):

Ellipsis thus assigns differential prominence to the elements of a structure: if they are non-prominent (continuous), they are ellipsed; if they are prominent (contrastive), they are present. The absence of elements through ellipsis is an iconic realisation of lack of prominence.

[4] To be clear, the ellipsis of the Subject signals continuity — see [3] — and its textual function is cohesive.

[5] To be clear, Martin's field, which he misconstrues as the ideational dimension of register, misconstrued as context, actually corresponds to ideational semantics in SFL Theory. Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 407):

Thematic spaces in an ideational semantic network can be seen as a model of the systemic understanding of Theme and method of development articulated by Martin, where “field” corresponds to what has been discussed here in terms of ideational semantic networks in the ideation base.

Misrepresenting Halliday On Grammar And Confusing Strata

Martin, Matthiessen & Painter (2010: 272):

Functional grammar analysis of the kind supported by this workbook enables a rich semantically oriented reading of clause, group and phrase structure. This is a critical step in text analysis since, as Halliday comments in his introduction to the 2nd edition, ‘A discourse analysis that is not based on grammar is not an analysis at all, but simply a running commentary on a text...’ By the same token, an analysis based solely on grammar, however rich, is not a complete analysis, since relationships between sentences (between clause complexes) still have to be accounted for. To interpret these relations beyond the clause, we need a model of text structure, and a model of social context. In this chapter we will take grammar as the point of departure and demonstrate how it can be extended in the direction of text structure¹ and context, drawing specifically on Martin & Rose's Working with Discourse (2nd edition, 2007) and Genre Relations (2008) to do so.

¹ For an alternative extension see Halliday & Hasan's 1976 Cohesion in English, which elaborates Chapter 9 of IFG (3rd edition).

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is very misleading indeed. The grammar includes the systems of cohesion, which are concerned with relations that obtain within and beyond clause complexes.

[2] This is misleading. Relations 'beyond the clause' are lexicogrammatical, and therefore require a lexicogrammatical model (cohesion). Text structure, on the other hand, is a semantic model, and 'social context', in SFL Theory, is a model of the culture as a semiotic system.

[3] For the serious theoretical inconsistencies in Working With Discourse (Martin & Rose 2007), see  the close examination of the publication here.

[4] For the theoretical confusions in Martin's model of genre, see here (Martin 1992) and here (Martin & Rose 2007).

[5] This is misleading. Halliday & Hasan's 1976 Cohesion in English is the intellectual source of both Chapter 9 of IFG (3rd edition) and the "extension" of it as discourse semantics (Martin 1992); see here.