Sunday 26 August 2018

On The Need To Incorporate Martin's Discourse Semantics Into Semanticised Clause Systems

Fawcett (2010: 56):
As will perhaps be obvious, the position taken here is that the semanticisation of the system networks for TRANSITIVITY, MOOD, THEME and so on that constitute the meaning potential should incorporate many of the types of meaning covered in Martin's 'discourse semantics', so enabling the overall model of language to remain as it is in Figure 4 of Chapter 3, rather than becoming increasingly complex.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, for the semantics of TRANSITIVITY, see Chapter 4 'Figures' in Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 128-76), and the semantic system realised by MOOD is SPEECH FUNCTION.   This distinction between semantics and lexicogrammar provides the means of modelling grammatical metaphor systematically.  For the semantics of the textual metafunction, see Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 398-414).

[2] Here Fawcett again misconstrues 'meaning potential' (language as system) as the stratum of meaning (semantics) — a misunderstanding that supports his position.

[3] As demonstrated in great detail here, Martin's discourse semantics is based on misunderstandings of SFL theory at all scales and is wholly inconsistent with it.  Incorporating it into the semantic counterparts of grammatical systems would therefore severely compromise the theory overall.

[4] As previously demonstrated here (and in subsequent posts), Fawcett's Figure 4 ('The main components of a systemic functional grammar') is invalidated by internal inconsistencies arising from misunderstandings of the theoretical dimensions of realisation, instantiation, delicacy and axis.

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