Confusing Language As System With Language As Stratified

Fawcett (2010: 59):

From the viewpoint of our concerns in this book, however, this major difference of view about what is required 'above' the meaning potential that belongs within the grammar is relatively unimportant. As I have argued in this section, both of the two models have networks for TRANSITIVITY, MOOD, THEME etc. that are at the level of 'meaning potential'. Moreover, the features in both are realised by essentially the same types of 'realisation operation', as we shall see in Chapters 5 and 9.

Blogger Comments:

[1] Here again Fawcett confuses the SFL notions of language as system ('meaning potential') and language strata as levels of symbolic abstraction ('above', 'level').  The theoretical dimensions confused are thus those of instantiation and stratification.

[2] The validity of this claim will be examined in the reviews of Chapters 5 and 9.