Confusing Axial Realisation With Stratal Realisation

Fawcett (2010: 61):

The specific problem is that, in the earlier stage of the development of the theory (when the system networks were regarded as being at a higher level than the structures that manifest them), Halliday had identified the set of operations that change the selection expression into the structures as 'realisation statements'. So are the outputs from the system networks of TRANSTIVITY, MOOD, THEME and so on really at the level of form, or are they are the same level as the system networks, i.e., at a level that has been "pushed [...] fairly far [...] in the direction of the semantics" (Halliday 1994:xix)?

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is misleading.  As previously explained, system networks are at a higher level of symbolic abstraction than the structures that realise them, and, contrary to Fawcett's misrepresentation, this is as true now as it was in earlier stages of Halliday's development of his theory. This is the relation between paradigmatic axis and the syntagmatic axis, and it applies to every stratum of language: semantics, lexicogrammar and phonology.  That is, different levels of symbolic abstraction (system and structure) can be construed within a given level of symbolic abstraction (stratum).  This is why the term 'realisation' applies to both axial and stratal relations.

[2] This is correct.  In SFL theory, a realisation statement specifies how a systemic feature is realised structurally.

[3] Again, Fawcett's term 'outputs' blurs the distinction between the theoretical dimensions of axis (structure as the "output" of system) and instantiation (instance as the "output" of potential).

[4] To be clear, on the one hand, 'form' is not a level in the SFL hierarchy of stratification.  On the other hand, grammatical systems and structures are at different levels (axes) of symbolic abstraction, within the same level (stratum) of language (lexicogrammar).

[5] To be clear, the level that has been "pushed fairly far in the direction of semantics" is the stratum lexicogrammar (Halliday 1994: xix).