Halliday's Refusal To Add To Fawcett's Flowchart

Fawcett (2010: 60-1):

However, adding to the model in Figure 4 in this way has not been Halliday's response to the situation. Instead, his later works present the view that the system networks of meaning potential and their outputs at the level of form shown in Figure 4 are all at the same level. 

Blogger Comments:

Reminder:

[1] This is misleading.  The reasons Halliday has not added to Fawcett's model in Figure 4 are, as previously argued:

• it is not Halliday's model, 
• it is not a model of language consistent with SFL theory, and
• it is not a model consistent with itself.

[2] This is misleading.  To be clear, Halliday's later works do not present "system networks of potential and their outputs at the level of form at the same level", not least because "outputs at the level of form" is not Halliday's model.  One reason for this is that Fawcett's "outputs at the level of form" confuses two distinct dimensions of SFL theory: axis (local) and instantiation (global); see Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 32).

The relation between system and structure is the identifying relation of symbolic abstraction between the paradigmatic and syntagmatic axes.  For a given stratum, syntagmatic structure (Token) realises paradigmatic system (Value).

On the other hand, the relation between system and instance is the attributive relation of instantiation, such that an instance is a token (Carrier) of the type (Attribute) system.  See Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 145).

In the next post, it will be seen that Fawcett accuses Halliday of confusing realisation and instantiation.