Attacking A Straw Man

Fawcett (2010: 62-3):

The implications of the position that "the paradigmatic and the syntagmatic phases of representation" [i.e., the system network and the output structure] are "within one stratum" are illustrated in Figure 5.

 

Figure 5 is essentially a re-arrangement of the two components and two outputs in Figure 4 so that they all appear to function within one level of language. Topologically, the two are equivalent, but this does not mean that they are "mere notational variants" of each other. The disadvantage of Figure 5 is that it loses the important insights captured in Figure 4, which shows the places in the model of the central concepts of realisation (relating the levels of form and meaning) and instantiation (relating the potential and the instances).

If the components and outputs shown in Figure 5 really did constitute a single level of language, it would be a level of a very unusual sort. This is because it still contains the same two levels of 'meaning' and 'form' that Halliday's writings in the early 1970s proposed (as we saw in Section 4.3), and which suggest the model of language shown in Figure 4 in Chapter 3.

Blogger Comments:

Reminder:

[1] This is misleading. To be clear, the "implications" of lexicogrammatical systems and structures both being on the same stratum, lexicogrammar, are for Fawcett's flowchart (Figure 4) only, and not for SFL theory, which already incorporates this in its architecture.

Moreover, in falsely presenting Figure 5 as representing Halliday's alternative to Fawcett's Figure 4, Fawcett is engaging in the Straw Man logical fallacy:

giving the impression of refuting an opponent's argument, while actually refuting an argument that was not presented by that opponent.

[2] This is misleading because it is untrue.  Figures 4 and 5 are not topologically equivalent, because 5 cannot be formed from 4 without tearing off the form components and attaching them to the right edge of the meaning components.  Topological equivalence involves deforming only, not tearing and re-attachment.

[3] This is misleading.  As previously demonstrated, Halliday's "important insights" of realisation and instantiation are not coherently "captured" in Fawcett's flowchart.  For example,  in terms of realisation, Figure 4 presents a system network being realised in realisation rules; and in term of instantiation, it presents syntagmatic structure as an instance of realisation rules.  It would be dishonest to claim that Figure 4 is the model of someone who understands the theoretical concepts of realisation and instantiation.

[4] This is misleading.  Even Halliday's writings in the early 1970s do not "suggest" Fawcett's theoretically incoherent flowchart model of language.