Misrepresenting Halliday (1994) On Structure And Misanalysing A Transitivity Structure

Fawcett (2010: 111-2):

In the text-descriptive strand of the work in the Sydney Grammar, the functional structure of a text that consists of a simple clause is modelled in the way shown in Figure 7. It is a set of box diagrams, each of which represents several simultaneous 'strings' of elements (using the term loosely). These 'box diagram' representations of structure represent a simple constituency relationship of the 'flat tree' type, i.e., of the type with only one layer of branching. We should be clear from the start, then, that the use of 'box diagrams' for representing structure is not a 'structurally neutral' form of representation, such as Halliday's writings seem to imply would be desirable, but a type of constituency — as Halliday himself in fact recognises (1994:16).

 

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the analysis in Figure 7 is misleading in two ways.  Firstly, INFORMATION is not a system of the clause, but of the information unit, which is only coterminous with the clause in the unmarked case.  Secondly, and more importantly, it misrepresents the transitivity structure of the clause, which, on the SFL model, can be represented as:

we	would visit	Mrs Skinner	every Sunday
Actor	Process	Scope	Extent

That is, the clause is not transitive, but a scoped intransitive, with Mrs Skinner as the Scope/Range of the Process, not the Goal/Medium and We as the Actor/Medium, not the Actor/Agent. 

In other words, Mrs Skinner is not the medium through which the visiting process unfolds, but the domain over which the visiting process takes place; and We is not the external agent of the visiting process, but medium through which the visiting process unfolds.

Trivially, "Circumstance" — like 'participant' — is not an element of function structure, but a class of functions (and hence not capitalised).

[2] This is misleading. To be clear, 'flat' constituency refers to rank, not function structure.  Halliday (1995[1993]: 273):

'Rank' is constituency based on function, and hence 'flat,' …

[3] This seriously misrepresents Halliday's view.  Halliday (1994: 35-6) first outlines the different types of structure favoured by the different metafunctions:

and then explains:

It is the segmental type of structure, with clearly separated constituent parts organised into a whole, that has traditionally been taken as the norm in descriptions of grammar; the very concept of 'structure', in language, has been defined in constituency terms. This partly because the kind of meaning that is expressed in this way: experiential meaning has been much more fully described than meaning of the other kinds. But there is also another reason, which is that constituency is the simplest kind of structure, from which other, more complex types can be derived; it is the natural one to take as prototypical… .

For both these reasons, in the remaining chapters of Part One (Chapters 3-5) I shall use the constituent-type descriptions of structure, merely pointing out now and again where they do not tell the whole story. As far as possible, each strand of meaning in the clause will be described independently in its own terms. 

[4] This is misleading. What Halliday actually says is that constituency is but one type of structure. Halliday (1994: 16):

Constituency is a form of structural organisation; in other words, it is part of the mechanism whereby meanings are put into effect. It is an extremely simple but powerful device, whereby parts are built into wholes, and these again as parts into larger wholes, but with different organic configurations at each step. … But precisely because it is such a powerful device, it is important to make clear that it is not sufficient by itself. We shall see in Chapters 3-5, when we consider the different kinds of meaning that are constructed in language, that these make use of constituency for their expression in different ways and to varying degrees. As one explores language more deeply, constituency gradually slips into the background, and explanations come more and more to involve other, more abstract kinds of relationship. For this reason it is essential not to to conceive of a language as an inventory of structures, each set up as a whole consisting of some ordered arrangements of parts.