The Problem Of Limitations On 'Potential For Conflation'

Fawcett (2010: 132):

The second important difference in Figure 9 from the standard IFG-style analysis follows from the first. It is that the potential for 'conflation' among the 'functions' in Matthiessen and Bateman's "output" diagram (and in fact in all other published accounts of SF generation) is very limited indeed. In the generation of their worked example (shown in Figure 9) the only conflations that occur are (1) the conflation of the elements "Theme", "Subject" and "Carrier", and (2) the conflation of the elements "Finite" and "Process". More specifically, notice that the only 'functions' that Figure 9 shows to be conflated are ones that are coterminous with each other.

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Reminder:

[1] To be clear, here Fawcett is comparing representations of structures, the one in the modelling of human language, the other in the generation of texts by computer — rather than examining the theoretical criteria on which structures are based — as a means of questioning the theoretical validity of structures. Again, this makes Fawcett's argument an instance of the Red Herring fallacy, since how structures are represented (even within the same field) is irrelevant to the the theoretical validity of the structures themselves.

[2] This is misleading. To be clear, here Fawcett falsely presents an aspect of SFL Theory, the conflation of coterminous elements, as if it were in contradiction with the theory itself, and as if it supported his own argument; see the preceding and following posts.