Misrepresenting Clause Structure

Fawcett (2010: 138):

We can now see that, in terms of the metaphor of a text as a 'rope' of interwoven strands, the 'rope' often consists of just one strand — though it also often has two or three very short multiple 'strands of meaning' which extend over one or two elements. Matthiessen and Bateman's diagram in Figure 9 exemplifies this point in terms of the Sydney Grammar, and Figure 10 of Section 7.8 does so in terms of a Cardiff Grammar representation.

Blogger Comments:

[1] Trivially, the rope metaphor refers to the structure of the clause, not the text.

[2] To be clear, in SFL Theory, a major clause always has three strands of metafunctional meaning. However, just in terms of Fawcett's own argument, if a clause often has more than one strand of meaning, then the model has to accommodate the fact.

[3] This is misleading, because it is untrue. Matthiessen and Bateman's diagram (Figure 9) represents a clause as three strands of meaning, those of THEME, MOOD and TRANSITIVITY:

[4] This is misleading, because it is untrue. The Cardiff Grammar analysis (Figure 10) represents a clause as six strands of meaning (semantics) — in addition to that assigned to syntax.