Sunday 15 March 2020

Misrepresenting The Structural Representation Of Matthiessen & Bateman

Fawcett (2010: 136, 136n):
Thus, while the representation of the structure of a clause in Matthiessen & Bateman (1991:109) may look roughly like the representations of clauses in IFG in terms of the number of boxes and in its use of some of the same labels as in an IFG representation, the structures that it generates are in reality more like the representations in the Cardiff Grammar (e.g., the example that we shall meet in Figure 10 in Section 7.8). In other words, the two have in common that (1) the only type of conflation that they have is 'element conflation', and (2) they both leave empty the quite sizeable boxes where an IFG analysis would write in labels such as "Rheme" and "Residue".18 
18. The same principle would apply to "Given", if Matthiessen and Bateman's generator generated intonation too (as the Cardiff generator does). This is because, like "Rheme" and "Residue", "Given" is essentially 'that which is not New'. 


Blogger Comments:

[1] This is misleading, because it is untrue. This is easily demonstrated by comparing the Matthiessen & Bateman representation (Figure 9) with the Cardiff Grammar representation (Figure 10).



As can be seen, the two figures represent very different analyses. For example, as well as the different function labels, Figure 10 divides grammatical functions into semantics and syntax, and mistakes information for a system of the clause.

[2] To be clear, what the two representations have in common is a principle of SFL Theory (element conflation) and the non-labelling of negatively-defined elements, namely: 'not Theme' (Rheme) and 'not Mood' (Residue). 

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