Confusing Systemic Features With Structural Elements

Fawcett (2010: 141):

From the theoretical viewpoint, such constructs [SFL representations of metafunctional clause structures] are a representation of what one stage in the generation of a text-sentence might be like — if it were the case that the grammar worked by first generating several functional structures and then conflating them. 

From the practical viewpoint of the text analyst, they may be a helpful 'reification' of the abstract semantic features that they represent. In other words, we might wish to say that, in this type of representation, the abstract features are made visible as 'objects' on the page, through the device of viewing them as 'elements' of clause-length structures, and by labelling each element of each supposed 'structure'. 

The only problem with representing the structure of language in this manner — i.e., in the IFG manner — is, as we have seen, that no systemic functional grammar actually generates such structures. 

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, SFL representations of metafunctional clause structures are not "a representation of what one stage in the generation of a text-sentence might be like", and the grammar does not work "by first generating several functional structures and then conflating them."

This is because the metafunctional systems of the clause, in which the realisation statements such as 'conflate' are located, are simultaneous systems, and there is no temporal relation between system and structure, since the relation between them is realisation, which is an intensive identifying relation, not a circumstantial one.

[2] To be clear, representations of structure are representations of how systemic selections are realised structurally. This does not mean that each feature in a network is realised by one element in a structure. The valeur of a feature is its relation to other features in the same paradigmatic system, whereas the valeur of an element is its relation to other elements in the same syntagmatic structure. As previously foreshadowed, Fawcett's model of structure (Figure 10) confuses systemic features with structural elements.

[3] This is misleading, because it is untrue. As previously explained, the structures represented in "the IFG manner" are realisations of the grammatical systems of SFL. See the previous posts for the misunderstandings on which Fawcett's claim is based.