Fawcett (2010: 139, 139n):
Even though Halliday himself defines 'conflation' as a relationship that operates on individual elements, as we saw in Chapter 5 (Halliday 1993:4505), he also writes regularly about the structure of clauses in a way that appears to give IFG-style representations some status in the theory (e.g., 1993:4506) — so implying that conflation also occurs between structures with many elements.
Matthiessen similarly defines the term "conflation" as an operation that relates individual "functions" (1995:778), and then goes on to write about "the structural unification of the metafunctional strands — the conflations of the textual, interpersonal and experiential clause functions" (Matthiessen 1995:613-17).
Are Halliday and Matthiessen being inconsistent in such passages? Or is it possible that they do not in fact take the absolute position on this issue that one might assume? ²¹
²¹ In the above quotation from Matthiessen, it would just be possible to interpret the plural form "conflations" as being intended to suggest that the 'unification' of the various metafunctional strands in fact comes about — to the extent that it does — through many individual 'conflations'. But I do not think that this was in fact his intended meaning.
Blogger Comments:
[1] To be clear, these claims are true. Halliday and Matthiessen do write of conflation as a realisation statement that operates on individual elements, and Halliday does give IFG-style representations some status in the theory, not least because they represent analyses based on the theory.
[2] This non-sequitur is misleading, because it is untrue. Giving IFG-style representations "some status in the theory" does not imply that structures are conflated.
[3] To be clear, here Fawcett confuses two distinct aspects of SFL Theory in the Matthiessen quote. On the one hand, 'the structural unification of the metafunctional strands' refers to the integration of the three metafunctional clause structures in the syntagm of group/phrase rank units that realise them. On the other hand, 'the conflations of the textual, interpersonal and experiential clause functions' refers to any conflations of elements across these structures, as in cases where Theme, Subject and Actor are conflated.
[4] To be clear, Halliday and Matthiessen are not being inconsistent in such passages — merely misunderstood (as explained above).
[3] To be clear, here Fawcett confuses two distinct aspects of SFL Theory in the Matthiessen quote. On the one hand, 'the structural unification of the metafunctional strands' refers to the integration of the three metafunctional clause structures in the syntagm of group/phrase rank units that realise them. On the other hand, 'the conflations of the textual, interpersonal and experiential clause functions' refers to any conflations of elements across these structures, as in cases where Theme, Subject and Actor are conflated.
[4] To be clear, Halliday and Matthiessen are not being inconsistent in such passages — merely misunderstood (as explained above).
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