Fawcett (2010: 153-4):
5. In two of the papers in which Halliday takes the position that the system networks of TRANSITIVITY, MOOD and THEME are at the level of semantics (1970/76b and 1977/78) he includes diagrams that show (1) several lines of analysis, each of which clearly corresponds to a major strand of meaning, and (2), below these, a single line of analysis that shows the 'Scale and Category' elements of the clause, such that this line represents the integration of the metafunctional representations above it. It is from this stage of Halliday's thinking that the Cardiff Grammar version of SFL has developed (as shown in Section 4.9 of Chapter 4).
6. However, these two papers represent just a brief period in the development of Halliday's concept of how structure should be represented, and almost immediately he dropped the integrative representation in his diagrams in favour of the type of representation shown throughout IFG and his subsequent descriptive works to date. Here the original S&C elements of Subject, Predicator, Complement and Adjunct are no longer shown as elements of the structure that integrates the various strands of meaning, but instead they are introduced as a structure within the representation of 'interpersonal' meaning (with the addition of the Finite). Indeed, Halliday presents them as merely the 'secondary' structure of 'interpersonal' meaning, the 'primary' structure being that of "Mood + Residue" (also called "Modal + Propositional", in earlier works). Halliday's reasons for including the elements of 'Predicator', 'Complement' and 'Adjunct' in the 'interpersonal' line of analysis (which were summarised in Section 7.2) are considered here to be unpersuasive — especially in comparison with the much more persuasive reason for assigning them the role described in Point 5 above, namely their role as elements of the structure that integrates the various strands of meaning (with others, as illustrated in Appendix B).
Blogger Comments:
[1] This is misleading, because it misrepresents Halliday's final theory, Systemic Functional Grammar, in terms of his earliest theory, Scale and Category Grammar (1961). The terms 'primary and 'secondary' — but not 'merely' — derive from Halliday originally applying the principle of delicacy to structure (Halliday 2002 [1961]: 48). This old view is inconsistent with SFL Theory, where delicacy is a type of elaboration, whereas structural composition — e.g. Mood composed of Subject and Finite — is a type of extension; see Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 145-6).
[2] See Fawcett's previous misunderstandings and bare assertions on this matter here. To be clear, labelling Halliday's reasons 'unpersuasive' and Fawcett's reason 'persuasive' is not reasoned argumentation based on evidence. Importantly, in SFL Theory, the integration of 'the various strands of meaning' of the clause occurs in the form that realises the elements of clause structure: the syntagm of units on the rank below the clause.
Fawcett, on the other hand, argues against the value of a rank scale, and uses a blending of Halliday's interpersonal and experiential functions as his means of integrating 'the various strands of meaning' at his level of form, as his Figure 10 (p148) demonstrates:
[2] See Fawcett's previous misunderstandings and bare assertions on this matter here. To be clear, labelling Halliday's reasons 'unpersuasive' and Fawcett's reason 'persuasive' is not reasoned argumentation based on evidence. Importantly, in SFL Theory, the integration of 'the various strands of meaning' of the clause occurs in the form that realises the elements of clause structure: the syntagm of units on the rank below the clause.
Fawcett, on the other hand, argues against the value of a rank scale, and uses a blending of Halliday's interpersonal and experiential functions as his means of integrating 'the various strands of meaning' at his level of form, as his Figure 10 (p148) demonstrates:
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