The Problem With 'Exponence' In Its "Categories" Sense

Fawcett (2010: 280-1):

Since this is a comparison as well as a summary, we shall take as our starting point one of the 'scales' of "Categories": the highly generalised concept of 'exponence'. The problem with 'exponence' in its "Categories" sense is that it covers a very larger [sic] number of different concepts — i.e., every relationship between "the categories of the highest degree of abstraction" (by which Halliday means the features in the system networks) and "the data" (Halliday 1961/76:71). 

However, when in the 1960s Halliday introduced the concept that systems are choices between meanings, he also introduced the term realisation as a replacement for "exponence", and it quickly came to be used as the standard general term for referring to the relationship between different levels (or strata) of language. In the context of the present discussion it refers to the relationship between meaning and form (as described in Chapter 3 and as summarised in Figure 4 in Section 3.2 of that chapter).

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is misleading, because it is not true that, in Scale & Category Grammar, 'exponence' covered "a very larger number of different concepts". What is true is that it covered both realisation and instantiation, the latter being what Fawcett glosses as "a very larger number of different concepts". By this, Fawcett again demonstrates — as he does in Figure 4 — that he does not understand the SFL notion of instantiation. Halliday (1995: 273):

… 'realisation' (formerly 'exponence') is the relation between the 'strata,' or levels, of a multistratal semiotic system-and, by analogy, between the paradigmatic and syntagmatic phases of representation within one stratum. But in systemic theory, realisation is held distinct from 'instantiation,' which is the relation between the semiotic system (the 'meaning potential') and the observable events, or 'acts of meaning,' by which the system is constituted.

[2] To be clear, in SFL Theory, 'exponence' is replaced by both 'realisation' and 'instantiation'.

[3] This is not misleading, because it is true. However, Fawcett's model (Figure 4) violates this relation between meaning and form by falsely positing that:

• system networks are realised by realisation rules, and
• selection expressions are realised by structures.