The Two Sorts Of Changes That The Cardiff Grammar Makes To SFL Theory

Fawcett (2010: 275-6):

There are two sorts of changes that we who contribute to the Cardiff Grammar have made to the 'standard theory', as summarised in IFG. The first sort arises because the programme of exploration that Halliday sketched out had not been carried out in the Sydney framework, perhaps through a shortage of personnel. An example is the development of very large system networks for 'lexis as most delicate grammar' (1961/76:69) by Tucker and myself, assisted by others who have worked on the COMMUNAL Project such as Carlsen, Osman, Ball, and Neale. The work by Tucker, Lin and myself on incorporating probabilities into the system networks also falls into this category, in that Halliday has occasionally pointed out the importance of probabilities in language while leaving the implementation to others (one exception being Halliday & James 1993). 

In other cases, however, we have found it necessary to take a different approach Halliday's, in order to enable the model to reflect the data with greater coverage and, we think, more insightfully. It was for this reason that Tench developed his revised and extended version of Halliday's 1960s model of intonation (Tench 1996), and that Huang and I developed an explicitly functional approach to the experiential enhanced theme construction (Halliday's 'predicated theme' and formal grammar's 'it-cleft' construction); see Fawcett & Huang (1995), Huang (1996) and Huang & Fawcett (1996).

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is misleading on two fronts. On the one hand, the Cardiff Grammar takes Scale-&-Category Grammar as its underlying template, not SFL Theory. On the other hand, the types of differences between the Cardiff Grammar are considerably more than two, as demonstrated by the arguments on this blog.

[2] To be clear, on the one hand, contrary to the claim, this is not a change to SFL Theory, merely work carried out on the basis of the theory. On the other hand, there are compelling reasons to seriously doubt Fawcett's claim. Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 67):

If we maintain the grammarian’s viewpoint all the way across the cline, lexis will be defined as grammar extended to the point of maximum delicacy. It would take at least a hundred volumes of the present size to extend the description of the grammar up to that point for any substantial portion of the vocabulary of English; and, as we have noted, the returns diminish the farther one proceeds.

[3] To be clear, Halliday retired in 1987, twenty-three years before the 2nd edition of Fawcett's book.

[4] Again, on the one hand, contrary to the claim, this is not a change to SFL Theory, merely work carried out on the basis of the theory. On the other hand, it is misleading to imply that probabilities play the same role in the Cardiff Grammar (e.g. 'filling probabilities') as they do in SFL Theory (e.g. instantiation probabilities varying for register).

[5] To be clear, as demonstrated here, the different approach taken by Fawcett is motivated by his misunderstandings of SFL Theory, and the bare assertions that his model provides "greater coverage" of the data and is more insightful can only be maintained by those who cannot follow the reasoning on this blog.

[6] This is misleading, because it falsely implies that the model of predicated Theme in SFL Theory is not explicitly functional.