"This Should Not Be A Matter Of Surprise — Let Alone Resentment"

Fawcett (2010: 275):

Section 12.2 will examine the 'categories', and Section 12.3 the 'scales' and the 'relationships' into which the 'scales' have developed. Then in Section 12.4 we will stand back from the comparison of individual concepts, and compare the Sydney Grammar and the Cardiff Grammar as two alternative models of language as a whole. The two have an enormous amount in common, of course, but they also have a number of important differences.

Can they be re-integrated into a single model? We who work in the framework of the Cardiff Grammar have learnt a tremendous amount from the work that is here characterised as the Sydney Grammar, and I have established in Chapter 3 that the two models have a sufficient amount in common to enable comparisons to be made. There is also, therefore, a basis for the exchange of concepts between the two models. Yet at the same time we who contribute to the Cardiff view of language have also found it valuable to make a number of changes, as this book shows. This should not be a matter of surprise — let alone resentment — because it is simply not reasonable to expect Halliday (or anyone else) to have 'got it right' at the first attempt (S&C) or even the second attempt (his SFL of the 1970s onwards). The purpose of writing this book is to try to contribute to the development of a more fully adequate systemic functional model of language, and I hope that the proposals made here will be considered by my fellow systemic functional linguists in that light.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the reason why SFL Theory and the Cardiff Grammar have "an enormous amount in common" is that both derive from Halliday's theorising, and the reason they have "a number of important differences" is that Fawcett misunderstands Halliday's theorising, as demonstrated over and over and over on this blog.

[2] To be clear, the term 're-integrated' suggests that the two models were once integrated. This is misleading, because it is untrue. The commonality of SFL Theory and the Cardiff Grammar derives from their antecedent: Halliday's superseded theory, Scale-&-Category Grammar. Moreover, as this blog has demonstrated, the Cardiff Grammar cannot be integrated into SFL Theory, because, unknown to Fawcett, it is based on different principles and internally inconsistent (Figure 4).

[3] To be clear, the reason why those who work in the framework of the Cardiff Grammar have "learnt a tremendous amount" from SFL Theory is that both models derive from Halliday's theorising.

[4] To be clear, as this blog demonstrates, the theoretical changes made by those "who contribute to the Cardiff view of language" derive from misunderstandings of SFL Theory and result in an internally inconsistent model (Figure 4).

[5] To be clear, here Fawcett frames any reaction to his model as emotional ('surprise', 'resentment', 'not reasonable') rather than cognitive (e.g. rational) and argued from evidence.

[6] To be clear, Fawcett's modest implication here is that the Cardiff Grammar is closer to "getting it right" than SFL Theory.

[7] To be clear, whether or not this is Fawcett's true purpose in writing this book, its proposals have been taken very seriously indeed on this blog and assessed in terms theoretical competence, theoretical consistency and explanatory power.