The Reason Why Fawcett Has Been Repeatedly Misrepresenting Halliday (1994) On Clause Structure

Fawcett (2010: 115-6, 116n):

It may come as a surprise to some readers that an IFG-style analysis in fact requires seven separate lines of representation (six of these being structural). This is because the writings of the Sydney grammarians regularly present the view that there are either three or at most four strands of meaning, each corresponding to one of the metafunctions. In Chapter 2 of IFG, for example, Halliday introduces the concept that a clause has multiple structures under the beguilingly simple section heading of 'Three lines of meaning in the clause" (p. 33). Yet, the fact is — as I have just demonstrated — that a analysis of a sentence in IFG terms regularly requires seven lines of analysis (and sometimes even more, as we shall see shortly).  

In IFG, therefore, the task of analysing a text — and so the model of language that underlies it — is rather more complex than we are at first led to expect. Indeed, in the analyses of 'The 'silver' text" on pages 368-85 of IFG there are often eight or more lines of analysis, because Halliday adds an extra line for the analysis of the 'unpacked' interpretation of examples that contain cases of what he terms "grammatical metaphor".…⁶

⁶ I should point out that the seven or eight lines of structure found in an IFG-style analysis do not correspond to the eight major types of meaning that I consider to be present (if only by their non-realisation) in a typical clause. See Section 7.8 for a brief introduction to the eight strands of meaning that are recognised in the Cardiff Grammar.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is misleading.  As previously demonstrated, in arguing about clause structure, Fawcett switches between clause, 'text-sentence' and text in order to deceive the reader.  In erroneously arriving at seven lines of representation for the clause, Fawcett counts interpersonal structure twice, includes both information and logical structure, despite the fact they are not clause structures, and includes cohesion despite the fact that it is not a structure of any grammatical unit.

[2] This is correct.  There are three lines of meaning realised in clause structure: textual, interpersonal and experiential.

[3] This is misleading.  A statement about the number of lines of meaning realised in the structure of one one rank unit, the clause, is not a statement about the complexity of carrying out a complete text analysis using all the dimensions of the theory.

[4] This is correct.  In the analysis of the 'silver' text, Halliday demonstrates how to deploy the theoretical resources outlined in the body of the book, including the three metafunctional structures of the clause, logical relations between clauses in complexes, information unit structure, and the unpacking of grammatical metaphor.

[5] To be clear, it is Fawcett's model of the clause — not Halliday's — that proposes eight lines of meaning.  This suggests that Fawcett's motivation for misrepresenting Halliday's model is to disguise the fact that his own model is less elegant.

Fawcett's Claim That Halliday's Analysis Of A Clause Typically Involves At Least Seven Lines Of Analysis

Fawcett (2010: 115):

We come finally to the seventh line of analysis shown in the standard analyses of texts in IFG . This shows textual 'cohesion', but as Halliday does not propose it as a type of structure we shall pay no further attention to it here. 

Halliday's analysis of a clause therefore typically involves at least seven lines of analysis. It is as if the variation in the structures of the various lines of analysis is seen as a phenomenon of language that is to be celebrated. But we must ask: "Is it a linguistic phenomenon rather than a metaphenomenon, i.e., a product of Halliday's version of the theory?". I shall argue in Section 7.4 (1) that it is indeed a metaphenomenon; (2) that this approach to representing the multi-functional nature of language brings with it enormous problems; and (3) that there is a preferable approach that achieves the same goals. 

Blogger Comments:

[1] This raises the question as to how, or if, the Cardiff Grammar integrates cohesion into its model.

[2] This is misleading.  Here Fawcett has switched back from his own terminology, 'text-sentence', on which his argument has been constructed, to the SFL notion of 'clause' and repeated his false claim that a clause "typically involves at least seven lines of analysis", instead of three.

To recap, in these seven lines of analysis, Fawcett includes:

• information structure, which is not a system of the clause, but of the informations unit,
• logical structure, which is not a system of the clause, but of the clause complex,
• cohesion, which is not a system of the clause, or any other grammatical unit,

and misrepresents the interpersonal structure of the clause as two lines of analysis, instead of one.

[3]  The fatuousness of this remark can be made self-evident by transposing its type to physics:

it is as if the number of different subatomic particles is a physical phenomenon that is to be celebrated.

[4] To be clear, any proposed linguistic structure can be nothing other than a construal ("product") of one theory of language or another.  Such construals are assessed in terms of their validity.

[5] It will be seen in the examination of Section 7.4 that the enormous problems that Fawcett identifies only arise, once again, from his own misunderstandings of Halliday's theory.

[6] To be clear, the approach that Fawcett finds preferable is his own, and whether or not it achieves the same goals will be examined when his approach is finally revealed.

Misrepresenting Martin (1992) And Halliday & Hasan (1976) In A Footnote

Fawcett (2010: 56n):

The reason why the coverage in Cohesion in English was limited was not, of course, that the authors were unaware that other factors also contribute to the 'cohesion' of a text, but because they explicitly confined their goals in that work to covering those aspects of 'cohesion' that are not realised in structures — and Halliday takes the position that TRANSITIVITY, MOOD, THEME and so on are all meanings that are indeed realised in structures. (But see my discussion of the reasons for disagreeing with this view in Chapter 7.) Yet the fact is that TRANSITIVITY, MOOD, THEME etc. can also contribute to the 'cohesion' of a text, as Martin (1992) clearly demonstrates. Perhaps one of the reasons for the popularity of Cohesion in English is the fact that its ideas can be applied to the analysis of texts without having a full understanding of the SFL approach to understanding language. The re[s]ult is that most studies of cohesion do only part of the job. This has in turn had an unfortunate effect on work in some areas where SFL can usefully be applied, such as psychiatric linguists, where the two major areas of study are cohesion and syntax (the latter being of the 'phrase-structure' type).

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is misleading and misrepresents Halliday & Hasan (1976: 7), who explicitly define their term 'cohesion' as only referring to non-structural text-forming resources:

In other words, a text typically extends beyond the range of structural relations, as these are normally conceived of.  But texts cohere; so cohesion within a text — texture — depends on something other than structure.  There are certain specifically text-forming relations which cannot be accounted for in terms of constituent structure; they are properties of the text as such, and not of any structural unit such as a clause or sentence.  Our use of the term COHESION refers specifically to these non-structural text-forming relations.

[2] See the critique of Chapter 7 for the misunderstandings on which  Fawcett's views are based.

[3] On the one hand, this is misleading because it gives the false impression that Fawcett uncovered something unacknowledged in Halliday & Hasan (1976: 6-7):

Structure is, of course, a unifying relation.  The parts of a sentence or a clause obviously 'cohere' with each other by virtue of the structure.  Hence they also display texture; the elements of any structure have, by definition, an internal unity which ensures that they all express part of a text. … In general, any unit which is structured hangs together so as to form text.  All grammatical units — sentences, clauses, groups, words — are internally 'cohesive' simply because they are structured.

On the other hand, it confuses the general notion of 'cohesive' with the technical term 'cohesion' that refers only to non-structural text-forming relations; see [1] above.

To be clear, Halliday (1994: 334) identifies the structural and non-structural resources of the textual metafunction — theme, information and cohesion — as the creators of texture:

 

[4] This is misleading because it misrepresents Martin (1992), in as much as Martin has nothing at all to say about these grammatical systems contributing to the cohesion of a text, as demonstrated here.

[5] These are bare assertions, unsupported by evidence, and based on misunderstandings of cohesion, including those outlined above.