Misrepresenting Theoretical Differences Within SFL

Fawcett (2010: 6):

Within the broad family of systemic functional theories of language, there are what we may term (1) the "Sydney Grammar" (with two 'sub-dialects' associated with Hasan and Martin concerning differences in their models relating to the higher levels of '(discourse) semantics', 'register' and 'genre'), (2) the "Cardiff Grammar", (3) the "Nottingham Grammar", (4) the "Leuven Grammar", and perhaps others. Halliday has made the interesting suggestion that we should think of these alternative versions of SFL as being related to each other in the way that the dialects and registers of a language are.⁷

7. It was Michael Halliday who first suggested the metaphor of 'the Cardiff dialect', 'the Nottingham dialect' etc, during the International Systemic Functional Congress held in Beijing in 1995. However, he has also suggested the metaphor of 'register variation' — originally for thinking about the differences between Martin's and Hasan's different approaches to genre and register. He calls the difference between those two models a "kind of variation in 'metaregister'", saying that this is "one of the ways in which systemic theory appears as a metaphor for language itself' (Halliday 1993:4507). In some ways the concept of 'register variation' provides a more insightful metaphor than that of 'dialectal variation'.

Blogger Comments:

[1] Presenting the Cardiff Grammar as a "dialect" or "register" of SFL theory is inconsistent with Fawcett's already stated intentions.  Fawcett (2010: xviii, xxi) presents his "dialect" or "register" as a replacement for Halliday's "dialect" or "register":

This book makes clear proposals for a (partly) new theory of syntax, and in particular for the replacement of the method of representing structure that is used in Halliday's Introduction to Functional Grammar (1994) by a simpler method.  … 

In what I have said so far, I have been writing as if the theory of syntax to be presented here is an alternative to Halliday's approach to structure. And this is indeed what it is, in that the method of representing the syntax of a text-sentence to be described here is ultimately an alternative to his 'multiple structure' method rather than a complement to it.

[2] This misrepresents the difference between Hasan's and Martin's models.  Hasan's work is largely self-consistent and consistent with the architecture of SFL theory, whereas Martin's work is neither self-consistent nor consistent with the architecture of SFL theory — as demonstrated at length and in detail here.  The notion of discourse semantics, register and genre as 'higher levels' is Martin's theoretical misunderstanding alone.