Multiple Misrepresentations Of Halliday In A Footnote

Fawcett (2010: 35n):

Halliday often writes in a way that implies that the reason why human languages are more complex than many other semiotic systems is that grammar 'intervenes' between meanings and phonological and graphological forms (e.g., Halliday 1996:29), whereas it does not in simpler systems (such as a traffic light system). One difficulty about this view is that he also sees the grammar as having its own 'meaning potential' inside it, and this gives us a model in which the 'meanings' of the higher semantic level are detached, as it were, from their realisations in forms, such that they have to be mapped first onto the meanings within the grammar (or 'lexicogrammar', as Halliday prefers to call it). I take a different view, as this book shows, in that I regard the level of meanings within the 'lexicogrammar' as the key level of linguistically-realised meaning, such that it is realised in any one of (1) syntax, (2) intonation or punctuation (depending on the medium of discourse) and (3) items. (Notice that it is only one of these, namely items, to which the supposed 'third level' of segmental phonology/graphology is relevant, and this fact raises serious questions about its traditional status as a 'level of language'.) In my approach, therefore, any 'higher' meaning — such as those that Halliday includes under the umbrella concept of 'grammatical metaphor' — is to be accounted for by one or other of several different concepts. See Fawcett (1993) for a brief indication of some of these, and Fawcett & Huang (in preparation) for a much fuller picture. Many of the concepts introduced in this footnote will be amplified in later parts of this book.

Blogger Comments:

[1] Halliday does not imply this, he is quite explicit about it. Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 25):

The ‘content’ expands into two, a lexicogrammar and a semantics (cf. Halliday, 1984a; Halliday & Matthiessen, 1999). This is what allows the meaning potential of a language to expand, more or less indefinitely.

The stratification of content makes grammatical metaphor possible, and it this, chiefly, that 'allows the meaning potential of a language to expand, more or less indefinitely'.  This is why the inability of Fawcett's model to account for grammatical metaphor is such a serious shortcoming.

[2] This is a bizarre misunderstanding.  For Halliday, the system of language is meaning potential — the potential to make meaning (semogenesis).   Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 48, 76, 601):

Language has evolved as a fully systemic semiotic system: it is possible to posit and describe the overall meaning potential for a given language, interpreting this meaning potential as an aggregate of registerial subpotentials. … 

The functional categories provide an interpretation of grammatical structure in terms of the overall meaning potential of the language. … 

Logogenesis pertains to the entire meaning potential of a language – all the strata and all the metafunctions.

[3] This misunderstands stratification.  Meanings are modelled as a higher level of abstraction than the forms of wording.  There are no "meanings within the grammar"; the wordings of grammar realise the meanings of semantics.

[4] Halliday "prefers" the term lexicogrammar because the stratum encompasses both lexis and grammar, related systemically along the scale of delicacy.

[5] This is not a different view to Halliday's; it is merely different from Fawcett's misunderstanding of Halliday.  Halliday sees lexicogrammar as the dynamo of language, and as the source of the type of meanings that differentiate language from other (bi-stratal) semiotic systems.  Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 22):

Grammar is the central processing unit of language, the powerhouse where meanings are created …

[6] This misrepresents the SFL hierarchy of stratification, which distinguishes meaning (semantics) from wording (lexicogrammar) as different levels of symbolic abstraction.  Grammatical functions (wordings) are congruent (agree) with semantic functions (meanings) in the absence of grammatical metaphor.

[7] This blurs the distinction between two distinct realisation relations in SFL theory.  On the one hand, grammatical functions are realised in the grammatical forms of the rank below; e.g. clause functions are realised by groups ± phrases.  On the other hand, the realisation of grammar in phonology or graphology is an interstratal relation.

[8] This confuses realisation with delicacy.  In SFL theory, lexical items are the synthesis of the most delicate features of the systems of lexicogrammar.  They do not "realise" grammatical functions because lexis and grammar are of the same level of symbolic abstraction (wording).

[9] Here Fawcett presents his own misunderstanding of the place of lexis in SFL theory as a challenge to modelling some of the systems of the expression plane as a lower level of symbolic abstraction than lexicogrammar.

[10] This misrepresents Halliday's notion grammatical metaphor, which is not 'higher meaning', but an incongruent realisation of meaning (semantics) in wording (lexicogrammar).  Grammatical metaphor is an integral part of semogenesis, and the inability of Fawcett's model to account for it is a very serious shortcoming indeed.

[11] The promised concepts to account for grammatical metaphor are said to be in:

Fawcett, Robin, 1993. "Language as program: a reassessment of the nature of descriptive linguistics". Language Sciences 14.4. 623-57. 

Fawcett, Robin, & Huang, Guowen, in preparation. Explaining Enhanced Theme (the 'Cleft' Construction): a Test Case for Systemic Functional Linguistics - and Every Theory of Language. London: Continuum. 

The latter publication is still, apparently, "in preparation" in 2017, but there is:

Huang, G.-W. (2003). Enhanced theme in English: Its structures and functions. Taiyuan: Shangxi Education Publishing House.

However, the abstract of Fawcett (1993), at least, makes no mention of grammatical metaphor:

The purpose of this paper is to challenge one of the basic tenets of linguistics. The traditional view is that it is the business of linguists to describe language and languages—and/or to theorise about it and them. It is essentially a view of language as an object. While I remain solidly based in linguistics, I draw here on my experience in natural language processing (i.e. of putting English in computers as part of a model of a communicating mind) as I advocate the view that it is more insightful to view language not as object, but as procedure, as process, as program. Note that ‘program’ has no final ‘me’ to signify the sense of ‘computer program’. 

I invite you to come with me on an exploration of what is involved when someone produces (‘generates’) a sentence, to show why I advocate a model of language that is not static, but dynamic. The model is also, I shall argue, essentially generative (in the sense of ‘productive’) rather than interpretive. Thus a program whose essential design is as it is to enable it to run in one direction—i.e. to turn meanings into sounds—is consulted as the person trying to understand a text attempts the converse task. This is not just ‘to turn sound into meaning’, but to turn the performer's sounds back into the performer's meanings. Hence the logical priority of generation over interpretation. 

In this new view of language as program, it is no longer possible to draw a clear line between the material of linguistics and the algorithms that determine how we choose between linguistic options; one needs a more complete framework, which is inevitably also more complex, e.g. as described here.

[12] If any of the "concepts introduced in this footnote" are "amplified in later parts of this book", each will be noted on this blog, and cross-referenced to this post.

Misunderstanding Interstratal Realisation And Confusing It With Instantiation

Fawcett (2010: 34-5):

 

The relationship between the set of meanings and the set of forms is one of realisation. Thus the arrow pointing downwards shows that the meanings of a language are 'realised by' linguistic forms, and the arrow pointing upwards shows that forms 'realise' meanings. 

However, contrary to what some formal language theorists think, the two processes are not the reverses of each other. This is because the problems faced by someone who is trying to produce a text that will be effective and appropriate to a particular point in discourse are not the same as the problems that face someone who is trying to work out the meaning of an incoming text. (It is only in a very impoverished, form-based view of language that grammars may appear to be 'reversible'.) This principle applies both to abstract psychological models of how humans process incoming and outgoing language texts and to computer models of language processing (1993 and 1994a, Weerasinghe & Fawcett 1993). Thus, while the fuller model of language that we shall develop in the next two sections may appear to be oriented more to the 'production' of text than to analysing it, the term "realisation" is in fact directionally neutral. 

It is also too general to be useful, so that we need to build a picture of the steps by which this model turns 'meanings' into 'forms'. For this we need to move on to a second pair of concepts.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This confuses the realisation relation between strata with the instantiation relation between potential (system) and instance (text).  Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 51):

But ‘text’ is a complex notion. In the form that we typically receive it, as spoken and written discourse, a text is the product of two processes combined: instantiation and realisation. The defining criterion is instantiation: text as instance. But realisation comes in because what becomes accessible to us is the text as realised in sound or writing. We cannot directly access instances of language at higher strata — as selections in meaning, or even in wording. But it is perhaps helpful to recognise that we can produce text in this way, for ourselves, if we compose some verse or other discourse inside our heads. If you ‘say it to yourself’, you can get the idea of text as instance without the additional property of realisation.

[2] This again misunderstands the relation between strata in SFL theory.  The relation is an intensive identifying relation of 'symbol' ('realise'), not one of 'time phase' ('turn into').

[3] The second pair of concepts that Fawcett introduces, system and instance, does not bear on the identifying relation between meaning and form.  The source of Fawcett's confusion (encapsulated in his Figure 4) will be identified in the post of 1 October 2017.

Confusing Realisation And Instantiation

Fawcett (2010: 34):

In other words, just as an individual sign (such as a red 'stop') sign has both a form and a meaning, so too a sign system such as a natural human language has the two levels of form and meaning. Figure 3 can therefore be seen as a very simple model of a language as a whole.

The two levels of 'meanings' and 'forms' in Figure 3 are linked by two arrows. These indicate that a sign system is not a static object, but a device for turning meanings into forms, and forms into meanings. I have argued that a language is best thought of as a 'procedure' (Fawcett 1980:54f.) or, in computing terms, as a 'program' (Fawcett 1993).

Blogger Comments:

The general confusion here is between the realisation relation between strata and the process of instantiation.  (This will be clarified further in the discussion of Figure 4 on 1 October 2017.)

[1] A sign system is not "a device for turning meanings into forms, and forms into meanings" because meanings are not turned into forms, and forms are not turned into meanings.  Meaning and form are different views, at different levels of abstraction, on the one phenomenon.  The type of intensive identity relation between them is one of 'symbol' (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 269), whereas 'turn into' signifies an intensive identity relation of 'time phase' (ibid.)

On the other hand, as vectors, the arrows could be understood as representing the two directions of coding between the two levels of abstraction; see Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 280).  That is, the symbolic identity encodes meanings by reference to forms, and decodes forms by reference to meanings.  But this is not Fawcett's understanding.

[2] To be clear, the notion of language as a procedure rather than a "static object" is modelled in SFL as the process of instantiation, the selection of features and the activation of realisation statements during logogenesis (the unfolding of text at the instance pole of the cline of instantiation).  The term for the potential pole of the cline, 'system', is short for 'system–&–process' (Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 507).

Locating Both Expression And Content Within One Level Of Form

Fawcett (2010: 34n):

In the current model, however, 'segmental phonology' is regarded as being the internal specification of items, i.e., as a phenomenon that occurs within the level of form (rather than being a 'realisation' of (part of) it). See (Fawcett 1980:59) for a fuller statement of this position.

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, Fawcett's model locates both expression (phonology) and content (syntax) "within the level of form". Without the realisation relation between the two, this is equivalent to locating both the phonemes that realise the word 'stop', and the word 'stop', at the same level of symbolic abstraction.

Moreover, it is only one of the four ranks of phonology, phoneme, that is modelled this way.  The other three ranks, tone group, foot and syllable are not included.  This creates an internal inconsistency within this theoretical inconsistency.