What Fawcett Means By 'Form'

Fawcett (2010: 39):

We turn now to the level of form — and it is at this level that we require a theory of syntax. The term "form" is used here in a wider sense than that in "Categories" (or indeed any of Halliday's later writings) because it includes, as well as syntax and grammatical and lexical items, components for intonation or punctuation (depending on whether the medium is speech or writing). This is an approach to the concept of 'form' that looks at language 'from above', i.e., intonation and punctuation are here considered to be types of 'form' because, like syntax and items, they directly realize meanings.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, in Fawcett's model, content (syntax and grammatical and lexical items) and expression (intonation or punctuation) are located at the same level of symbolic abstraction.  The distinction between content and expression, as different levels of symbolic abstraction, is the fundamental distinction in semiotic systems.

[2] This misunderstands Halliday's 'trinocular' perspective.  On the SFL model, to look at language 'from above' means observing in terms of its function in various cultural contexts.  Halliday (2008: 141):

When we are observing and investigating language, or any other semiotic system, our vision is essentially trinocular. We observe the phenomenon we want to explore — say, the lexicogrammar of language — from three points of vantage. We observe it from above, in terms of its function in various contexts. We observe it from below, in terms of its various modes of expression. And thirdly, we observe it from its own level: from within, or from round about, according to whether we are focussing on the whole or some of its parts.

On the other hand, it is not possible to look at form 'from below' — i.e. as the content of some expression — because form is the lowest level of symbolic abstraction.  There is no lower level from which to look at form.  Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 504):

A stratified semiotic defines three perspectives, which (following the most familiar metaphor) we refer to as ‘from above’, ‘from roundabout’, and ‘from below’: looking at a given stratum from above means treating it as the expression of some content, looking at it from below means treating it as the content of some expression, while looking at it from roundabout means treating it in the context of (i.e. in relation to other features of) its own stratum.

What Fawcett Means By 'Instances Of Meaning'

Fawcett (2010: 39):

Since there is a potential at the level of meaning, we should logically expect that there will also be instances at this level — and indeed there are. On each traversal of a system network, a set of semantic features is collec[t]ed, and the grammar then makes a copy of these, which is called a selection expression. There are two reasons for collecting the features as a set. The first is that they constitute the systemic description — and so, I would argue, the semantic description — of that unit in the text-sentence that is generated. The second is that the realization rules (to which we shall come in a moment) need to be able to refer to the whole set of the selected features, because many of the rules require two or more features to have been co-selected in order to 'fire', i.e., to be triggered into operation.

Blogger Comments:

This continues the discussion of Figure 4 (p36):

[1] On the SFL model, a traversal of a system network entails the selection of features, not the collection of them.  The notion of the grammar making a copy of collected features is not a model of humans engaged in the instantiation of texts, but a model of text generation by computer.

[2] This reason does not support the notion of collecting features, since the selecting of features, by itself, constitutes a "systemic description" of the instance.

[3] This "need" arises as a consequence of conceiving of a grammar as a flow chart between modules in which system networks and realisation rules are separated as two different levels of symbolic abstraction: system as 'semantic potential' and realisation rules as 'form potential'.  In SFL theory, the instantiation of systemic potential, at a given level of symbolic abstraction (stratum), involves both the selection of features and the activation of realisation statements.

For three internal inconsistencies in Fawcett's model see On 'The Main Components Of A Systemic Functional Grammar'.

Misrepresenting Halliday On Meaning Potential

Fawcett (2010: 38-9):

First, our model of language has, at the level of meaning, a component that specifies the meaning potential of the language — as Halliday has aptly named it (e.g., Halliday 1970:142). This is the core of a systemic functional grammar, and it consists of a vast system network of choices between meanings. In other words, the system networks model the language's potential at the level of meaning. Figure 1 in Appendix A introduces a simple system network for 'things', thus exemplifying the standard way of representing a system network in diagram form. 

Blogger Comments:

[1] This again misrepresents Halliday in order to give credence to Fawcett's model in which all system networks are located at the level of meaning.  For Halliday, 'meaning potential' is the entire language system, not merely the systems at the semantic level of symbolic abstraction (stratum).

[2] The system network of Figure 1 in Appendix A (below):

• confuses features (singular, plural) with what are specified by the synthesis of the most delicate features (water, bread etc.);
• confuses the semantics of things with the grammar of nouns (mass vs count, singular vs plural);
• confuses experiential 'thing' with both interpersonal deixis (near vs un-near) and textual cohesion (recoverable).

What Fawcett Means By 'Meaning'

Fawcett (2010: 38):

Now let us consider the term "meaning', as used in Figure 4. Throughout this chapter I have been careful to use to use the term "meaning" rather than "semantics" — even though I have happily used it elsewhere as the label for this level of language. Many systemic functional linguists (including Halliday in most of his writings) are understandably reluctant to use the term "semantics", because of the conceptual baggage that it brings with it from other disciplines and, within linguistics, from other theories of language. The types of 'meaning' that are covered in SFL by the system networks of TRANSITIVITY, MOOD, THEME and so one are much more comprehensive than the sense in which the term "semantics' is used by many linguists and philosophers. Nonetheless Halliday has till fairly recently allowed himself to use "semantic" (as a modifier) to refer to phenomena at this level of 'meaning'. And some systemic functional linguists — including Halliday himself in his important paper 'Text as semantic choice in social contexts" (1977/78) and myself — have regularly used the term "semantics" in the systemic functional sense of 'meaning potential'. We have done so because it is one way of expressing the theory's important claim that all of the different types of meaning covered by the system networks have to be included in any adequate theory of 'meaning', if only because the various sub-networks of TRANSITIVITY, MOOD, THEME and the others are partially interdependent on each other. SFL offers a particularly rich and powerful way to model the level of 'meaning' in language, and I have always felt it right to refer to this level of language by the term "semantics". Thus, in Figure 4.1 would be happy to replace "choice between meanings" by "semantic choices" and "meaning' features" by "semantic features".

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is misleading in a way that favours Fawcett's own position. It is Fawcett, not Halliday, who locates these systems at the level of meaning. In SFL, the system networks of TRANSITIVITY, MOOD, THEME are systems of wording (lexicogrammar), not meaning (semantics).  That is, they are posited as being of a lower level of symbolic abstraction than meaning — they realise meaning.

[2] Again, this is misleading in a way that favours Fawcett's own position of locating Halliday's grammatical systems at the level of meaning.  Halliday uses 'semantic' to refer to the stratum of meaning, with 'text' as the highest unit at that level of symbolic abstraction, and uses 'meaning potential' to refer to the theoretical construal of language as system.

[3] The argument here is:

• reason: because the more delicate metafunctional systems of the clause are partially interdependent on each other
• result: the meanings "covered" (realised) by the metafunctional systems of the clause have to be included in any adequate theory of 'meaning'.

It can be seen that this is a non-sequitur.  The latter does not follow from the former.  The partial interdependence of the more delicate metafunctional systems of clause is not itself a reason for the inclusion of all such systems in a theory of 'meaning' — any more than the "non-interdependence" would be.

[4] Rhetorically, this non-sequitur is presented as part of Fawcett's argument for locating Halliday's clause systems in semantics, rather than lexicogrammar.

[5] This is potentially misleading.  For Fawcett, modelling the level of 'meaning' is to interpret the metafunctional systems of the clause as semantic systems.  On the SFL model, on the other hand, modelling the level of meaning is modelling it as a higher level of symbolic abstraction (stratum) than all lexicogrammatical systems — not just those of the clause.  On the SFL model, the grammar not only realises the semantics, but makes possible the type of meaning that is only found in a tri-stratal semiotic system (i.e. language).

[6] Feeling that something is right is mere opinion, not reasoned argument.