What Fawcett Means By The Instantiation Of Form

 Fawcett (2010: 40-1):

The key point is that, just as it is the activation of parts of the system network that specifies the output at the level of meaning (i.e., the selection expression), it is the activation of some of the realisation rules that specify the structural outputs from the grammar. It is the realisation rules — together with the 'potential structures', a concept that we shall meet in Section 9.[2].2 of Chapter 9 — that specify the structures, and that therefore constitute the 'form potential' in the grammar.

Blogger Comments:

This continues the discussion of Figure 4 (p36):


As even the term 'realisation rule' itself discloses, this misconstrues a realisation relation as an instantiation relation between potential and instance.

The Reasons Why Fawcett Prefers The Term 'Realisation Rule'

Fawcett (2010: 40n):

At various points in his writings, Halliday contrasts the systemic functional view of 'language as a resource' with the Chomskyan view of 'language as a set of rules'. Hence his strong preference for the term "realisation statement" over "realisation rule". Like many other systemic functional linguists, however, I take the view that, in defining the 'resource', we necessarily use a type of 'rule'. Thus a system network is itself a set of 'rules' about what features may be chosen under what conditions. This was first demonstrated in a fully explicit manner in the appendices to Hudson (1976), and similar 'rules' are found in the representation of the system network in a computer implementation in Prolog (as described in Fawcett, Tucker & Lin 1993). And realisation statements are even more obviously a type of 'rule'. In other words, while a systemic functional grammar does not have 'phrase structure rules' and 'transformational rules', it does have other types of rule. Here, then, we shall treat the terms "realisation rule" and "realisation statement" as interchangeable.

Blogger Comment:

[1]  The word 'rule' is problematic because encompasses two distinct types of modality: modulation  (obligation) and modalisation (usuality/probability).  As modulation, it also encompasses two distinct types of speech function: command and (modulated) statement; and the latter nullifies the distinction between 'rule' and 'statement'.

The term 'realisation statement', on the other hand, has the advantage of both specifying statement, rather than command, and encompassing probability (modalisation) as a property of system potential.

[2] This is an instance of the logical fallacy known as Argumentum Ad Populum, since it invokes the beliefs of (unspecified) others as support for the proposition.

[3] On the one hand, this is a bare assertion, unsupported by reasoned argument: the logical fallacy known as Ipse Dixit.  On the other hand, it is demonstrably false, since the notion of 'defining' does not entail the notion 'rule'.

[4] The use of thus here is misleading, since it gives the false impression that the statement that it begins follows logically from the preceding unsupported bare assertion.

[5] Since this is a bare assertion, unsupported by reasoned argument, the reference to Hudson (1976) constitutes an instance of the logical fallacy known as Appeal To Authority (Argumentum Ad Verecundum).

To be clear, a system network is organised on the basis of logical relations, such as:

• elaboration (delicacy)
• extension: alternation (disjunct options)
• extension: addition (conjunct options)
• enhancement: condition (entry conditions)

and to "read out" a traversal of a network is to produce statements of the type:

if X, then either Y or Z, and if both Z and A, then B or C.

For strict sense in which statements are a type of rule, see [1] above.

[6] Here Fawcett cites his own work as evidence in support of his own view.  This might be interpreted as the logical fallacies known as Appeal To Accomplishment and, on the basis of this critique, False Authority.

[7] This is another bare assertion, unsupported by reasoned argument.  For the strict sense in which realisation statements are a type of rule, see [1] above.

[8] On the one hand, this is another bare assertion, unsupported by reasoned argument.  On the other hand, it makes use of the logical fallacy known as Argument From Repetition (Argumentum Ad Nauseam).

[9] Here Fawcett, having purported to argue for 'rule' over 'statement', concludes by regarding the alternatives as interchangeable. 

On Instances Of Meaning As Inputs To Form Potential

Fawcett (2010: 40):

Figure 4 shows that at this level too — as we would logically expect — there is both a potential and an instance. The two levels of form and meaning are connected to each other, in a generative model of language, through the fact that the output from the level of meaning is the input to the level of form — more precisely, to the form potential. The form potential of a language consists principally of the realisation rules (or, as Halliday calls them, 'realisation statements').

Blogger Comments:

This continues the discussion of Figure 4 (p36):

[1] To be clear, on Fawcett's model, a structure is an instance of realisation rules.   As the term 'realisation rule' suggests, the relation here is realisation, not instantiation.  In this case, it is the realisation relation between the paradigmatic and syntagmatic axes (rather than the relation between potential and instance).

[2] As the terms 'output' and 'input' suggest, this is a model for text generation using computers, not a model of language as a human resource.  Moreover, the modular architecture of Fawcett's model is inconsistent with the dimensional architecture of SFL theory, where different levels represent different perspectives on language — different levels of symbolic abstraction — not different interacting components.

The Location(s) Of Phonology In Fawcett's Model

Fawcett (2010: 40n):

The Cardiff Grammar recognizes that it is only items that require expression in segmental phonology (which includes inherent word stress). One effect of this is that the two major aspects of phonology — intonation and segmental phonology — are treated as two separate components. They may look like one component when you view language 'from below', but if you look at intonation and segmental phonology 'from above', i.e., from the viewpoint of the meaning potential of the system networks, and if you then ask how meanings are realized in language, it becomes clear that the two are very different from each other: intonation realizing meanings directly, while segmental phonology does not. 

Blogger Comments:

[1] 'Inherent word stress' is not a feature of segmental phonology;  but see [2].

[2] The main theoretical disadvantage of treating intonation and segmental phonology as "two separate components" is that it omits rhythm from the model, since 'inherent word stress' is insufficient to account for the rich diversity of speech rhythms and the lexicogrammatical distinctions they realise.  The inclusion of rhythm is necessary for the modelling of intonation, since tone groups are realised by feet, and the ictus of each foot identifies the elements of potential tonic prominence, which in turn identifies the focus of New information.

[3] This misunderstands Halliday's 'trinocular perspective'.  It not possible to look at language 'from below', because there is no level of symbolic abstraction below language.

[4] To be clear, looking at phonology 'from above' means looking at it in terms of its function in various contexts (Halliday 2008: 141), as the expression of some content (Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 504).

[5] To be clear, looking at 'how meanings are realised' — i.e. in terms of its various modes of expression — is looking at 'meaning from below' (Halliday 2008: 141).

[6] The claim here is:

• if you view meaning in terms of how it is realised,
• (then) it becomes clear that intonation realises meaning directly while segmental phonology does not.

This is not a reasoned argument, since no reasons are provided in support of the conclusion.  It is merely a bare assertion that has been dressed up to look like reasoning through the use of a conditional relation.  The advantages of such a model, to the theory as a whole, need to be both identified and supported by reasoned argument.

Modelling Content And Expression As The Same Level Of Symbolic Abstraction

Fawcett (2010: 39-40n):

There is a difference from Halliday's model in the way in which the term "form" is being used here. He uses "form" in a sense that includes (1) grammatical structures and items and (2) lexical items, but not intonation or punctuation. However, the Cardiff model of language integrates intonation and punctuation with syntax and lexis as the co-realizations of the meaning potential of the language, so that these too are regarded as types of 'form'. The effect is that intonation is not treated as 'below' the level of syntax and items, but as a parallel form of realization.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, it is grammatical units, not grammatical structures, that correspond to grammatical form in Halliday's model; that is, the compositional rank scale of clause, group/phrase, word and morpheme.  Grammatical structures, on the other hand, are function structures: i.e. function not form.

[2] To construe grammatical form and phonological/graphological form as the same level of symbolic abstraction is to construe content and expression as the same level of symbolic abstraction.  The distinction between content and expression is the major distinction of all semiotic systems.

[3] Here again Fawcett misleads by strategically confusing 'meaning' as a level of symbolic abstraction with 'meaning potential', the entire language conceived as a resource for making meaning (semogenesis).