Misrepresenting Halliday (1994) On System Networks

Fawcett (2010: 49-50):

Today, very many systemic functional linguists would take it as axiomatic that system networks such as those for TRANSITIVITY, MOOD, THEME etc. model choices between meanings, i.e., semantic features. These linguists include those who work in the framework of the Cardiff Grammar (including those in China and Japan), those working with the Nottingham Grammar (as described in Berry (1975, 1977 and 1996:8-9), those who are applying systemic functional grammar to other semiotic systems (e.g., Kress & van Leeuwen 1997, van Leeuwen 1999 and probably O'Toole 1994). Moreover, Halliday himself continues to write in a similar manner at times, e.g., in IFG:

In a functional grammar, [...] a language is interpreted as a system of meanings [my emphasis], accompanied by forms through which the meanings can be expressed (Halliday 1994:xix).

In this view of the basic architecture of language, then, the meaning potential constitutes the level of semantics.  More precisely, it is the task of the system networks to model those 'meanings' that are expressible through realisation rules at the level of form (Figure 4 in Section 3.2 of Chapter 3).

Blogger Comments:

[1] Here again Fawcett argues for his misunderstanding of Halliday by means of the logical fallacy known as 'Argumentum ad populum':

Argumentum ad populum (appeal to widespread belief, bandwagon argument, appeal to the majority, appeal to the people) – a proposition is claimed to be true or good solely because majority or many people believe it to be so.

[2] Again, see any of the previous posts on the distinctions

• between meaning potential (language as system) and meaning as stratum (semantics), and
• between functional grammar (wording viewed from semantics) and semantics (meaning).

See also Halliday & Matthiessen (1999) for Halliday's semantic systems of the ideational metafunction.

[3] Here again Fawcett misunderstands Halliday in a way the favours his own (unsupported) position; see [2].

[4] Here Fawcett misleads by omission: failing to tell the reader that this (incorrectly sourced) quote from Halliday (1994: xiv) is part of an argument in which Halliday gives reasons for the inappropriateness of the term 'syntax' in a functional approach to grammar:

[5] This clarification (more precisely) of Fawcett's own misunderstanding (see [2]) is merely a restatement of his own model (Figure 4) — itself riddled with internal inconsistencies due to his misunderstandings of the dimensions of realisation and instantiation, as previously demonstrated here and elsewhere.