Criticising Matthiessen's Lexicogrammatical Systems For Not Being Semantic Systems

Fawcett (2010: 52-3):

Finally — but not until 1995 — Halliday's close collaborator Matthiessen brought the networks out of the computer and made them available in Matthiessen (1995). As Matthiessen says (1995:i-ii), "the interpretation of English [in this book] is based on Halliday's work and [... it] is intended to be read together with his 1985/1994 Introduction to Functional Grammar." It is clear that the system networks are in fact Matthiessen's re-working of Halliday's original networks, incorporating minor improvements and suggestions from other systemic linguists (including, in a small way, myself: see Matthiessen 1995:655).

However, while it is certainly useful to have access to these more recent networks, the reader who is hoping to find explicitly semantic system networks in Matthiessen (1995) is likely to be disappointed. Most of the networks are essentially as they were in the late 1960s and early 1970s — or, where they are different, they are not noticeably more semantic. Despite this caveat, it is extremely valuable to have, at last, a reasonably complete set of system networks for the Sydney Grammar. (However, see Section 7.6 of Chapter 7 for a critical view of the value to the text analyst of these networks as they stand.) 

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is misleading. The work Fawcett refers to is:

Matthiessen, C. M. I. M., 1995. Lexicogrammatical Cartography: English Systems. Tokyo: International Language Sciences Publishers.

As the title 'Lexicogrammatical Cartography' makes plain, Matthiessen's networks are clearly sign-posted as lexicogrammatical systems, not semantic systems. Semantic systems, on the other hand, can be found in:

Halliday, M. A. K., & Matthiessen, C. Μ. Ι. Μ., 1999. Construing Experience through Meaning: A Language-Based Approach to Cognition. London: Cassell Academic.

which Fawcett lists (p346) as one of his references. In short, Fawcett is criticising Matthiessen for not validating his own misunderstanding.

[2] See the critique of Section 7.6 for the misunderstandings that undermine Fawcett's "critical view".