Misunderstanding The IFG Notion Of 'Strands Of Meaning'

Fawcett (2010: 51):

The recognition of the 'multifunctional' nature of language — and so of equivalent system networks that model the 'meaning potential' of each "strand of meaning" in a text (IFG p. 34) — has become one of the defining characteristics of the contemporary systemic functional approach to understanding the nature of language. See Figure 7 in Section 7.2 of Chapter 7 and Figure 10 in Section 7.8 for two contrasting ways of representing this concept in the diagrams that represent the analysis of a clause. And see Chapter 7 also for the suggestion that the concept of 'strands of meaning' was over-extended when it came to be equated with the concept of 'multiple structures'. 

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the recognition of the multifunctional nature of language is not peculiar to SFL theory, and it is the theoretical notion of metafunction that motivates the organisation of systems at the levels of lexicogrammar, semantics and context.

[2] There are several confusions here, between

• meaning (semantics) and meaning potential (language as system),
• the stratum of meaning (semantics) and the stratum of wording (lexicogrammar), and
• instantiation (potential to instance) and axis (system vs structure).

To be clear, in SFL theory, grammatical system networks, organised by metafunction, model the choices of wording for given grammatical rank, most importantly, for clause rank.  The 'strands of meaning' are structural realisations of grammatical systems that realise meaning (the stratum of semantics).  The meaning of a clause is the semantics it realises.  In the absence of grammatical metaphor, wording and meaning are congruent (agree).

[3] Trivially, Fawcett's Figure 7 (below) misinterprets the Scope of the material Process, Mrs Skinner, as its Goal;  Mrs Skinner is the Range (domain) of the 'visiting', not the Medium through which the 'visiting' process unfolds:

A second misunderstanding is the use of the function class 'circumstance' as an element of function structure.  On the IFG model, the function of every Sunday is Extent.

[4] More importantly, in Figure 10 (below), Fawcett's syntax labels are a confusion of functional categories (Subject, Agent, Operator, Complement/Affected, Adjunct) and formal (Main verb).

Note also that this misconstrues the agency of the clause, since the Subject we is wrongly analysed as the Agent of the 'visiting' Process, rather than as the Medium through which the Process unfolds.

[5] And see the upcoming critique of Chapter 7 for the theoretical misunderstandings on which this suggestion is made.