Misrepresenting Martin (1992)

Fawcett (2010: 56):

However, the major effort to provide system networks that could function as the 'higher semantics' in the framework of the Sydney Grammar has been Martin's development of what he calls a "discourse semantics", as described in his valuable English Text (Martin 1992). Martin's theory of language constitutes a separate 'sub-dialect' of the Sydney Grammar that is significantly different from that of Hasan and indeed Halliday — but he too, like Hasan and Cloran, works on the assumption that his 'discourse semantic' system networks will be 'realised' by a grammar such as that of Halliday (1994) and Matthiessen (1995). However, even Martin's 620-page work does not provide a full coverage of the proposed higher level of system networks. This is understandable, both because of the size of the task and because the focus of English Text is not on the grammar as a whole, but on providing a much more complete coverage of the topic of 'cohesion' than the limited coverage in Halliday & Hasan's Cohesion in English (1976).

Blogger Comments:

[1] As demonstrated here in meticulous detail, Martin (1992) is based on fatal misunderstandings of SFL theory across all scales.

[2] To be clear, the commonly used geographical description of Martin's misunderstandings of SFL theory is 'The Sydney School'.

[3] This is true.  Martin (1992) is not only 'significantly different' from Halliday's theory, but also, more importantly, wholly inconsistent with it, as demonstrated here.

[4] This is misleading.  Martin's networks provide no realisation statements that specify how discourse semantic features are realised in lexicogrammatical systems (evidence here).  Moreover, Martin (1992) misunderstands strata as modules (evidence here), and demonstrates that he does not understand the theoretical term 'realisation' (evidence here).

[5] This is an empty claim in the absence of a means of determining what would constitute "full coverage".

[6] This misunderstands both SFL theory and Martin (1992).  In SFL theory, cohesion is a non-structural resource of the textual metafunction at the level of lexicogrammar.  As demonstrated here, Martin (1992) misunderstands these systems, rebrands them, distributes them across different metafunctions, and relocates them to the level of (discourse) semantics.

[7] This is misleading in as much as it falsely implies that Martin (1992) complements the description of Halliday & Hasan (1976) in a theoretically consistent way.