Misrepresenting Fawcett's Flowchart As The Architecture Of SFL Theory

Fawcett (2010: 60):

I claimed in Chapter 3 that Figure 4 (in Section 3.2 of that chapter) represents the way in which both the Sydney and the Cardiff grammars operate. As we have seen, Halliday's more recent writings have increasingly strongly taken the position — which he first explored in the 1970s — that there is a 'higher semantics' as well as the 'meaning potential' within the lexocogrammar (e.g., Halliday 1993 and 1996). How would this affect the overall model of language?

Blogger Comments:

Here again Fawcett makes multiple use of the logical fallacy known as proof by (repeated) assertion. 

[1] To be clear, Fawcett's Figure 4 (p36) is:

As first demonstrated here, and many times since, the model represented in Figure 4 is invalidated by its own internal inconsistencies, arising from misunderstandings of axis, stratification and instantiation.  Fawcett's flowchart does not represent the architecture of SFL theory, not least because the architecture is dimensional, not modular.  Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 32):

[2] This is misleading, because, since the inception of SFL theory, Halliday has always posited a level of semantics (meaning) above a level of lexicogrammar (wording).  For example, Halliday & Hasan (1976: 5):

[3] Here Fawcett confuses meaning potential (the system pole of the cline of instantiation) with lexicogrammar (the level of wording in the hierarchy of stratification).

[4] On the one hand, the level of semantics is already a part of the SFL model.  On the other hand, by 'the overall model of language', Fawcett means his own flowchart (Figure 4), which he is about to use as the benchmark for assessing Halliday's model, as will be seen in the next few posts.  

Misrepresenting Halliday As Inconsistent With The SFL Model Of Language

Fawcett (2010: 60):

Nonetheless, there has been a knock-on effect of Halliday's adoption of the second position which leads him to describe the grammar in a way that appears to be in conflict with the general SFL model of language proposed in Chapter 3 and in expressed in Figure 4. The next section describes this problematical change of position by Halliday, and the simple alternative.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is misleading, because it misrepresents Halliday, since, as previously demonstrated, Halliday only ever had one position on this matter (the stratal location of his grammatical networks).

[2] Here Fawcett presents his own model (Figure 4) as the benchmark by which to assess Halliday's version of Halliday's theory.  As previously demonstrated, Fawcett's model is invalidated by its internal inconsistencies with regard to the theoretical dimensions of axis, instantiation and realisation.

[3] The question of whether Halliday's version of Halliday's theory is problematical, and the question whether Fawcett's proposed alternative is valid, will be examined in the review of the next section.

Misrepresenting Halliday In A Footnote

Fawcett (2010: 59n-60n):

I should point out that, when Halliday adds a further level of system networks above the existing level, he neces[s]arily also add[s] a further component to the model, to enable the grammar to 'map' the choices made at one level onto the choices available at the lower level. However, he does not describe what this extension to the model entails, so I shall attempt to provide a summary of this in the next section. A further problem is that Halliday uses the term 'preselection' in two senses. The first is the standard sense of the 'preselection' that occurs in a realisation rule which 'pre-selects' a feature to be chosen on a subsequent traversal of the network (as we shall see in Chapters 5 and 9). But his second use is for the 'preselection' of a choice in a network that results from a choice in a higher component. It is of course important to keep a clear distinction between the levels (or strata) of language and the layers of structure within syntax. In the Cardiff Grammar, therefore, we use "preselection" only in the established sense of the relationship between layers of the tree structure. We use the terms "predetermine" and "predetermination" for the relationship between any higher component in the process of generation and the choices in the system network. 

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is misleading, because it is manifestly untrue.  The semantic networks Fawcett alludes to are presented in Halliday & Matthiessen (1999), which devotes 618 pages describing "what this extension to the model entails".

[2] This is misleading, because it is manifestly untrue.  There is only one sense of 'preselection' in the two usages cited by Fawcett: the selection of one feature entails the selection of another.  That is, the probability of their co-selection is 1.  The theoretical location of the features involved is irrelevant to the meaning of the term.  Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 375):

More specifically, inter-stratal realisation is specified by means of inter-stratal preselection: contextual features are realised by preselection within the semantic system, semantic features are realised by preselection within the lexicogrammatical system, and lexicogrammatical features are realised by preselection within the phonological/graphological system.

[3] This is misleading, because it presents Fawcett's reinterpretation of a term introduced into SFL by Halliday as the established sense.

[4] To be clear, in SFL theory, there is no causal relation between strata.  Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 25):

In any stratal system (i.e. any system where there are two strata such that one is the realisation of the other) there is no temporal or causal ordering between the strata. … the relationship is an intensive one, not a causal circumstantial one.

[5] To be clear, in Fawcett's model (Figure 4), because system networks are located at the highest level, meaning, there is no higher component.

[6] To be clear, in SFL theory, this process is the process of instantiation: the selection of features during logogenesis, the unfolding of text at the instance pole of the cline of instantiation.

Confusing Language As System With Language As Stratified

Fawcett (2010: 59):

From the viewpoint of our concerns in this book, however, this major difference of view about what is required 'above' the meaning potential that belongs within the grammar is relatively unimportant. As I have argued in this section, both of the two models have networks for TRANSITIVITY, MOOD, THEME etc. that are at the level of 'meaning potential'. Moreover, the features in both are realised by essentially the same types of 'realisation operation', as we shall see in Chapters 5 and 9.

Blogger Comments:

[1] Here again Fawcett confuses the SFL notions of language as system ('meaning potential') and language strata as levels of symbolic abstraction ('above', 'level').  The theoretical dimensions confused are thus those of instantiation and stratification.

[2] The validity of this claim will be examined in the reviews of Chapters 5 and 9.