The Impression That Realisation Rules Are Part Of The System Network Itself

Fawcett (2010: 65-6):

However, in some of Halliday's other writings, starting very soon after that time, he began using a representation of the system networks and realisation rules that can be interpreted in a very different manner — though always in introductory grammars or fragments of grammars, as in Halliday (1971/73a:40 and 1977/78:208-22). The same pattern is found in his 1964 networks (which were published in Halliday (1976:135).* And the same pattern is found in his recent work e.g., in the network for the 'verbal group' in Halliday (1996:11). 

Finally, this way of representing the realisation rules is used throughout Matthiessen (1995). In the diagrams in all of these works, any feature for which there is a realisation rule has the rule written in immediately under the feature itself, almost as a footnote on the feature. In other words, the impression is given that the realisation rules are part of the system network itself. 

* These system networks may well date from the time before Halliday realised that they should be regarded as modelling the 'meaning potential' of the language. 

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, in SFL theory, realisation statements are located in system networks.  This is why the publications of Halliday and Matthiessen present them as such.

[2] As previously explained, Fawcett misunderstands Halliday's 'meaning potential', language as system, to mean the stratum of semantics.