Theoretical Indeterminacy, Computer Modelling And The Value Of Fawcett's Framework

Fawcett (2010: 69):

Halliday has written at different times in terms of both frameworks, and also in terms that suggest that the boundary between the two is indeterminate (Halliday 1996:29). While I recognise the 'indeterminacy' that is bound to be found in living systems such as natural human languages, I think that it is right to accept the challenge of trying to make the model sufficiently explicit to be incorporated in a computer model of language. And doing this in turn suggests the value of recognising the component 'modules' of Figure 4 in Chapter 3.

Blogger Comments:

[1] As previously demonstrated, this is misleading because it strategically misrepresents Halliday.  Halliday has never espoused the misunderstanding in Fawcett's model (Figure 4) of realisation rules as a lower level of abstraction ('form potential') than the features they apply to.

[2] This is misleading because it strategically misrepresents Halliday (1996), which is concerned with the theoretical indeterminacy of the nature and location of the boundary between semantics and grammar, not the boundary between Fawcett's framework and Halliday's.  Halliday (2002 [1996]: 411):

But there is another opening-up effect which is relevant to the present topic: this concerns the nature and location of the stratal boundary between the grammar and the semantics. This is, of course, a construct of the grammatics; many fundamental aspects of language can be explained if one models them in stratal terms, such as metaphor (and indeed rhetorical resources in general), the epigenetic nature of children’s language development, and metafunctional unity and diversity, among others. But this does not force us to locate the boundary at any particular place. One can, in fact, map it on to the boundary between system and structure, as Fawcett does (system as semantics, structure as lexicogrammar); whereas I have found it more valuable to set up two distinct strata of paradigmatic (systemic) organisation. But the point is that the boundary is indeterminate – it can be shifted; and this indeterminacy enables us to extend the stratal model outside language proper so as to model the relationship of a language to its cultural and situational environments.

[3] Strictly speaking, living systems are biological, whereas languages are semiotic, though both can be construed as evolving, complex adaptive systems.

[4] To be clear, making a model of human language explicit is distinct from adapting a model to the constraints of computer technology; and this is distinct from claiming that such an adapted computer model also applies to language as a natural phenomenon.  And these are distinct from the questions of whether a model is internally self-consistent or consistent with the phenomenon being modelled.

[5] To be clear, this is a non-sequitur.  Merely adapting a theoretical architecture to the constraints of computer technology does not, of itself, "suggest the value" of Fawcett's particular method of doing so, nor does it say anything about its value as a model of human language.

[6] To be clear, the architecture of SFL theory is dimensional, not modular, and Fawcett's model (Figure 4) is a flowchart for text generation.  Moreover, as previously demonstrated, it is internally inconsistent, confusing the realisation relation between the paradigmatic and syntagmatic axes with instantiation relation between system and instance (inter alia).