What Fawcett Finds Most Striking About Halliday (1993)

Fawcett (2010: 79):

From this viewpoint, what is most striking about "Systemic theory" is that the ideas that Halliday chooses to present as the "basic concepts" of the theory are precisely the ones that are central to the concerns of the theoretical-generative strand of work in SFL (as we shall see in the next section).

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, what Fawcett finds "most striking" here is the fact that, in an Encyclopædia article titled 'Systemic Theory', Halliday outlined the basic concepts that constitute the architecture of Systemic Theory (rather than, say, a description of a language or an analysis of text).

Fawcett's Distinction Of 'Theoretical-Generative' Vs 'Text-Descriptive' Aspects Of A SF Theory Of Syntax

Fawcett (2010: 78):

Interestingly, we shall find that, in what we shall term the 'theoretical-generative' aspect of a SF theory of syntax, there are fewer important differences between the Sydney and the Cardiff Grammars than there are in the 'text-descriptive' aspect. By the end of this chapter we shall see how it is that there can be a fairly close similarity between the two models with respect to one aspect of the theory, while there is not in the other.

Blogger Comments:

[1] As will be seen, Fawcett's distinction between the 'theoretical-generative' aspect of theory and the 'text-descriptive' aspect of theory confuses two distinct dimensions:

• the distinction between theory and description, and
• the distinction between potential and instance.

	theory	description
linguist as grammarian	language as potential	a language as potential
linguist as discourse analyst	language as instance	a language as instance

That is, Fawcett's notion of a 'text-descriptive aspect of theory' conflates the focus on instances of language ('text') with the practice of describing particular languages ('descriptive').

On the distinction between theory and description, Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 55) write:

While a description is an account of the system of a particular language, a theory is an account of language in general. So we have descriptions of various languages such as English, Akan and Nahuatl; but we have a theory of human language in general. This introduction to (systemic) functional grammar is both an introduction to the general theory of grammar and to the description of the grammar of a particular language, English. The theory includes the ‘architecture’ of grammar – the dimensions that define the overall semiotic space of lexicogrammar, the relationships that inhere in these dimensions – and its relationship to other sub-systems of language – to semantics and to phonology (or graphology). Thus, according to systemic functional theory, lexicogrammar is diversified into a metafunctional spectrum, extended in delicacy from grammar to lexis, and ordered into a series of ranked units.

On the different foci of the linguist as grammarian on potential and the linguist as discourse analyst on instance, Halliday (2008: 84-5, 126) writes:

I shall refer from time to time to "the grammarian" and "the discourse analyst", which makes it sound as though these have to be different people; but it is obvious, I hope, that the same person may take on both rôles, and probably most of us do, unless we adopt a rigidly formalist approach. … the power of the text resides in the system, because it is the system that determines the meaning and the significance of the ongoing choices made by writers and speakers. It is a mistake to restrict our angle of vision to just one perspective or the other, or to treat the discourse analyst and grammarian as if they inhabited two different realms of intellectual being.

[2] This is misleading.  Only Fawcett's model is a theory of syntax.  Halliday (1994: xiv) explains why he rejects the term:

[3] It will be seen, by the end of this chapter, that Fawcett actually uses his confused distinction to make comparisons between Halliday's pre-Systemic theory, Scale and Category Grammar (1961), and Halliday's exposition of Systemic theory (1993).

Misrepresenting The Relation Between Theory And The Work That Contributes To It

Fawcett (2010: 77-8):

We can take the view of language presented in "Systemic theory" as broadly representative of three closely related bodies of work: (1) the work in the mid-1960s by Halliday, Henrici, Huddleston and Hudson that was to develop into the set of concepts presented in "Systemic Theory"; (2) the formalisation and computer implementation of these concepts by Mann, Matthiessen and others, as first described informally in Mann & Matthiessen (1983/85) and later more fully in Matthiessen & Bateman (1991) and (less formally) in Matthiessen (1995); and (3) — with some differences — the set of concepts used in the Cardiff Grammar, as first described in Fawcett (1973/81 and 1980) and defined most clearly in Fawcett, Tucker & Lin (1993). It is the first two bodies of work that "Systemic theory" reflects most closely. 

Blogger Comments:

Here Fawcett confuses theory ('the view of language') with work carried out in the developmental history of the theory.  Halliday (1993) sets out the theory itself in Sections 2-4, and lists works involved in the development of Systemic theory in Section 5.

More importantly, Fawcett misrepresents the relation between Systemic theory and such work, in as much as his identification construes the theory as decoded by reference to these works, including his own. This can be demonstrated by the following agnate clauses:

systemic theory	broadly	represents	three closely related bodies of work
Identified Token	Manner: degree	Process: relational	Identifier Value

systemic theory	most closely	reflects	the first two bodies of work
Identified Token	Manner: degree	Process: relational	Identifier Value

On the one hand, this is invalid, since it construes the theory as less abstract than the work that expresses it; and on the other hand, it is misleading, because it identifies the theory in terms of work, like Fawcett's, which may or may not be consistent with the theory.

In terms of the theoretical architecture of SFL linguistics, theory (context) is realised by the language that expresses it, with each instance of such language (individual text) realising an instance of theory.

systemic theory	is realised	by language
instances of systemic theory	are realised	by instances of language
Identified Value	Process: relational	Identifier Token

(That is, Systemic theory is encoded by reference to the language that expresses it.)

Moreover, it can be seen that, if different texts realise different instances of theory, the question arises as to whether such instances of theory are valid or not.  And that is the question that this blog asks with regard to the instance of Systemic theory realised in Fawcett (2000, 2010).

∞

It will be seen, in later posts, that this misrepresentation is a strategic necessity for Fawcett's argument in this chapter.

Misrepresenting Halliday (1993)

Fawcett (2010: 77):

The picture of the nature of language that one gets from "Systemic theory" [Halliday 1993] is fascinatingly different from that given in "Categories" — and indeed, as we shall see in the next chapter, from the picture of language given in IFG. It is of course to be expected that it should be different from "Categories", since that paper appeared over thirty years earlier, but it is at first sight surprising that "Systemic theory" is so different from IFG (whose second edition was published just a year after it, in 1994). 

Blogger Comments:

Unsurprisingly, given the foregoing, as will be seen in the examination of Fawcett's Chapter 5, the theoretical differences here are not between Halliday's IFG and Halliday (1993), but between Fawcett's understanding of Halliday's IFG and  Fawcett's understanding of Halliday (1993).

On Halliday's 1972-6 Model

Fawcett (2010: 75):

Finally, I showed that there was one temporary phase in the development of Halliday's theory in which he showed the Scale and Category elements of the clause as serving the function of integrating the various strands of meanings that are always shown in any IFG-style analysis — very much as the Cardiff Grammar does, in general terms, and as this book argues that all systemic functional grammars should. Yet it is a model which Halliday quickly abandoned for reasons that are far from clear, inserting the 'integrating' elements in the 'interpersonal' strand of meaning instead, as we shall see in Chapter 7. And, as we shall also see in Chapter 7, this leaves the considerable problem of how these semi-semantic 'multiple structures' are to be integrated into a single structure.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, as previously demonstrated, this hangover from Halliday's pre-Systemic theory, Scale and Category Grammar, had already been re-theorised by the time of the second edition (Halliday 1978) of the paper that Fawcett used (Halliday 1977 — written 1972-6) to exemplify the "temporary phase in the development of Halliday's theory".

[2] To be clear, this "abandonment" was a direct consequence, in Halliday (1978), of identifying units of the rank scale — clause, group, word, morpheme — as the locus onto which the structures of metafunctional systems are mapped.

[3] As will be demonstrated in the examination of Chapter 7, the "problem" here, as elsewhere, is with Fawcett's difficulty in understanding Halliday's theory.

Fawcett's Argument Against Realisation Rules In System Networks

Fawcett (2010: 75): 

Next, I showed why diagrams consisting of system networks in which the realisation rules are shown as 'footnotes' on the features are not only inadequate for a large-scale grammar but that they also give a misleading picture of language. In other words, the existence of such diagrams should not be taken as evidence that the full set of components and outputs shown in Figure 4 is unnecessary.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is misleading, because, as previously demonstrated, Fawcett did not show why the location of realisation rules (statements) in system networks is inadequate for a large-scale grammar, not least because the network he used in his argument was a small-scale network of his own devising which, for example, confuses lexical items with grammatical features.

[2] This is misleading, because, as previously demonstrated, Fawcett did not show that the location of realisation rules in system networks gives a misleading picture of language.  Moreover, Fawcett's own alternative model (Figure 4) is invalidated by the fact that it locates categories of the same level of symbolic abstraction, grammatical features, at different levels of symbolic abstraction, meaning and form, depending on whether they are located in networks or in rules.

[3] To be clear, this provides Fawcett's motivation for arguing against the location of realisation rules (statements) in system networks: the fear that it invalidates his own model, whereas, in truth, what invalidates Fawcett's model is its own internal inconsistency — including its misconstrual of the relation between realisation rules and the structures that realise them as instantiation.

On The Topological Equivalence Of SFL Architecture And Fawcett's Flowchart

Fawcett (2010: 74-5):

I then gave some of the reasons why I think he is wrong to dismiss his earlier insight that the system networks constitute the level of semantics, and I argued that the topological relationships between the different parts of the model of language summarised in Figure 4 remain intact — even when the diagram is redrawn in order to make them appear to occupy a single stratum of language, as in Figure 5. The key point is that, since the relationships remain the same, it is still possible to make a direct comparison between the output structures of the Sydney and the Cardiff Grammars.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, a principal reason why the system networks are located on the stratum of lexicogrammar, rather than semantics, is that distinguishing semantic and grammatical systems improves the explanatory power of the theory by providing the means of systematically accounting for grammatical metaphor.  But this is not the only reason. Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 428-9):

Within systemic-functional linguistics, Fawcett (e.g. 1980) has pioneered a "cognitive model of an interactive mind". There are many fundamental similarities with the approach we are taking here, e.g. in construing an experiential system of process configuration within the content plane. However, there are two related differences of particular interest in the context of our present discussion:

(i) in Fawcett's model, there is only one system-structure cycle within the content plane: systems are interpreted as the semantics, linked through a "realisation component" to [content] form, which includes items and syntax, the latter being modelled structurally but not systemically; 

(ii) in Fawcett's model, the semantics is separate from the "knowledge of the universe", with the latter as a "component" outside the linguistic system including "long term memory" and "short term sort of knowledge". 

With respect to (i), in our model there are two system-structure cycles, one in the semantics and one in the lexicogrammar. Terms in semantic systems are realised in semantic structures; and semantic systems and structures are in turn realised in lexicogrammatical ones. As we saw in Chapter 6 in particular, grammatical metaphor is a central reason in our account for treating axis and stratification as independent dimensions, so that we have both semantic systems and structures and lexicogrammatical systems and structures. Since we allow for a stratification of content systems into semantics and lexicogrammar, we are in a stronger position to construe knowledge in terms of meaning. That is, the semantics can become more powerful and extensive if the lexicogrammar includes systems. It follows then with respect to (ii) that for us "knowledge of the universe" is construed as meaning rather than as knowledge. This meaning is in the first instance created in language; but we have noted that meaning is created in other semiotic systems as well, both other social-semiotic systems and other semiotic systems such as perception. Our account gives language more of a central integrative role in the overall system. It is the one semiotic system which is able to construe meanings from semiotic systems in general.

[2] To be clear, as previously demonstrated, Fawcett's model summarised in Figure 4 is invalidated by its own internal inconsistencies, including its misconstrual of axial realisation of form as instantiation.

[3] To be clear, as previously demonstrated, Figure 5 is not topologically equivalent to Figure 4, since the one cannot be formed from the other without tearing. Moreover, in terms of Fawcett's argument, it is a 'straw man' of Fawcett's own invention.  See the earlier post Attacking A Straw Man.

Realisation Between Strata And Realisation Between Axes

Fawcett (2010: 74):

Then, in the second half of the chapter, we surveyed the effect of Halliday's adoption of the concept that there is a higher set of system networks than those of TRANSITIVITY, MOOD and THEME. First we noted that this has led him to express increasingly strongly the view that the relationship between these system networks and the structures that are generated from them is only one of realisation by "extension" or by "analogy".

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the 'higher set of system networks' than the grammatical systems of TRANSITIVITY, MOOD and THEME are the systems of the semantic stratum, such as the interpersonal system of SPEECH FUNCTION and the ideational systems set out in Halliday & Matthiessen (1999).

[2] This is misleading. To be clear, the reason why the relation of realisation also applies to the relation between system and structure is because it is the very same relation: the fundamental semiotic relation of symbolic abstraction between a higher level Value (system) an a lower level Token (structure).

See also what Halliday actually said, in this regard, in the earlier clarifying critique: (Accusing Halliday Of) Confusing Axial Realisation With Instantiation.

Misunderstanding Realisation And Instantiation

Fawcett (2010: 74):

The new general concept that was needed to provide for these 'interstratal' relationships was realisation… . A second new basic concept was instantiation — and it is the fact that we find both a 'potential' and an 'instance' at each of the two levels within the lexicogrammar that demonstrates the presence, within the grammar, of the two levels of 'meaning' and 'form'. 

Blogger Comments:

There are several misunderstandings here.

1. In terms of theoretical architecture, the relation between potential and instance, instantiation, does not "demonstrate the presence of" meaning and form, since the relation between the levels of meaning and form is realisation (symbolic abstraction).
2. In terms of epistemology, it is not the "presence" of meaning and form that can be demonstrated, but the explanatory power of proposing such a distinction in the model.
3. In terms of theoretical consistency, by construing realisation rules as potential, and structure as instance, Fawcett's level of form confuses instantiation with the realisation relation between the paradigmatic and syntagmatic axes.

The Relation Of The Cardiff Grammar To Halliday's Evolving Theory

Fawcett (2010: 73):

One reason why Halliday's "Language as choice in social context" is important, then, is that it is to this apparently aberrant stage of his developing model that the Cardiff Grammar is most closely related. … here my purpose is simply to note the fact of this phase in Halliday's frequently changing model.

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, Fawcett here positions his theorising in 2010 as most closely related to Halliday's theorising in 1972-6 (published in 1977 and 1978).  That is, while Halliday kept learning and improving his model on the basis of that learning, Fawcett staid put, with the result that few, if any, of the theoretical insights built into Halliday's model in the last half-century are likely to be found in Fawcett's interpretation of Halliday's model.

Seriously Misrepresenting Halliday's Early Theorising

Fawcett (2010:71-3):

The example analysed in Halliday (1977) as an illustration of these principles is fairly complex, i.e., "I would as soon live with a pair of unoiled garden shears, " said her inamorata. Halliday's analysis of this text-sentence raises a number of interesting questions that would distract us from the main point, so we shall look instead at the simpler example from the second of Halliday's two papers that exemplify the type of analysis that reflects the above description, i.e, that in Halliday (1970/76b). This is shown in Figure 6. 

Notice first that there is a line of structure for each of the 'ideational' and the 'interpersonal' strands of meaning: with the usual two for the 'textual' meaning — i.e., one showing the 'thematic' structure, and one the 'information' structure. But the key feature of the diagram is the single line of structure which comes below these four lines, and which uses the names of the elements of the clause which were established as part of Scale and Category Grammar — i.e, at the time when the assumption was that the whole grammar was at the level of form. Some of the labels for the 'functions' are different from those found in later representations such as those in IFG, e.g., "Modal" and "Propositional" are later replaced by "Mood" and "Residue", but we shall find in Chapter 7 that the first four lines of Figure 6 correspond closely to the type of analysis found in all of Halliday's work since that time.

Figure 6 is exactly as it occurs in Halliday (1970/76b), with the exception of the word "COMBINED", which I have added (borrowing it from the equivalent diagram in Halliday (1977). It is clear that, even though there are few explanatory comments on the diagram in either Halliday (1970/76b) or Halliday (1977), Halliday's intention is precisely that of showing that the structures represented in the four 'strands of meaning' above are "combined" in the single integrated structure shown below them. In Halliday's words (1970/76b:24): "any element [e.g., the Subject] may have more than one structural role, like a chord in a fugue which participates simultaneously in more than one melodic line." 

Blogger Comments:

This is very misleading indeed, since it misrepresents Halliday's theorising at the time. Specifically, here Fawcett chooses to ignore the analysis in the 1978 edition of the Halliday paper — which puts a lie to the claims he makes about this stage of Halliday's theorising — and instead, returns to an earlier stage (1970) of Halliday's model.  Halliday (1978: 130):

As can be seen above, even at this stage, Halliday had recognised the categories of Scale and Category Grammar (Subject etc.) as interpersonal functions of the clause. 

As Halliday (1978: 129) makes very plain, it is the clause itself that combines the metafunctional structures:

Fifth, we shall assume that the lexicogrammatical system is organised by rank (as opposed to by immediate constituent structure); each rank is the locus of structural configurations, the place where structures from the different components are mapped on to each other. …

It follows from the above that each type of unit — clause, verbal group, nominal group etc. — is in itself a structural composite, a combination of structures each of which derives from one or other component of the semantics. A clause, for example, has a structure formed out of elements such as agent, process, extent; this structure derives from the system of transitivity, which is part of the experiential component. Simultaneously it has a structure formed out of the elements modal and propositional: this derives from the system of mood, which is part of the interpersonal component. It also has a third structure composed of the elements theme and rheme, deriving from the theme system, which is part of the textual component.

Misrepresenting Halliday In A Footnote

Fawcett (2010: 71n):

However, it must be said that one of the five introductory 'assumptions' in Halliday (1977/78) seems to reflect the second of the two positions on meaning identified in Section 4.6. This is when he writes: "Let us assume that each stratum [...] is described as a network of options." This view is clearly incompatible with that modelled in Figure 4 of Chapter 3, because there the component that specifies the 'potential' at the level of form is the realisation rules — and so not a system network. Since the other assumptions are fully compatible with the model described in Figure 4 of Chapter 3, and since this one therefore appears to be at odds with those others, we shall take it that its inclusion in the paper is evidence that even as he wrote it Halliday was toying with the possibility of the second of his two models of meaning.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, as previously explained, Halliday has had only one position on meaning.  As previously explained, the difference between the early model of more than 40 years ago (Halliday 1977/78) and the current model is that the former proposed that semantic structures were mapped onto grammatical structures, an interstratal relation, whereas the latter proposes that it is grammatical systems that are realised by grammatical structures, an axial relation.  In both models, the content strata are semantics (meaning) and lexicogrammar (wording).

[2] To be clear, as previously explained, Fawcett's model, described in Figure 4, is inconsistent with all of Halliday's models, past and present, not least because it confuses axial realisation with instantiation, and distributes phenomena of the same level of symbolic abstraction, features, across different levels, meaning and form, according to whether they are positioned in networks or rules.

[3] To be clear, Halliday's third assumption, that each stratum is described as a network of options, is not theoretically inconsistent with his other four assumptions.  In this early paper, Halliday provides no systems for either semantics or grammar, but describes the organisation of the lexicogrammatical system in his fifth assumption; Halliday (1978: 129):

Fifth, we shall assume that the lexicogrammatical system is organised by rank (as opposed to by immediate constituent structure); each rank is the locus of structural configurations, the place where structures from the different components are mapped on to each other. The ‘rank scale, for the lexicogrammar of English is: