Misrepresenting Halliday As Illogical In A Footnote

Fawcett (2010: 94n):

Interestingly, the lack of a specification of a theory of 'instances of syntax' in "Systemic theory" cannot be the result of a general decision by Halliday to exclude any account of instances, because there is a short paragraph that describes the nature of instances at the level of meaning (i.e., the concept of a 'selection expression'). It would therefore have been logical if Halliday had also included an account of the theory of instances at the level of form. 

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the notion of 'instances at the level of form' is not in Halliday's model, because it is Fawcett's confusion of instance with structure, as previously demonstrated.

[2] To be clear, Halliday (1995 [1993]: 273) clarifies the meaning of 'instances' as follows:

But in systemic theory, realisation is held distinct from 'instantiation,' which is the relation between the semiotic system (the 'meaning potential') and the observable events, or 'acts of meaning,' by which the system is constituted.

[3] This is misleading in at least three ways. Firstly, 'selection expression' is exemplified in Halliday (1995 [1993]: 273) in terms of the grammar (clause):

The selection expression constitutes the grammar's description of the item (e.g., the particular clause so specified);

Secondly, 'selection expressions' figure on all strata in Halliday's model because all strata are modelled as systems.  It is only Fawcett's model that confines systems to the level of meaning.

Thirdly, 'selection expressions' are not confined to the instance pole of the cline of instantiation, since they specify units as potential as well as instance, for example, a mental clause as potential or as instantiated in text.

[4] It would therefore not have been logical.