Misrepresenting The Theoretical Importance Of Realisation In Halliday (1994)

Fawcett (2010: 100):

The term "realisation" (formerly "exponence") is not prominent in IFG either (with half a dozen index entries), but this is not surprising in a book about the outputs from the grammar — i.e., the instances at the level of form — rather than about how they are to be generated from the system networks. 

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, realisation is the fundamental relation of semiotic systems, namely: the relation between levels of symbolic abstraction, such as between

• signifié and signifiant,
• content and expression,
• function and form,
• meaning and wording,
• paradigmatic system and syntagmatic structure.

[2] To be clear, the discussions of realisation in IFG are significant.  For example, Halliday (1994: 15) identifies realisation as the relation between strata:

The grammar, in this broader sense of lexicogrammar, is the level of 'wording' in a language.  The wording is expressed, or REALISED, in the form of sound or writing; hence the two levels of phonology and graphology serve as alternative modes of expression. We usually the metaphor of vertical space and say that phonology and graphology are the strata 'below' the grammar.  At the same time, the wording REALISES pattern of another level 'higher than' itself — but still within the system of language: the stratum of SEMANTICS.

Halliday (1994: 38) identifies realisation as the relation between function and form:

First position in the clause is not what defines the Theme; it is the means whereby the function of Theme is realised in the grammar of English.

In outlining the model of grammatical metaphor, Halliday (1994: 342) identifies realisation as the relation between semantics and lexicogrammar:

In other words, for any given semantic configuration, there will be some realisation in the lexicogrammar — some wording — that can be considered CONGRUENT; there may be also various others that are in some respect 'transferred', or METAPHORICAL.

And Halliday (1994: 343) identifies realisation as the relation between paradigmatic system and syntagmatic structure:

(i) selection of process type: material, mental, relational, with their various intermediate and secondary types; realised as

(ii) configuration of transitivity functions: Actor, Goal, Senser, Manner, etc. representing the process, its participants, and any circumstantial elements.

[3] As previously explained, in Fawcett's model, 'instance at the level of form' corresponds to grammatical structure.  That is, Fawcett's model confuses the relation between system and instance (instantiation) with the relation between paradigmatic system and syntagmatic structure (realisation).