Deploying Two Logical Fallacies In Misrepresenting Halliday (1994) On Thematic Structure

Fawcett (2010: 116): 

The two examples on pages 375-6 of IFG provide a final example of how complex Halliday's representations can become: each has ten lines of analysis. The reason is that Halliday shows three lines of analysis within the THEME line, on the grounds that there are three degrees of structural delicacy in them. However, it should be said that Halliday's analysis of 'multiple theme' in this way is one with which many other systemic functional grammarians disagree — as also do other grammarians (e.g., Huddleston 1988).

Blogger Comments:

[1] On the one hand, this is misleading, because the lines of analysis are not restricted to clause rank analysis. On the other hand, it deploys the red herring logical fallacy, since the number of represented analyses is irrelevant to the value of the analyses themselves.

[2] This is misleading, because it misrepresents Halliday's analysis. The theme analyses represent one line of meaning realised in clause structure, textual meaning, and present the Theme element as consisting of textual, interpersonal and topical (experiential) elements.

Halliday (1994: 375):

Halliday (1994: 376):

[3] This is misleading. The mere fact that people disagree with an analysis does not, in itself, constitute an argument against the analysis.  This constitutes a version of the logical fallacy known as argumentum ad populum.  Huddleston's arguments will be examined for validity when Fawcett presents them later in his publication.