Fawcett's Claim That Halliday's Analysis Of A Clause Typically Involves At Least Seven Lines Of Analysis

Fawcett (2010: 115):

We come finally to the seventh line of analysis shown in the standard analyses of texts in IFG . This shows textual 'cohesion', but as Halliday does not propose it as a type of structure we shall pay no further attention to it here. 

Halliday's analysis of a clause therefore typically involves at least seven lines of analysis. It is as if the variation in the structures of the various lines of analysis is seen as a phenomenon of language that is to be celebrated. But we must ask: "Is it a linguistic phenomenon rather than a metaphenomenon, i.e., a product of Halliday's version of the theory?". I shall argue in Section 7.4 (1) that it is indeed a metaphenomenon; (2) that this approach to representing the multi-functional nature of language brings with it enormous problems; and (3) that there is a preferable approach that achieves the same goals. 

Blogger Comments:

[1] This raises the question as to how, or if, the Cardiff Grammar integrates cohesion into its model.

[2] This is misleading.  Here Fawcett has switched back from his own terminology, 'text-sentence', on which his argument has been constructed, to the SFL notion of 'clause' and repeated his false claim that a clause "typically involves at least seven lines of analysis", instead of three.

To recap, in these seven lines of analysis, Fawcett includes:

• information structure, which is not a system of the clause, but of the informations unit,
• logical structure, which is not a system of the clause, but of the clause complex,
• cohesion, which is not a system of the clause, or any other grammatical unit,

and misrepresents the interpersonal structure of the clause as two lines of analysis, instead of one.

[3]  The fatuousness of this remark can be made self-evident by transposing its type to physics:

it is as if the number of different subatomic particles is a physical phenomenon that is to be celebrated.

[4] To be clear, any proposed linguistic structure can be nothing other than a construal ("product") of one theory of language or another.  Such construals are assessed in terms of their validity.

[5] It will be seen in the examination of Section 7.4 that the enormous problems that Fawcett identifies only arise, once again, from his own misunderstandings of Halliday's theory.

[6] To be clear, the approach that Fawcett finds preferable is his own, and whether or not it achieves the same goals will be examined when his approach is finally revealed.