Fawcett's Claim That IFG-Style Analyses Are Misleading

Fawcett (2010: 152):

However, Halliday also occasionally states that it is desirable to represent the clause in terms of the features selected in the system networks that show the language's 'meaning potential', i.e., the features from which it has been generated. The problem is that he provides no examples of descriptions of this sort. It is hard to understand why this should be so. It may be that the need to provide a systemic representation seems less urgent to those working in the Sydney Grammar, because an IFG-style analysis already expresses (though in a misleading way, I would of course say) the multifunctional nature of language. 

In the Cardiff Grammar, on the other hand, a systemic representation in terms of the features that have been chosen in generating the text is regarded as a vital second level of representation in any attempt to represent the meanings as well as the forms of language. As the lower half of Figure 10 shows, the systemic representation takes the form of a display of the key features from the selection expression, arranged in separate lines, such that each feature is entered in a column below the element to whose generation it contributes. Since it is at this level that meanings are modelled, it is natural to show the strands of meaning at this level too — and there is therefore no need to show them at the level of form as well. The representation of functional structure in the Cardiff framework is therefore much simpler than its equivalent in IFG, in that there is only a single structure at this level — not the five to seven (or even sometimes eight or more) structures that are shown in the analyses in IFG. To see the difference, compare the structural analysis in Figure 10 with that in Figure 7.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is misleading, because it is untrue. Halliday & Matthiessen (2004) provides examples for theme (p101), mood (p158-9, 164-7) and transitivity (p304-5).

[2] To be clear, this is easier to understand if Halliday's own explanation in the Introduction to the first two editions of IFG is taken into account. Halliday (1985 and 1994: xv):

[3] As previously demonstrated, this is misleading because it is untrue.

[4] As previously explained, the Cardiff Grammar analysis (Figure 10) confuses the syntagmatic axis (structure at the level of syntax) with the paradigmatic axis (features at the level of semantics) and, in doing so, misattributes features of the clause to individual elements of clause structure.

[5] As this wording makes clear, Fawcett mistakes systemic features (paradigmatic axis) for syntagmatic structures ('strands of meaning').

[6] As previously explained, the Cardiff Grammar analysis (Figure 10) violates this stipulation by including metafunctional meanings at the level of form "as well". The interpersonal meanings are Subject, Complement and Adjunct; the experiential meanings are Agent and Affected (Medium).

[7] To be clear, this is misleading, because the Cardiff Grammar analysis (Figure 10) is not simpler,  when taken as a whole, since it requires more levels and more types of meaning to provide an analysis equivalent to that of the "Sydney Grammar" (Figure 7). Consider how little Figure 10 actually analyses, if the semantic level is not included.

[8] To be clear, this is misleading, because it is untrue. As previously explained, the analyses of clause structure in IFG feature only three lines of meaning, one for each metafunction: theme (textual), mood (interpersonal) and transitivity (experiential). Fawcett inflates this number by misconstruing information as a system of the clause, and counting mood and theme structures twice. Fawcett's own model (Figure 10) involves seven levels analysis.