Misrepresenting Halliday (1993) On The Realisation Statements 'Preselect' And 'Classify'

Fawcett (2010: 182):

Halliday's Operation (f) is roughly equivalent to our Operation 5, with the important difference that ours is expressed in terms of preferences — and preferences can set the probability of a feature being selected on re-entering the system network to any point on a scale from 0% to 100%. In contrast, the more limited concept of preselection implies an absolute probability (i.e., 100%) that the specified feature will be selected. Interestingly, it appears from Halliday's examples that his "Classify" operation is essentially the same as his "Preselect" operation, and both Matthiessen & Bateman (1991) and Matthiessen (1995) simply omit "Classify" from their lists. The two are therefore treated as equivalent in Figure 11.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is misleading, because it is untrue. Halliday's realisation statement (f) is

• 'Preselect' some feature at a lower rank (e.g., preselect actor : human collective),

whereas Fawcett's Operation 5 is

• Prefer certain features on re-entry to the system network , including preselection (= 100% preference). 

These are not 'roughly equivalent', because Halliday's statement does not involve re-entry, and because Fawcett's Cardiff Grammar does not include a rank scale.

[2] This is misleading, because it is untrue. Halliday's realisation statement (d) is

• 'Classify' an element (e.g., classify process as mental : cognition);

As can be seen, 'classify' affects features of a given rank, whereas 'preselect' affects features of the rank below.

[3] It is therefore misleading to treat the two realisation statements as equivalent. In downplaying these differences between Halliday's realisation statements and Fawcett's realisation operations, Fawcett is downplaying the disadvantages of not including a rank scale in his model.