Seriously Misrepresenting Halliday (1993) And Halliday (1994) On The Rank Scale

Fawcett (2010: 270):

The overall picture that one gets from IFG, then, is that the concept of the 'rank scale' is just as central in IFG as it was in "Categories", but with far stricter conditions on 'rank shift'. The Sydney Grammar handles as 'hypotaxis' what other grammars treat as the embedding of clauses.

On the other hand, we should also recall the apparent diminution of the focus on 'rank' in Halliday's later descriptions of the theory, which we noted when surveying the basic concepts of "Systemic theory" and IFG in Chapters 5 and 6 respectively. As we noted in Section 6.2.2 of Chapter 6, Halliday chooses to make the point, when discussing the concept of 'rank' in IFG, that

the issue is whether, in a comprehensive interpretation of the system, it is worth maintaining the global generalisation, because of its explanatory power, even though it imposes local complications at certain places in the description" (Halliday 1994:12).

In view of the changes to the SF model of syntax set out here, it is tempting to see this statement as an expression of Halliday's willingness to reconsider the concept of the 'rank scale' — though in reality such a change of position seems improbable. Yet it is hard to think of any other interpretation of the omission of the concept of the 'rank scale' from "Systemic theory" (Halliday 1993).

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, this is not misleading, because it is true.

[2] To be clear, this is still misleading, because it is still untrue. As previously demonstrated, this misrepresentation arises from Fawcett's failure to understand embedding in terms of rankshift and the principle of exhaustiveness.

[3] To be clear, this is still misleading, because it is still untrue, as previously demonstrated here in the examination of Fawcett's Chapters 5 and 6.

[4] This is misleading, because it misrepresents Halliday (1994: 12). On the one hand, Halliday was specifically concerned with a rank scale of writing systems, not lexicogrammar; and on the other hand, he was more generally concerned with the theoretical trade-off between the explanatory power of a global generalisation and the cost of creating local complications, such as the question as to whether one or two sub-sentence levels are motivated in such a hierarchy:

[5] This is deeply and seriously misleading, because it is the exact opposite of what is actually true. Halliday (1995 [1993]: 273):