Grammar Construes Semantics

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 512):

In all these metafunctions, the language does not take over and reproduce some readymade semantic space. There is no such space until the grammar comes along to construe it.

The Textual Metafunction

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 512):

Textually, the grammar is the creating of information; it engenders discourse, the patterned forms of wording that constitute meaningful semiotic contexts. From one point of view, therefore, this "textual" metafunction has an enabling force, since it is this that allows the other two to operate at all. But at the same time it brings into being a world of its own, a world that is constituted semiotically. With the textual metafunction language not only construes and enacts our reality but also becomes part of the reality that it is construing and enacting.

The Interpersonal Metafunction

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 511):

Interpersonally, the grammar is not a theory but a way of doing; it is our construction of social relationships, both those that define society and our own place in it, and those that pertain to the immediate dialogic situation. This constitutes the "interpersonal" metafunction, whereby language constructs our social collective and, thereby, our personal being. The word "construct" is used to suggest a form of enactment — though something on which we inevitably build a theory, of ourself and the various "others" to whom we relate.

The Ideational Metafunction

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 511):

Ideationally, the grammar is a theory of human experience; it is our interpretation of all that goes on around us, and also inside ourselves. There are two parts to this: one the representation of the processes themselves, which we refer to as the "experiential"; the other the representation of the relations between one process and another, and it is this that we refer to as the "logical". The two together constitute the "ideational" metafunction, whereby language construes our experiential world. The word "construe" is used to suggest an intellectual construction — though one that, of course, we then use as a guide to action.

The Metafunctions

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 511):

We have stressed all along that a language is a system for creating meaning; and that its meaning potential has evolved around three motifs — what we refer to as the "metafunctions" of ideational, interpersonal and textual, with the ideational in turn comprising an experiential component and a logical component. These are the multiple aspects of the content plane — the grammar (in its usual sense of lexicogrammar) and the semantics. Since the powerhouse of language lies in the grammar, we shall refer to them here as aspects of the grammar; but it is important to insist that they could not be "in" the one without also being "in" the other. It makes no sense to ask whether the metafunctions are grammatical or semantic; the only possible answer would be "yes".

Physical, Biological, Social And Semiotic Systems As Different Stances Taken By The Observer

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 510):

Meanwhile what has become clear is that there is the (by now) familiar interplay between phenomenon and observer. We have talked of physical, biological, social and semiotic systems as being categories of phenomena — which in an important sense they are. But they may also be thought of as different stances taken by the observer; thus we find physical and biological systems being interpreted as semiotic systems, in a kind of intellectual game which turns out to reveal new aspects of physical and biological processes. It is obviously beyond our scope — and indeed beyond our capabilities — to pursue these matters here. But they add a whole new dimension to our grammatics, to the concept of a theory of grammar as a metatheory of human experience.

Blogger Comments:

See, for example, Towards A Linguistic Science Of Sciences.

The Problem With Thinking Of Language As Physical, Biological, Social And Semiotic

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 510):

But there is one problem with this intellectual strategy: that the code for systems of this fourth type has not yet been cracked. There are two aspects to this problem. One is that we do not yet fully understand the nature of a linguistic fact: this is the problem of instantiation. The other is that we do not yet fully understand the nature of the relationship that is the semiotic analogue of the "cause : effect" of classical physics: this is the problem of realisation. 

It is true that Saussure, and even more Hjelmslev, took important strides towards an understanding; but we are still arguing about what Saussure really meant (to us it seems that he had not clearly separated the two concepts of instantiation and realisation), and Hjelmslev has largely been ignored — Sydney Lamb (e.g., 1966a,b) is almost the only person who has tried to follow through his achievements. Probably it will be well into the next century before the picture comes to be clear.

Why Language Is The Prototypical Social Semiotic System

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 509-10):

Language is set apart, however, as the prototypical semiotic system, on a variety of different grounds: it is the only one that evolved specifically as a semiotic system; it is the one semiotic into which all others can be "translated"; and (the least questionable, in our view) it is the one whereby the human species as a whole, and each individual member of that species, construes experience and constructs a social order. In this last respect, all other semiotic systems are derivative: they have meaning potential only by reference to models of experience, and forms of social relationship, that have already been established in language. It is this that justifies us in taking language as the prototype of systems of meaning.

Language As Physical, Biological, Social And Semiotic Systems

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 509):

It can be studied as a physical system, in acoustics and in the physical aspect of articulation (air pressure measurements and so on). It can be studied as a biological system, in the physiological aspect of articulation and in the neurophysiology of the brain. It can be studied as a social system, as the primary mode of human interaction. And of course it can be studied as a semiotic system, in the core areas of lexicogrammar, phonology and semantics. If linguistics is conceived of as a discipline — that is, as defined by its object of study (in this case, language) — then it must encompass within itself theories and methods of all four different kinds.

Meaning: Value That Is Construed Symbolically

 Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 509):

Meaning can be thought of (and was thought of by Saussure) as just a kind of social value; but it is value in a significantly different sense — value that is construed symbolically. Meaning can only be construed symbolically, because it is intrinsically paradigmatic, as Saussure understood and built in to his own definition of valeur. Semiotic systems are social systems where value has been further transformed into meaning.

Semiotic Systems In The Linear Taxonomy Of Systems

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 509):

A biological system is a physical system with the added component of "life"; it is a living physical system. In comparable terms, a social system is a biological system with the added component of "value" (which explains the need for a synoptic approach, since value is something that is manifested in forms of structure). A semiotic system, then, is a social system with the added component of "meaning".

Blogger Comments:

Note that 'semiotic' here means 'social semiotic'. On this model, the somatic semiotic system of perception is a biological system 'with the added component of meaning'.

Shifting Perspectives For Understanding Different Systems

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 508):

For understanding physical systems, the critical approach was that of measurement; the dominant theme was mathematics, and the perspective essentially a synoptic one. But this did not serve well for interpreting biological systems; these are better understood in terms of change, so the perspective had to be altered, to become dynamic, with evolution as the dominant theme. For social systems, however, the dynamic perspective by itself lacked explanatory power, and in the present century it was overtaken by another synoptic approach, the theme of structuralism. Our conception of the nature of social systems has been largely moulded in structuralist terms.

The Problematic Relationship Between System And Instance

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 508):

What is problematic is the relationship between the system and the instance; or, to put it another way, what is the nature of a "fact" in these different realms of experience? A biological fact is different from a physical fact, and a social fact is different again; the relationship between that which can be observed, and the system-&-process lying behind what is observed, is significantly harder to establish when the system is a social system, because the phenomena involved are simultaneously of all three kinds.

System Complexity

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 508):

Physical systems are just physical systems. Biological systems, however, are not just biological systems; they are at once both biological and physical. Social systems are all three: social, biological and physical. This makes them increasingly difficult for us to comprehend. This is not the same as saying that social systems are more complex than biological ones, or biological than physical; there are too many different ways in which things can be complex, for any such observation to make much sense. But they are increasingly complex in this particular respect; and this means that it is increasingly difficult to recognise the essential nature of the phenomena concerned.

A Linear Taxonomy Of Types Of System-&-Process

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 507):

We are treating language as a semiotic system, and it may be helpful to locate this concept within the context of the history of ideas, albeit in a very sketchy fashion. As we conceive of it, the term "semiotic" is framed within a linear taxonomy of "physical — biological — social — semiotic"; and the term "system" is a shortened form of "system-&-process", there being no single word that encapsulates both the synoptic and the dynamic perspectives (we have referred to the term "climatic system" with the same observation on how it is to be understood).

The Semantic System: Polysystemicity

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 506):

The system is polysystemic from the point of view of contextual diversification: given a particular context type or a set of related types, some parts of the overall semantic system will be deployed in a systematic way whereas others will remain inactive. 

For instance, if contexts where the goal is to instruct somebody in a procedure were the only source of evidence for the semantic system, we could safely ignore figures of sensing and saying and the logical relationship of projection. 

And yet in the general system, which is the overall meaning-making resource deployed across all the different types of context, these figures and sequences turn out to be essential both to the functioning of the semantic system and to our own understanding of its fundamental principles.

The Semantic System: Complementarities

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 505-6):

The system often embodies complementarities providing more than one way of construing similar types of experience — for example, construing perception either as inert sensing or as active behaviour, or construing phenomena of all kinds either congruently or metaphorically. 

If one is concerned with a restricted, designed semiotic system, then the appropriate strategy, when one is faced with more than one option in natural language, may be to select one canonical form; but if one's concern is with language as a whole, the only response that will hold up in the long term is to acknowledge the variation and explore its function.

Fawcett's Alternative Model

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 505):

Fawcett's alternative model for relational processes, with its particular features such as treating 'giving' and 'placing' as agentive possessives and locatives ('make ... have', 'make ... be at') rather than as material dispositives, has to be understood in its total explanatory context:  

(i) in relation to its repercussions within the transitivity system, both the trinocular perspective on transitivity itself 

(from above, as generalisations about meaning; 

from roundabout, its consequences for agnateness, delicacy and the move towards lexis; 

from below, as regularities in the realisation) 

and the overall topology of the content — transitivity in relation to the semantic construal of causality, agency, disposal, and so on;

(ii) in relation to Fawcett's architectural design, which differs from ours in having a single system-structure cycle for the two strata of semantics and lexicogrammar (his "syntax") and then adding a further level of description that is expressed in cognitive terms.

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, the punches that Halliday & Matthiessen are pulling here are that Fawcett's alternative model has theoretical consequences that reduce its explanatory value. For a 'gloves off' examination of Fawcett's alternative model, see The Cardiff Grammar.

Choosing Between Models

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 504-5):

The point to be brought out here is that there is no unique 'correct description' of a semiotic system, or of any phenomena that have to do with meaning. Stratal relations are not relations of cause & effect, and a stratified system cannot be reduced to constructions of content-expression pairs.

This is not to say, of course, when a choice is made among a set of alternative descriptions for representing features in grammar that are inherently indeterminate, like the types of process in a transitivity system, that the choice is insignificant, or merely random. On the contrary: it resonates throughout the grammatics as a whole (or should do, if the description has any claim to be comprehensive). Again there is the analogy between the grammatics and the grammar: just as no region of the grammar is isolated from the rest, so every descriptive statement has consequences throughout the description.

Fawcett's Model Of Relational Processes

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 504):

And even within our own configurational model of English there is often considerable 'play'. A good example of this is Fawcett (1987). … 

Fawcett incorporates into the "relational: possessive" category, processes of giving and acquiring; reduces the circumstantial to locational processes only; and includes within these, processes of going and sending (for discussion of this area, see Davidse, 1996b). As is to be expected, this alternative analysis embodies certain generalisations that are not made in our account of figures, and ignores certain others which are. 

(His abandonment of the distinction between attributive and identifying seems harder to motivate, since this cannot in fact be explained as a textual (thematic) system in the way that Fawcett proposes; cf. Davidse, 1996a.)

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, this is a tactful identification of some of the inconsistencies in Fawcett' model.

Martin's Interpretation Of Nuclear Transitivity

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 504):

However, even if we adopt this approach, this still does not impose a single determinate form on the description. As we have already noted, Martin, in his systemic treatment of processes in Tagalog (1996a), offers a different interpretation of nuclear transitivity: he defines it in terms of orientation, rather than configuration, and hence operates with a significantly different concept of participant function.

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, this is a tactful identification of the nature of Martin's misunderstanding of SFL transitivity.

The Trinocular Perspective On Process Topology

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 503-4):

In our treatment of figures in the ideation base, we stressed the fluidity of the boundaries among the various types of figure: doing-&-happening, sensing, saying, being-&-having. We construe these in the grammar as a system of process types: at primary delicacy, material, mental, verbal, relational. These are sections on a continuum — or, better, regions in an n-dimensional semantic space; but they are not demarcated by any uniquely self-selecting set of criteria. 

A stratified semiotic defines three perspectives, which (following the most familiar metaphor) we refer to as 'from above', 'from roundabout', and 'from below': 

looking at a given stratum from above means treating it as the expression of some content, 

looking at it from below means treating it as the content of some expression, while

looking at it from roundabout means treating it in the context of (i.e. in relation to other features of) its own stratum.

Adopting this trinocular perspective we have identified the various process types in terms of their nuclear transitivity; this seems to us the most operationally useful approach, since it takes account of 

what they mean, 

how they are expressed, and

what their systemic potential is

— without privileging any one perspective at the expense of the other two.

The Functionality Of The Indeterminacy Of Language

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 503):

We have drawn attention at various points to the overall indeterminacy of language, something that we see as a necessary condition of its ability to function in the construal of experience. Our experience of the 'goings-on' in and around ourselves is so rich and many-faceted that no semiotic system that attempted to impose on it a rule-bound, determinate frame of reference would be 'functional' as a resource for survival.

We have tried to show such indeterminacy as a positive feature, and build it into our suggested meta-construal — not as some wayward or exceptional extravagance but as an unmarked state of affairs that is recognised to be the norm. To this extent, our grammatics becomes itself a metaphor for the grammar — that is, to the extent that we are able to enact this indeterminacy in our own representations.

A Two-Stratal Approach To Transitivity

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 503):

… we treat transitivity both within semantics (the paradigmatic and syntagmatic organisation of figures) and within lexicogrammar (the grammar of transitivity): it is a system construed within the content plane of language — both in the ideational component in the lexicogrammar and in the ideation base. This two-stratal approach to transitivity makes it possible to model the resource of grammatical metaphor and is fundamental to work on multilingual systems for generating text.

The Semantics And Grammatics Of Intentionality

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 478):

To the extent that intentionality enters into the semantic system of a language, it could in principle be construed ideationally as some aspect of the overall system of figures or be enacted interpersonally as a modality of inclination. If it is construed ideationally, it could in principle be a global property of a figure as a whole or a local property of the process or a participant.

In English, intentionality can be enacted within the interpersonal system of imperative modality (modulation) in the form of inclination, as in he won't be ordered around ('refuses to be'). It is independent of ideational agency; inclination is oriented towards the Subject, i.e. the modally responsible element of the clause, rather than (say) the Actor or Agent (as our passive example illustrates).

Intentionality can be construed in the clause as circumstances of Manner ('according to plan', e.g. he found the book by chance; he turned left by mistake; he turned left intentionally) and as verbal group complexes of projection or enhancement realising the Process (e.g., she intended to leave at 4; she happened to be in the neighbourhood). It may also be a factor in certain lexical contrasts within delicate process types; but we have no evidence that intentionality is a primary variable in the semantic system of figures and its grammatical construal in transitivity. Rather, whether an example is read as construing something as intentional or non-intentional will depend on a variety of factors, such as the consciousness of the most active participant.

The Transitivity And Temporal Files Of The Process

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 468-9):

As we have seen, the two perspectives represent two different kinds of profile. One is the configuration of process, participants, and circumstances — the transitivity profile; and the other is the occurrence or unfolding of an event through time — the temporal profile.

The two perspectives are not unrelated, of course. As we shall see, the specification of an element of transitivity structure may determine the temporal profile: the created Goal that constitutes the completion of the performance of the process (as in Mr. Standings built a house), a Range that constitutes its finite scope (They sang two Hungarian folk songs), a destination that gives its spatio-temporal endpoint (He walked to the store), a resultative Attribute that constitutes the (qualitative) endstate (He was shot dead), and so on. But the mere presence of such an element is not sufficient to determine the temporal profile; it is also influenced by the 'boundedness' of the elements: are they in infinite supply or not — a definite number of units, or an indefinite number? In general, then, the temporal profile is determined by other factors such as the presence, and the boundedness in quantity, of participants and circumstances.

The Temporal Instantiation Perspective On The Process

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 468):

In the temporal instantiation perspective, the issue is the occurrence of the process as an event located in time: how does it unfold through time, and what is its temporal profile? Here the relevant variables are such as the following:

1. Is the process homogeneous during its occurrence or does it decompose into a sequence of distinct phases (stages); is it a mini-tableau or a mini-drama?

2. Is the period of occurrence a relatively short interval, or is it an extended interval?

3. Is the whole period of occurrence in view or only a phase of it (e.g. beginning or end)?

4. Does the process tend to occur once or repeatedly?

These questions lead to typologies that include terms like stative, dynamic, perfective, imperfective, punctiliar, iterative, durative, and so on.

The distinction most commonly drawn here is based on change. Is there change over time or not; i.e. is there a change in the course of the occurrence of the process? The most common dichotomy is state vs. non-state (with terminological oppositions such as stative/ dynamic); this has been favoured both by philosophers (see e.g. Nordenfelt, 1977, and his references) and by linguists (see e.g. Quirk et al, 1985 and their references). States and non-states have different temporal profiles. States are homogeneous; any time we check a process whose occurrence is a state, it will be the same. Non-states, or changes, are not homogeneous; during the course of the occurrence of a process something will have changed, for example the spatial location of a participant (as with processes of movement) or parts of a participant, or some other attribute of a participant (e.g. possession or location in a 'quality space' such as colour or temperature).

The Participant-Organising Perspective On The Process

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 467-8):

In the participant-organising perspective, it is the nature of the participants involved in the process that determines the different process types. Relevant variables include the following:

1. Is some participant created, brought into existence, by the process?

2. Is some participant restricted to conscious being?

3. Can some participant be a metathing as well as a thing?

4. Is the process directed towards some participant?

5. Does the process benefit some participant?

6. Does the process occur spontaneously or does it need an input of energy?

7. Does the process affect some participant materially or does it impinge on its consciousness?

8. Is the process symmetric?

9. Is the process reflexive?

Questions such as these lead to typologies with terms like action, transaction, happening, sensing, saying, relation, existential, ambient, and so on. In the typology presented here as part of the ideation base, there are two very general considerations:

1. process type: what kind of reality does the figure or process configuration pertain to (the material world, the world of consciousness, the world of symbolisation, the world of abstract relations)?

2. agency: is the occurrence of the process (in conjunction with the medium) caused by an entity that is external to it (an agent)?

How Formal Syntax Obscures The Different Perspectives On The Process

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 466-7):

The difference between the two perspectives has been obscured for two reasons. In the first place, syntacticians have continued to tend to fail to recognise the unity of the verbal group, favouring instead a Predicate-based constituent, the Verb Phrase, with the Auxiliary then detached within it or located outside it altogether; furthermore, parts of the verbal group complex have been exported to a higher node (e.g. seem, continue). In the second place, the preference for immediate constituency rather than rank-based models of constituency effectively masks the generalisations that can be made about any one rank.

Two Perspectives On A Process

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 466, 467):

… a process is both an organiser of participants and an event that is instantiable in time. These two perspectives lead to different criteria for establishing process typologies. For example, will have left is the Process part of they will have left the house by now, where it organises the participants they and the house; but it also has internal organisation as an event will —> have —> left: see Figure 12-1.

The two perspectives are associated with different grammatical units, the clause (for the participant organising perspective) and the verbal group (for the temporal instantiation).

Syndromes Of Features That Occupy A Region Of Semantic Space

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 466):

For example, if we recognise figures of saying (usually overlooked as a distinct type), this goes together with certain other features: with the distinction between phenomena and metaphenomena, and between ideas and sayings, with the organisation of projections as sequences rather than as figures, with the identification of symbol sources as a kind of participant, and with the recognition of circumstances of matter. In other words, we have to consider syndromes of features that occupy a region of semantic space.

The Semantics Of Attributive Clauses

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 450):

More generally, the Medium is related as a member of a set, which is defined either by a quality or by a class. The relation is a composite of the participants (the Carrier and the Attribute) and the nuclear relation. The nuclear relation is not necessarily a state; it can be either a being or a becoming, both of which are located in time, as are processes in general.

But its participants are static things; the Carrier is an individual or class, and the Attribute is a lasting quality or a wider class. The Attribute of the relation of becoming applies to the Carrier in the final state of the becoming; it is a resultative Attribute.

The Fundamental Problem With The View That Language Distorts

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 447-8):

In rejecting both these views of language as distortion, we are not propounding an alternative version according to which language is a perfect match. What is wrong with all such conceptions is that they misconstrue the nature of a semiotic system — the fundamental relation of realisation to which we are always having to return. A semiotic system is not some kind of outer garment which may either reveal or conceal what is beneath. Rather, it is a transformation of experience into meanings, and each stratum within the system is construed by, and construes, all the rest. A "language", in this sense, may be artificially constructed or engineered, like a scientific theory or a logic; but all such semiotics are ultimately related to natural language, and natural language is still an accomplice in their overall construction of reality.

But whether or not it is engineered in this way, natural language will continue to evolve. The artificial languages of the 17th century were never actually used; but this did not mean that the forms of natural language persisted without change. On the contrary, new registers were always evolving, some of them as part of the ongoing reconstruction of experience in the form of systematic knowledge and experimental science.

Blogger Comments:

It was Samuel Johnson who said 'Language is the dress of thought', but he also said 'Words are but the signs of ideas', that is: the realisations of meanings. 

The View That Syntax Distorts Semantics: Universalist Arguments

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 447, 447n):

Such analyses ['surface x is really deep y'] were often supported by universalist arguments such as "negation is a verb in certain languages, so it is reasonable to claim that it is really a verb in all". … they tended to make deep structure, the 'real' structure, look like predicate logic. Surface structure came out looking like a (transformationally) twisted version of logical structures. But predicate logic had been derived from one particular area of the grammar, a simplified version of the experiential aspect of the clause; it could be used as an idealised model of certain types of figure, for the purpose of explicit rule-based reasoning, but it was not intended to be a tool for analysing the entire semantic structure of a natural language.² This view has largely been abandoned and the notion of a semantically irresponsible surface structure is no longer generally held.

 

² In terms of our model of a stratified metalanguage, we can see that taking the categories of predicate logic (or any other logical systems) to be linguistic ones constitutes a strata! slippage: categories from the level of representation in the metalanguage are imported into the theoretical account of the object language.

Blogger Comments:

In Chomskyan linguistics, this is the relocation of the universals of Platonic realism — which are said to exist outside and independently of human minds — into the res cogitans of Cartesian dualism.

The View That Syntax Distorts Semantics

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 446):

The view that syntax distorts semantics implies that the relation of grammar to meaning is indirect and arbitrary. This view became tenable in modern linguistics, where meaning was either excluded from its scope altogether, as among structuralist linguists in the U.S., or, with Chomsky, kept at a distance by the metaphor of deep and surface structure in the syntax, only the former being semantically responsible. This paved the way for a number of analyses on the model of 'surface x is really deep y'. We find suggestions such as the following: adjectives are really verbs (e.g. Chafe, 1970), nouns are really verbs (cf. Bach, 1968), pronouns are really articles (Postal, 1966), negation is really a [higher] verb, tense is really a [higher] verb (cf. Huddleston, 1969), auxiliaries are really full verbs, verbal group complexes are really reductions of embedded clauses, moods are really separate clauses of saying, and so on.

Language Defined In Communicational Terms

 Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 446):

The same view of language as distortion is frequently to be met with when language is contained within a model of communication, where a common motif is that language is a vehicle for lying, or at least for concealing the truth. One might surmise that, if language is defined in communicational terms, as a means of transmitting information — especially if this is combined with a semantics based on considerations of truth — then this is how it is likely to appear.

Origins Of The View That Language Distorts The Picture Of Reality

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 445):

This belief in the distorting effect of language was propounded by the early European humanists, who held that mediæval scholars had focussed too strongly on language, whereas the real task of the scientist was to see through the verbal disguise and penetrate to the reality underneath (for example, Francis Bacon's well-known warnings against the seductive power of natural language). Natural languages were considered to be inadequate vehicles for the new scientific knowledge; hence it was necessary to construct artificial languages to record, transmit and extend it. These artificial languages would, it was thought, be more in harmony with the objective world of experience. This same attitude continues to prevail in the ways people talk about language in our own time.

Whorf's Critique Of The View That Language Distorts The Picture Of Reality

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 445):

After characterising the position of 'natural logic' in this way, Whorf (op cit.: 211) goes on to identify two problems with it:

Natural logic contains two fallacies: First, it does not see that the phenomena of a language are to its own speakers largely of a background character and so are outside the critical consciousness and control of the speaker who is expounding natural logic. Hence, when anyone, as a natural logician, is talking about reason, logic, and the laws of correct thinking, he is apt to be simply marching in step with purely grammatical facts that have somewhat of a background character in his own language or family of languages but are by no means universal in all languages and in no sense a common substratum of reason.

Second, natural logic confuses agreement about subject matter, attained through use of language, with knowledge of the linguistic processes by which agreement is attained: i.e., with the province of the despised (and to its notion superfluous) grammarian.

Whorf's Exposition Of The View That Language Distorts The Picture Of Reality

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 444-5):

The view that language distorts the picture of reality, and that there is a mismatch between language and thought … was discussed many years ago by Whorf, in terms which are still relevant today; Whorf refers to it as the "natural logic" view:

According to natural logic, the fact that every person has talked fluently since infancy makes every man his own authority on the process by which he formulates and communicates. He has merely to consult a common substratum of logic or reason which he and everyone else are supposed to possess. Natural logic says that talking is merely an incidental process concerned with communication, not with formulation of ideas. Talking, or the use of language, is supposed only to "express" what is essentially already formulated nonlinguistically. Formulation is an independent process, called thought or thinking, and is supposed to be largely indifferent to the nature of particular languages. Languages have grammars, which are assumed to be merely norms of conventional and social correctness, but the use of language is supposed to be guided not so much by them as by correct, rational, or intelligent THINKING.

Thought, in this view, does not depend on grammar but on laws of logic or reason which are supposed to be the same for all observers of the universe — to represent a rationale in the universe that can be "found" independently by all intelligent observers, whether they speak Chinese or Choctaw. In our own culture, the formulations of mathematics and of formal logic have acquired the reputation of dealing with this order of things: i.e., with the realm and laws of pure thought. Natural logic holds that different languages are essentially parallel methods for expressing this one-and-the-same rationale of thought and, hence, differ really in but minor ways which may seem important only because they are seen at close range. It holds that mathematics, symbolic logic, philosophy, and so on are systems contrasted with language which deal directly with this realm of thought, not that they are themselves specialised extensions of language. (Whorf, 1956: 207-8)

The Notion Of Language Distorting Reality

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 444):

Attempts to create an ontology without reference to language in general, or without reference to lexicogrammar in particular, seem to derive from the belief, familiar in the history of Western thinking, that language comes between us and a 'real' or scientific understanding of the world, that it somehow distorts our awareness of reality. There are two somewhat distinct versions of this belief.  

The first is the notion that language distorts reality — or, as a variant of this, that language distorts our thinking (which includes our thinking about reality). This is extra-linguistic deception: language is deceiving us by the way it represents something else.  

The second is the notion that syntax distorts semantics. This is intra-lingiiistic deception: language is deceiving us by the way one part of it represents another part.

Language As The Primary Semiotic System For Transforming Experience Into Meaning

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 444):

Here let us just reiterate our view that all of experience is construed as meaning. Language is the primary semiotic system for transforming experience into meaning; and it is the only semiotic system whose meaning base can serve to transform meanings construed in other systems (including perceptual ones) and thus integrate our experience from all its various sources. 

It might be objected that this view leaves no room for scientific or metaphysical models — for example, that we do not allow for the possibility that science has advanced our understanding of the world. This objection would be misplaced: such models are construed in the ideation base as domain models within the overall meaning potential.

The Interstratal Accountability Of A Theory Of Semantics

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 441-2):

Throughout our discussion of the organisation of the meaning base, we have made reference both to intra-stratal considerations (such as patterns of agnation and the transphenomenal types that emerged in the course of our exploration) and to inter-stratal considerations. With respect to the latter, we have foregrounded considerations 'from below', from the stratum of lexicogrammar. 

There were two main reasons for this: on the one hand, the meaning base has to be realised in worded texts and the statements of realisation will be simpler if the resources of wording are part of the picture from the start; on the other hand, the relationship between meaning and wording, between the system of semantics and that of lexicogrammar, is a natural one: they are both strata of the content. 

Although it has not been part of the central argument about particular distinctions in the meaning base, we have also referred to the relationship between semantics and context. Just as the meaning base has to be accountable lexicogrammatically, it also has to be accountable contextually. In our discussion, we emphasised register or functional variation as one of the keys to the relationship between semantics and context.

Autonomous Syntax vs A Natural Relation Between Lexicogrammar And Semantics

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 437-8):

In the logical-philosophical approach, within generative linguistics, interpretive semantics has focussed on the question of how semantic representations can be derived from below, from syntactic ones; and an important aspect of the debate in the late 60s and early 70s was precisely concerned with the directionality of interstratal mappings and the nature of the inter-stratal boundary.  

One key question that emerged, particularly in the 1970s and early 1980s, was whether syntax is autonomous or not. In the standard Chomskyan theory it was; but this was rejected by Montague and those who were influenced by his idea of building syntactic and semantic specifications "in tandem" (as in the successive developments of GPSG and HPSG).  

Within the rhetorical-ethnographic approach, we have taken the position that not only is lexicogrammar not autonomous, but it is natural in relation to semantics: our approach to the ideation base rests on this theoretical assumption. This is what explains the further possibility of grammatical metaphor, opened up at the interface between semantics and lexicogrammar.

Fawcett's Cognitive Model Of An Interactive Mind vs SFL Theory

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 429):

… in our model there are two system-structure cycles, one in the semantics and one in the lexicogrammar. Terms in semantic systems are realised in semantic structures; and semantic systems and structures are in turn realised in lexicogrammatical ones. As we saw in Chapter 6 in particular, grammatical metaphor is a central reason in our account for treating axis and stratification as independent dimensions, so that we have both semantic systems and structures and lexicogrammatical systems and structures. Since we allow for a stratification of content systems into semantics and lexicogrammar, we are in a stronger position to construe knowledge in terms of meaning. That is, the semantics can become more powerful and extensive if the lexicogrammar includes systems. 

It follows then … that for us "knowledge of the universe" is construed as meaning rather than as knowledge. This meaning is in the first instance created in language; but we have noted that meaning is created in other semiotic systems as well, both other social-semiotic systems and other semiotic systems such as perception. Our account gives language more of a central integrative role in the overall system. It is the one semiotic system which is able to construe meanings from semiotic systems in general.

Fawcett's model, although in certain ways closer to mainstream cognitive science than ours, is also a systemic-functional model. In other words it is within the same general theoretical framework as that within which our own work is located.

Blogger Comments:

Fawcett's model is actually a development of Halliday's first theory, Scale and Category Grammar, not Systemic Functional Grammar, as Fawcett (2010) readily admits, and, as a model of syntax, its focus is on structure and form, not system and function. See the close examination of Fawcett's model here.

Fawcett's view of Halliday & Matthiessen (1999) is less than complimentary, and writing on Sysfling on 29 June 2011, he unwittingly disclosed his inability to understand its content:

Indeed, if Michael Halliday and Christian Matthiessen had formed a clear view of the way in which the choices described in their Construing Experience through Meaning determine the choices in the major system networks of the lexicogrammar, they would surely have said so in that book. I have looked hard for a section that makes this connection, but I have yet to find it. This suggests that the model proposed there is simply one possible, half-complete hypothesis that needs to be subject to the normal process in science of development, testing, evaluation, revision (or rejection), retesting, re-evaluation, and so on.

Fawcett's Cognitive Model Of An Interactive Mind

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 428-9):

Within systemic-functional linguistics, Fawcett (e.g. 1980) has pioneered a "cognitive model of an interactive mind". There are many fundamental similarities with the approach we are taking here, e.g. in construing an experiential system of process configuration within the content plane. However, there are two related differences of particular interest in the context of our present discussion:

(i) in Fawcett's model, there is only one system-structure cycle within the content plane: systems are interpreted as the semantics, linked through a "realisation component" to [content] form, which includes items and syntax, the latter being modelled structurally but not systemically;

(ii) in Fawcett's model, the semantics is separate from the "knowledge of the universe", with the latter as a "component" outside the linguistic system including "long term memory" and "short term sort of knowledge".

Blogger Comments:

This is misleading, because 'form' in Fawcett's model also includes expression. Fawcett (2010: 35n, 39):

I take a different view, as this book shows, in that I regard the level of meanings within the 'lexicogrammar' as the key level of linguistically-realised meaning, such that it is realised in any one of (1) syntax, (2) intonation or punctuation (depending on the medium of discourse) and (3) items. …

The term "form" is used here in a wider sense than that in "Categories" (or indeed any of Halliday's later writings) because it includes, as well as syntax and grammatical and lexical items, components for intonation or punctuation (depending on whether the medium is speech or writing).

Lakoff's Cognitive Semantics vs A Social Semiotic Perspective

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 428):

Thus while our view that the ideational semantic system construes human experience is similar to what Lakoff (1987; 1988) calls the position of "experientialist cognition" (the position he has himself espoused, in contrast with what he calls "objectivist cognition"), it differs in that for us construing experience is an intersubjective process. It is at once both semiotic (the construction of meaning) and social (as in Peter Berger's "social construction of reality": cf. Berger & Luckmann, 1966, Wuthnow et al, 1984). It is the intersection of these two perspectives that characterises the social semiotic we are attempting to present in this book (cf. Lemke, 1995; Thibault, 1993).

Jackendoff's Conceptual Semantics vs A Socio-Semiotic Perspective

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 428):

Returning to Barwise's contrast between the mind-oriented view of meaning and the world-oriented view, we can note Barwise's general argument against the mind-oriented view:

... representational mental states have meaning in exactly the same way that sentences and texts have meaning, and saying what one means is a complicated matter. This makes attempts to explicate linguistic meaning in terms of mental representations an evasion of the main issue: How do meaningful representations of all kinds, sentences and states, mean what they do? (Barwise, 1988: 38)

We acknowledge this problem, but we believe the solution lies in a socio-semiotic view of meaning such as the one we are presenting here. Jackendoff views information about the projected world in conceptual terms; hence reality construction is seen as a process taking place within the consciousness of the individual. 

Our own view, that the projected world is a semantic construction, foregrounds the interpersonal perspective: meaning is construed in collaboration. Meanings are exchanged; and the "projected world" is constantly calibrated against the interpersonal negotiation of meaning. This means that consensus and conflict take over much of the domain that is usually conceptualised in terms of truth and falsehood (cf. Eggins, 1990). The semantic system (as part of the linguistic system) is shared; it is part of our social being.

Some Limitations Of Jackendoff's Ontology

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 427-8):

Jackendoff contrasts his ontology with that of "standard first-order logic", and makes the important point that the ontological classes of logic are vastly under-differentiated from a linguistic point of view — that this type of logic is not an adequate theory of the semantic structure of natural language. Compared to this type of logic, Jackendoffs ontology is much more highly differentiated However, it is not very rich compared to what we believe is needed in an account of the ideation base.

The classes recognised are roughly a list of semantic correlates of word classes at primary or secondary delicacy (such as one finds in traditional grammars). The list is not exhaustive, it does not include any significant paradigmatic organisation (i.e., it contains no organisation showing how types are arranged into a subsumption lattice) and some of the most revealing distinctions of the ideational semantics of English are absent — e.g. the distinction between phenomena and metaphenomena, the recognition of the role played by projection, and the expansion of the system through grammatical metaphor.

These are general observations. Since Jackendoff relies on reference as a source of evidence for the ontological distinctions, he might in fact have taken note of the semantically crucial phenomena of 'extended reference' (the move to 'macro') and reference to fact (the move to 'meta') discussed in Halliday & Hasan (1976).

Jackendoff's Ontology

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 427):

Jackendoff takes seriously the relation between conceptual organisation and syntactic organisation; this might be challenged from a classical formalist point of view, but from a functional point of view it is quite natural. In particular, he identifies correspondences between syntactic classes (i.e., categories in generative terms) and conceptual ones. Such correspondence is in fact a major source of evidence for the conceptual ontology. 

In particular, Jackendoff uses wh-items and non-interrogative reference items to support the ontology; he recognises things, amounts, places, directions, manners, events and actions. For instance, both things and places have to be recognised because English has both the forms what did you buy? and where is my coat? 

The ontology is tabulated in Table 10(1) below together with the grammatical evidence for each type. The left-most column provides a rough translation into our ideation base ontology.

The Transcendent Orientation Of Conceptual And Cognitive Semantics

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 426):

Jackendoff and a number of others now prefer the second position [semantic structures as subset of conceptual structures]. It is also shared by e.g. Langacker (1987), representing cognitive semantics from the other US coastline:

Meaning is a mental phenomenon that must eventually be described with reference to cognitive processing. I therefore side with Chafe (1970, p. 74-76) by adopting a "conceptual" or "ideational" view of meaning ... I assume it is possible at least in theory (if not yet in practice) to describe in a principled, coherent, and explicit manner the internal structure of such phenomena as thoughts, concepts, perceptions, images and mental experience in general. The term conceptual structure will be applied indiscriminately to any such entity, whether linguistic or nonlinguistic. A semantic structure is then defined as a conceptual structure that functions as the semantic pole of a linguistic expression. Hence semantic structures are regarded as conceptualisations shaped for symbolic purposes according to the dictates of linguistic convention, (pp. 97-8)

From our standpoint, this appears as a transcendent interpretation of meaning: we on the other hand prefer an immanent approach to meaning, where "conceptual organisation" is interpreted as meaning that is created by various semiotic systems, among which language is the primary one.

The Relation Of Conceptual To Semantic Organisation In Conceptual Semantics

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 425-6):

Jackendoff (1983) presents a major study of semantics and cognition from a generativist point of view. As part of that study, he presents an ontology of conceptual types that are linguistically motivated. While his purpose is theoretical rather than descriptive, and the ontology is not very extensive, it has become a frame of reference for work in this area.

Jackendoff sees semantic organisation as part of conceptual organisation — that part which can be verbalised; this is a position that distinguishes him from a number of other generativists. He identifies two possible positions on the relationship between semantic organisation and conceptual organisation (1983: Section 1.7; interpreted by us in Figure 10-3):

(1) "conceptual structure could be a further level beyond semantic structure, related to it by a rule component, often called pragmatics, that specifies the relation of linguistic meaning to discourse and to extralinguistic setting."

(2) "semantic structures could be simply a subset of conceptual structures — just those conceptual structures that happen to be verbally expressible".

Cognitive Semantics: Lakoff, Langacker, Johnson, Chafe, Talmy

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 425):

On the West Coast, a number of linguists have developed a "cognitive" alternative to generative linguistics. Some of them (e.g., Lakoff, Langacker) come from a generative background (Lakoff s starting point was generative semantics), but have made a radical departure from this tradition. They have widened the scope of study relative to the generativist research agenda so as to include metaphor as a prominent feature (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, and other subsequent writings, such as Lakoff, 1987, 1988) and a detailed theoretical model of the relationship of language to cognition and perception (Langacker, 1987). A few have also oriented their work towards discourse (notably Chafe, e.g. 1979; 1987; cf. also Tomlin's, 1987a, discussion of the linguistic reflection of cognitive events). 

This version of cognitive semantics is arguably more closely associated with the rhetorical and ethnographic tradition (perhaps not so much in terms of its roots, but in terms of where it is headed); cognitive anthropology, with its interest in folk taxonomy and more recently in cultural models, provides a meeting point between the two.

Various aspects of the West Coast work in cognitive semantics are relevant to the organisation of the ideation base; for example, the work on metaphorical systems already mentioned, Talmy's (e.g. 1985) work on lexicalisation, and Chafe's (1970) early work on the organisation of meaning.

Conceptual Semantics: Jackendoff

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 424-5, 424n):

On the East Coast, Jackendoff (e.g., 1983), drawing on his earlier work on interpretive semantics (Jackendoff, 1972), has developed a generativist type of cognitive semantics,⁴ which he calls conceptual semantics. This is integrated with a number of aspects of modem generative theory, e.g. the X-bar syntactic subtheory. Jackendoff puts forward a conceptual ontology and suggestions for conceptual structure that we shall return to below. This version of cognitive semantics is arguably the more closely associated with the logical and philosophical tradition (cf. Jackendoff, 1988: 81-2).

 

⁴ Jackendoff calls his approach conceptual semantics and Lakoff calls his cognitive semantics. We use the term cognitive semantics as the generic term for cognitively oriented approaches to semantics.

(Mind-Oriented) Cognitive Semantics

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 424):

Cognitive semantics has emerged out of the generative tradition in the last ten to fifteen years. It is a natural development of the general cognitivist research program that began in the 1950s with the birth of cognitive science, Artificial Intelligence, and Chomsky's cognitively oriented linguistics.

Those adopting the cognitive approach to semantics share certain assumptions about semantic organisation as part of conceptual organisation, and tend to reject formal, Montague-style semantics, as indicated by the passages from Jackendoff and Lakoff quoted above. However, they seem to fall into two groupings, which can be conveniently described in terms of the US coastline [east vs west].

The Constructivist View Of Reality In SFL Theory

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 423-4):

We also have emphasised that reality is not something that is given to us; we have to construct an interpretation of it — or, as we prefer to put it, we have to construe our experience. Interpretation is a semiotic process, and our interpretation takes into account not only the concrete natural world but also the socio-cultural realm that is brought into existence as a semiotic construct (see Hasan, 1984a, for discussion, with reference to Whorf).

Blogger Comments:

Strictly speaking, in this view, 'reality' is the interpretation, not what is interpreted, and the 'concrete natural world' is also a semiotic construct: a construal of experience as meaning: perceptual and linguistic.

(World-Oriented) Formal Semantics Viewed From (Mind-Oriented) Cognitive Semantics: Lakoff

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 423):

Writing from a different orientation within cognitive semantics, Lakoff (e.g. 1988) is also very critical of what he calls "objectivist metaphysics" (metaphysical realism). He presents a detailed critique of this position, also noting the problem that arises if meanings are located in the world:

To view meaning as residing only in the relationship between symbols and external reality is to make the implicit claim that neither colour categories, nor any other secondary category, should exist as meaningful cognitive categories. Yet colour categories are real categories of the mind. They are meaningful, they are used in reason, and their meaning must be accounted for. But the mechanism of objectivist cognition cannot be changed to accommodate them without giving up on the symbolic category of meaning. But to do that is to abandon the heart of the objectivist program, (p. 132)

(World-Oriented) Formal Semantics Viewed From (Mind-Oriented) Cognitive Semantics: Jackendoff

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 423):

Jackendoff (1983: Ch. 2), working within cognitive semantics, argues that the account of 'aboutness' in formal semantics is simplistic:

... I will take issue with the naive (and nearly universally accepted) answer that the information language conveys is about the real world, (p. 24) ... If indeed the world as experienced owes so much to mental processes of organisation, it is crucial for a psychological theory to distinguish carefully between the source of environmental input and the world as experienced. For convenience, I will call the former the real world and the latter the projected world (experience world or phenomenal world would also be appropriate), (p. 28) ...  

It should now be clear why we must take issue with the naive position that the information conveyed by language is about the real world. We have conscious access only to the projected world — the world as unconsciously organised by the mind; and we can talk about things only insofar as they have achieved mental representation through these processes of organisation. Hence the information conveyed by language must be about the projected world. We must explain the naive position as a consequence of our being constituted to treat the projected world as reality.

According to this view, the real world plays only an indirect role in language: it serves as one kind of fodder for the organising processes that give rise to the projected world. If this is the case, we must question the centrality to natural language semantics of the notions of truth and reference as traditionally conceived. Truth is generally regarded as a relationship between a certain subset of sentences (the true ones) and the real world; reference is regarded as a relationship between expressions in a language and things in the real world that these expressions refer to. Having rejected the direct connection of the real world to language, we should not take these notions as starting points for a theory of meaning. Thus an approach such as that of Davidson (1970), which attempts to explicate natural language semantics in terms of Tarskian recursive theory of truth, is antithetical to our own inquiry, (pp. 29-30)

The projected world in Jackendoff's account is the result of creative acts of perception: it is constructed as a model of sensory input, but with the significant addition of information from the perceptual system itself.

(World-Oriented) Formal Semantics Viewed From (Mind-Oriented) Cognitive Science

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 422-3):

It would seem that formal semantics is quite far from the concerns of cognitive science; but formal semantics is often carried out within the broad program that cognitive scientists adopt. Writing from a cognitive standpoint, Johnson-Laird (1983) assesses model-theoretic semantics as follows:

The power of model-theoretic semantics resides in its explicit and rigorous approach to the composition of meanings. ... Some idealisations definitely complicate the 'ecumenical' use of model-theoretic semantics as a guide to psychological semantics. One such idealisation is the mapping of language to model without any reference to the human mind, and this omission gives rise to certain intractable difficulties with the semantics of sentences about beliefs and other such prepositional attitudes. These difficulties are readily resolved within the framework of mental models, (p. 180)

... model-theoretic semantics should specify what is computed in understanding a sentence, and psychological semantics should specify how it is computed, (p. 167)

Johnson-Laird's own psychological approach is one based on mental models.

Formal Semantics: The Model Theoretic Approach To Meaning

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 422):

The model theoretic approach to meaning is a transcendent one: meanings are located in the world outside of language. This is seen as a strength by the proponents of the model theoretic approach. Dowty et al (1981) criticise various other theories of meaning for ignoring the "inherent aboutness of language", its relationship to the real world:

Any theory which ignores this central property, it is argued, cannot be an adequate theory of natural language. Examples would be theories which, in effect, give the meaning of a sentence by translating it into another language, such as a system of semantic markers or some son of formal logic, where this language is not further interpreted by specifying its connection to the world. The approach of Katz and his coworkers seems to be of this sort (Katz and Fodor, 1963; Katz & Postal, 1964), as is that of Jackendoff (1972) and of the framework of Generative Semantics (Lakoff, 1972; McCawley, 1973; Postal, 1970).

Formal Semantics: Meaning As Extensional And Intensional

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 422):

In modelling meaning, formal semantics models it as both extensional and intensional: extensional meaning is cast in terms of sets of entities in a model of some world, and intensional meaning is the relation between a linguistic expression and its extension in any possible world. Formal semantics has thus been concerned with how semantic representations can be related to some extra-linguistic world model. Dowty et al (1981: 5) emphasise the relationship between language and the world in their introductory characterisation of truth conditional semantics:

"... truth conditional semantics, in contrast to other approaches mentioned [including Katz & Fodor, Jackendoff, and generative semantics, MAKH & CM], is based squarely on the assumption that the proper business of semantics is to specify how language connects with the world — in other words, to explicate the inherent "aboutness" of language."

This is, of course, an ideational orientation: the focus here is on representational meaning only. One central method has been to build models of the world in set theoretic terms, and to relate these to linguistic expressions — the model theoretic approach.

Formal Semantics As Syntagmatically Organised

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 422):

In its relation to syntax, the formal approach to semantics is compositional, being formulated in terms of syntagmatic organisation: the meaning of larger syntagmatic units such as sentences is built up as functions of smaller units such as nouns and verbs. This semantic composition is in tandem with the syntax, so what becomes important is the nature of the syntactic rules themselves, not just the result of their application. Montague used a form of categorial grammar in formalising the rules of syntax for this purpose.

The World-Oriented Tradition: The Origin Of Formal Semantics

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 419):

The development of logic is of interest in itself in the present context as a tradition of 'semiotic design' whereby logical systems were developed out of the resources that have evolved in language. This design of logical systems was earned out to meet certain restricted purposes having to do with reasoning; but once such systems had been developed, philosophers and linguists turned them back on language and used them as systems for representing and theorising meaning. In the present century, when formal semantics was developed for underpinning logical systems, this was then taken as a model for work on the semantics of natural languages.

Important Developments In The Logico-Philosophical Tradition

 Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 419, 420):

Here we are merely noting some particularly important developments. These are charted in Figure 10-2.

The Logico-Philosophical vs Rhetorical-Ethnographic Orientations To Meaning Summarised

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 418):

The two different orientations are summarised with the internal differences we have just reviewed in Figure 10-1.

The Semantic Focus Of The Logico-Philosophical vs Rhetorical-Ethnographic Orientations

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 417-8):

…we can note that the two orientations differ in what kind of semantic organisation they focus on. 

In the logico-philosophical orientation scholars have focussed on syntagmatic organisation: they have been concerned with semantic structure — including principles relating to structure such as those of compositionality and semantic decomposition. For example, in their analysis of the senses of "words", they have tended to analyse these as being composed of semantic components, semantic markers, semantic primitives or the like (following Katz & Fodor, 1963, in the generative tradition). 

In the rhetorical-ethnographic orientation scholars have focussed on both paradigmatic and syntagmatic organisation, often foregrounding the paradigmatic: they have been concerned with the semantic system, with the meaning potential — including principles of taxonomy and the metafunctional simultaneity of systems. For example, scholars in "ethnoscience" have studied folk taxonomies of animals, plants, diseases and the like; and systemic-functional scholars have tried to map out semantic systems such as those of speech function and conjunction. Another example is our own work on the ideation base presented here.

The Metafunctional Scope Of The Logico-Philosophical vs Rhetorical-Ethnographic Orientations

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 417):

The two orientations differ in the metafunctional scope of their models of semantics. 

In the logico-philosophical orientation, meaning is closely associated with representation, reference, denotation, extension or 'aboutness', so the metafunctional scope is restricted to the ideational metafunction: semantics means ideational semantics. 

In the rhetorical-ethnographic orientation, meaning is closely associated with rhetorical concerns, so the metafunctional scope involves all three metafunctions: semantics means ideational, interpersonal and textual semantics; it is multifunctional. 

If interpersonal and textual meanings are dealt with by logico-philosophical accounts (they are often outside their scope), they are handled under the heading of pragmatics rather than the heading of semantics. 

For example, speech act theory was developed as a logico-philosophical interpretation of speech function (or rather of its ideational construal) and has come to be included within pragmatics.

The Basic Unit Of Meaning In The Logico-Philosophical vs Rhetorical-Ethnographic Orientations

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 417):

The approaches differ with respect to what they take as the basic unit of meaning. 

In the logico-philosophical orientation, the basic unit tends to be determined "from below", from grammar: since sentences are seen as encoding propositions, the basic unit of semantics is the proposition (as in propositional calculus).

In contrast, in the rhetorical-ethnographic orientation, the basic unit tends to be determined "from above", from context: since language is seen as functioning in context, the basic unit of semantic is the text (see Halliday & Hasan, 1976; Halliday, 1978a). 

So in the logico-philosophical orientation, semantics means in the first instance propositional semantics, whereas in the other orientation it means text semantics.

The Transcendent View Of Meaning: World-Oriented vs Mind-Oriented

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 416-7):

The modern split within the "transcendent" view is between what Barwise (1988: 23) calls the world-oriented tradition and the mind-oriented tradition, which he interprets as public vs. private accounts of meaning:

The world oriented tradition in semantics, from Tarski on, has focussed on the public aspect of meaning by trying to identify the meaning of a sentence or text with its truth conditions, the conditions on the actual world that are needed to insure its truth (Davidson 1967 and Montague 1974).  

The psychological tradition, by contrast, has focussed on the private aspect by trying to identify meaning with an intrinsically meaningful mental representation (Fodor 1975 or Jackendoff 1983 e.g.).

The world-oriented tradition interprets meaning by reference to (models of) the world; for example, the meaning of a proper noun would be an individual in the world, whereas the meaning of an intransitive verb such as run would be a set of individuals (e.g. the set of individuals engaged in the act of running). 

The mind-oriented tradition interprets meaning by reference to the mind; typically semantics is interpreted as that part of the cognitive system that can be "verbalised".

Meaning Seen As Transcendent

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 416):

Many traditional notions of meaning are of the second kind — meaning as reference, meaning as idea or concept, meaning as image. These notions have in common that they are 'external' conceptions of meaning; instead of accounting for meaning in terms of a stratum within language, they interpret it in terms of some system outside of language, either the 'real world' or another semiotic system such as that of imagery.

The Location Of Meaning In The Logico-Philosophical vs Rhetorical-Ethnographic Traditions

 Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 416):

The two orientations towards meaning thus differ externally in what disciplines they recognise as models. These external differences are associated with internal differences as well.

First, the orientations differ with respect to where they locate meaning in relation to the stratal interpretation of language:

(a) intra-stratal: meaning is seen as immanent — something that is constructed in, and so is part of, language itself. The immanent interpretation of meaning is characteristic of the rhetorical-ethnographic orientation, including our own approach.

(b) extra-stratal: meaning is seen as transcendent — something that lies outside the limits of language. The transcendent interpretation of meaning is characteristic of the logico-philosophical orientation.

The Logico-Philosophical vs Rhetorical-Ethnographic Orientations in Western Thinking About Meaning

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 415-6):

We can identify two main traditions in Western thinking about meaning (see Halliday, 1977):

(i) one oriented towards logic and philosophy, with language seen as a system of rules;

(ii) one oriented towards rhetoric and ethnography, with language seen as resource.

It is typically the logical-philosophical tradition that provides the background for work on knowledge representation and proposals for the knowledge base. Since the 50s, a link has been forged between this tradition and cognitivism under the general rubric of cognitive science. 

However, although it is less often referred to, the rhetorical-ethnographic tradition is equally relevant to work on the modelling and representation of knowledge — for example, in recent times, the work on folk taxonomy carried out by anthropologists and anthropological linguists (often in the framework of ethnoscience) and the work on intellectualisation in the Prague School framework are central to understanding the organisation of the ideation base. 

Our own work here falls mainly within the second tradition — but we have taken account of the first tradition, and the general intellectual environment in which versions of our meaning base are being used also derives primarily from the first tradition. Indeed, the two traditions can in many respects be seen as complementary, as contributing different aspects of the overall picture. Our own foundation, however, is functional.

Mainstream work in psycholinguistics, e.g. Miller & Johnson-Laird (1976), is in general located within the logico-philosophical tradition. Two other distinctive contributions to the study of meaning within linguistics, those of Lamb (1964, 1992) and of Wierzbicka (1980, 1988), derive in more or less equal measure from both the major intellectual movements we have referred to.

The two orientations towards meaning thus differ externally in what disciplines they recognise as models.

Example Of The Discourse Function Of Ideational Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 402-3):

In the second type [of ideational metaphor] to be exemplified, a clause or clause complex is nominalised as a Medium participant in a clause whose Process simply means 'happen' (i.e., existence of a process: happen, occur, take place; begin, continue, stop). The Medium constitutes a thematic quantum of information, as in the following example:

However, Einstein realised that if an observer was travelling alongside a light wave at the same speed as the light wave, the wave would essentially disappear, as no wave peaks or troughs would pass by the observer. But the disappearance of light waves because of the motion of an observer should not happen according to Maxwell, so Einstein concluded that either Maxwell's equations were wrong or that no observer could move at the speed of light.

Here the metaphorical clause makes it possible to summarise the preceding clause complex the wave would essentially disappear, as no wave peaks or troughs would pass by the observer as a thematic nominalised participant, the disappearance of light waves because of the motion of an observer.

The Textual Motivation Of Metaphorical Mental Clauses Of Perception

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 401-2):

Metaphorical mental clauses of perception, such as the fifth day saw them at the summit (cf. Halliday, 1985: 324-5), may serve to create two quanta of information, Senser (Theme) + Phenomenon (New); consider the following example:

Summer finds campers and hikers descending on the mountains in throngs

Here the metaphorical clause summer finds campers and hikers descending on the mountains in throngs is textually motivated in terms of both THEME and INFORMATION. From the point of view of THEME, it provides summer as the unmarked Theme of the clause — one instalment in the method of development. From the point of view of INFORMATION, it groups campers and hikers descending on the mountains in throngs as one quantum of information (the Phenomenon of the metaphorical mental clause); contrast the congruent version, which has the same Theme (marked) but a different culmination of the New: 

In summer, campers and hikers descend on the mountains in throngs.

The Discourse Function Of Ideational Grammatical Metaphors

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 401):

These two clause systems, THEME IDENTIFICATION and THEME PREDICATION, are components of the overall system of THEME in English grammar. They produce structures in which identifying relational processes are used to reconstrue figures as equations (the two together are referred to as "thematic equatives" in Halliday, 1985: 41-4). But ideational grammatical metaphors typically have a discourse function of this kind; they are as it were pressed into service by the textual metafunction, to provide alternative groupings of quanta of information.