Extra-Linguistic Categories Are Construed As Semantic Categories

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 96-7):

We saw in the examples of how categories are first developed that young children will typically construe concrete phenomena that are part of the field of visual perception they share with their interactants. In other words, they are construing into linguistic meanings their experience of the material world as it is construed in the categories from another semiotic system, viz. (visual) perception. These extra-linguistic categories are construed as the signification of the semantic categories of the ideation base — always in some particular situation when the child first engages with them. To construe experience of concrete phenomena as meaning is thus to construe some signification which lies outside the ideation base as a value which is internal to the ideation base system. Part of the power of categorisation is that extra-linguistic phenomena that are quite varied in signification can be construed as alike in value.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the 'material world' is meaning construed by semiotic systems.

[2] To be clear, concrete phenomena are meaning, in this instance: meanings of perceptual systems.

[3] To be clear, on Edelman's model of brain function, relations between perceptual meanings become organised into systems that he (unfortunately) terms 'conceptual'. That is, some of the work of relating perceptions is already done before language reconstrues them.

Stratal Angles On Construal

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 96, 97):

A phenomenon of experience is construed as a category in the ideation base by being given a location in the three semantic networks described in the preceding section. This taxonomic, meronymic and eco-functional location is the category's value (valeur) in relation to the other categories within the ideation base. By being assigned a value internal to the ideational system, a semantic category is also being related to categories that lie beyond semantics itself. On the one hand it is being related to categories within systems that lie outside language but which the semantic system interfaces with; on the other hand it is being related to the grammatical categories in terms of which it is realised. Figure 2-18 shows these three strata! angles on the process of construal.

Blogger Comments:

Importantly, these are categories of perceptual semiotic systems. SFL Theory makes the assumption of immanence: all meaning is within semiotic systems.

A General Semogenic Strategy

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 95):

Construing a category thus includes locating it not only taxonomically and meronymically but also eco-functionally, as in the case of 'conscious being' just referred to. We noted above in connection with the cat example how the fact that a participant serves a participant role in a figure can be viewed either from the perspective of the figure or from the perspective of the participant (i.e. as a property of the participant). If cats kill mice, the ideation base accommodates the view from the angle of the figure: 'cats kill mice'; but it also accommodates the view from the angle of the participant: 'animals that kill mice'. Here the figure in which cats participate as actors has been construed as if it was a property, so that the category of cats might be construed within the system of the ideation base by means of the definition 'cats are animals that kill mice'. (In formal systems of representation, this can be expressed by means of lambda abstraction.)

There is a general semogenic strategy at work here. We referred to 'sequences', 'figures' and 'elements' as three orders of complexity in Section 2.1. The shift in perspective means that configurations of meanings that are of a particular order of complexity can be accessed through selection not only in their normal environment (within phenomena of the next higher order of complexity) but also within phenomena of lower orders of complexity. Through this semogenic strategy of opening up the possible domains of selection, a great deal of experiential complexity can be imported into the construal of a participant.

The Network Of Selection Is Inter-Axial

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 94-5, 96):

The network of selection is inter-axial in that it relates syntagmatic specifications to paradigmatic ones; it 'cuts across' the paradigmatic organisation of the ideation base, establishing correspondences between paradigmatic types through the syntagmatic functions associated with them, as we have just illustrated by reference to Figures 1-12 and 2-6. We can trace one further example from sequence via figure to element: see Figure 2-17.

Selections Are Bidirectional

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 94, 44):

Selections are bidirectional. We have already seen that functions associated with paradigmatic types constitute 'structural properties' by which these types are distinguished and that selections provide further information about these 'properties'.

Thus Figure 1-12 above illustrates how a figure of spearing is characterised by reference to the function of Means, which selects for the thing 'spear'. Conversely, semantic types which are selected are characterised by the functional environment within which they are selected. Thus the weapon 'spear' is characterised by its potential for serving as Means in a figure of spearing. Similarly, part of the meaning of a 'conscious being' is that it has the potential for serving in the Senser role of a figure of sensing.

Eco-functional Selection

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 94, 58):

Taxonomic elaboration and meronymic extension form complementary networks of relations that together make up the paradigmatic organisation of the ideation base. They define, as we have noted, options in delicacy of categorisation and in delicacy of focus. The third type of network involved in the organisation of the ideation base which we identified above serves to relate paradigmatic organisation and syntagmatic organisation. Specifically, it relates syntagmatic functions or roles associated with paradigmatic types to the paradigmatic types that can serve in these functions. For example, the syntagmatic function 'Senser' is associated with the paradigmatic type 'sensing', and it is related to the paradigmatic type 'conscious being', since only participants of this subtype can serve as Sensers.

Figure 2-6 above shows this relation, together with a set of other such relations. We shall refer to such network relations as eco-functional selection in order to indicate that they specify the syntagmatic environment of semantic types by showing them as selections for syntagmatic functions. Such selections have been referred to as "pre-selections", but in order to avoid any connotations of temporal sequence, we prefer the term "selection" for such relations in the ideation base.

Delicacy Of Categorisation (Hyponymy) vs Delicacy Of Focus (Meronymy)

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 92):

While the choice of 'level' in hyponymic elaboration is the choice in delicacy of categorisation, the choice of level in a meronymic taxonomy is the choice in delicacy of focus. The focus is typically on the whole (i.e., the most inclusive region within the meronymy) even if a specific part is particularly important (cf. Langacker, 1984).

Process Meronymies?

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 91):

The examples of meronymies given above come from the region of 'participant' within the ideation base. It is not clear to what extent, or in what sense, meronymic taxonomies extend beyond that region. We can certainly recognise that processes have phases — 'begin to do, keep doing, stop doing'; but it is not immediately clear that these form a process meronymy analogous to the parts of a participant. Although we might reconstrue he began to dance metaphorically as the beginning of his dance on the model of 'the beginning of the book', this is a metaphorical reification of the process 'dance' and we have to be cautious in interpreting the implications for the congruent process 'dance'. If we probe a little further, we can see that process phase is concerned with the occurrence of a process in time — its temporal unfolding: 'begin to do' means 'begin to be actualised (to occur) as doing in time'. In contrast, participant meronymy is not tied to the existence of a participant in referential space.

Why Meronymic Taxonomies Are Localised Within Hyponymic Taxonomies In SFL

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 90-1):

And this is in fact how we shall model them — as local meronymic taxonomies, applicable to some particular region of the hyponymic taxonomy, and not as one global meronymy superimposed on our taxonomy. There would seem to be far too many discontinuities to create a global meronymy; meronymies tend to occur only where there are contiguous parts of an independent whole. Thus while concrete objects are regularly construed meronymically (with the human body as both a representative example and a model for other meronymies), substances are not; substances are extended through measure ('unit of') rather than through part ('part of'). Similarly, taxonomies tend to be more extended meronymically for concrete regions than for abstract ones (although even things in an abstract region can have parts, e.g. aspect of an idea). Thus there is a generalised set of categories such as part, element, component, aspect; and also a generalised set 'facets' of spatial or temporal orientation, top, bottom, side, front, back, middle, centre; beginning, middle, end. There are more specific variants for parts of particular concrete things, such as facade, roof, wall [of a building]; ceiling, floor, wall [of a room]; slope, peak [of a mountain]; limb, trunk, root, bark [of a tree]; skin, core, pips [of an apple]; crust, crumb [of bread]; preface, epilogue [of a book].

Meronymic Extension (vs Hyponymic Elaboration)

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 89, 90):

The ideation base construes phenomena as organic wholes that may take on roles in other kinds of phenomena; but it also deconstrues many such organic wholes into their component parts. When these component parts are phenomena of the same type — participants (e.g., chair: legs, seat, back), figures (e.g., baking a cake: stages in the procedure), this is known as meronymy (or meronymic taxonomy; cf. meros 'part'). We find local taxonomies of this kind, often interlocked with hyponymies; for example, see Figure 2-16. Taxonomies thus embody the two types of expanding relationships we mentioned at the beginning of this section — extension and elaboration. The meronymic type of taxonomy is extension, whereas the hyponymic type is elaboration.

Degrees Of Delicacy In The Lexical Zone

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 89, 90):

Within the lexical zone, we have already referred to the differentiation according to the degrees in delicacy; in particular, the 'basic' degree of delicacy stood out as most highly elaborated. There are also grammatical reactances indicating the taxonomic differentiation between the "basic" degree of delicacy and lower degrees of delicacy, at least in cases where the taxonomic relationship is of a particular kind. For example, the less delicate category may be construed by a mass noun whereas the more delicate, basic degree categories may be construed as count nouns: see Table 2(8).

Wierzbicka (1985: 321-2) identifies this phenomenon and shows that it is not arbitrary. Her explanation is in fact that the relationship between e.g. 'furniture' and 'chair, table' as super-category and subcategory is not the normal 'kind of relationship between e.g. 'bird' and 'swallow, magpie', but rather a grouping of different kinds according to similarity in use:

Thus, supercategones such as bird or tree are 'taxonomic', i.e. they belong to hierarchies of kinds (where each 'kind' is identified on the basis of similarity between its members); supercategories such as crockery, cutlery or kitchenware are not taxonomic — they include things of different kinds, grouped on the basis of contiguity and/ or similarity of function, not on the basis of similarity of form.

We take delicacy to include both types of the relationship of supercategory to subcategory — both the "taxonomic" and the "non-taxonomic" ones. However, it would seem that with the relationship between 'furniture' and 'chair', 'table' &c. we are on the borderline between elaboration and extension.

Semantic Types Are Classified By Grammatically-Construed Criteria And Structural Roles

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 87-8):

Semantic types in different taxonomic regions are distinguished according to different criteria; and they have different sets of roles. But the different criteria and sets of roles are construed within the grammar. …

(i) Phenomena within different taxonomic regions are classified according to different kinds of grammatically construed criteria. For example:

(a) perception (figures: subtype of sensing): according to means of perceiving: see (means: eyes)/ hear (means: ears)/ smell (means: nose)/...

(b) transformation (figures: subtype of doing): according to result, e.g. break (result: into pieces)/ melt (result: into liquid state)/ shrink (result: smaller)/ pulverise (result: powder, dust)/...

(c) motion (figures: subtype of doing): according to manner, location, purpose, e.g. fall (location: downwards)/ stroll (purpose: for pleasure)/ flee (purpose: to escape)/ walk (manner: with legs, fairly slowly)/...

(d) higher animals (elements: subtype of conscious thing, at the taxonomic depth of species): according to epithets of age and sex, e.g. cow (sex: female, age: adult), bull (sex: male, age: adult), calf (age: nonadult).

(e) artefacts (elements: a subtype of object): according to material, purpose, e.g. containers (purpose: to contain substances) — barrel (material: wood), basket (material: cane or other woven material), basin (material: metal), bowl (material: earthenware or glass).

(ii) Phenomena within different domains have different grammatically construed structural roles associated with them. For example:

(a) perception: perceiver & phenomenon being perceived;

(b) concrete thing (elements: subtype of object): various epithets, specifically of physical dimensions such as size, shape, weight, colour and age.

(c) weight (elements: subtype of quality): tensor, showing degree of intensity.

The Construal Of Delicacy In Ideational Semantics

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 87, 88):

In general, then, we can say that the move in delicacy in the ideation base from 'most general' to 'most delicate' is construed lexicogrammatically as the move from 'grammar' to 'lexis': see Figure 2-15. 

This is of fundamental significance in the construal of semantic categories. The early part of the scale of delicacy is construed in the grammatical 'zone'. This zone provides the resources of grammatical schematisation for construing more delicate categories: those categories are realised lexically but construed according to the systemic parameters of the grammar. For example, the grammar of the nominal group provides a schema for construing various delicate categories of things, by classifying, describing, ordering and other such strategies.

Lexically- vs Grammatically-Construed Taxonomies

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 86):

So far, our discussion of taxonomic elaboration has focussed on those steps in delicacy that tend to be construed lexically in the lexicogrammar. But in the overall meaning base, lexically construed folk and scientific taxonomies do not start at the highest degree of generality in delicacy; they are ordered in delicacy after those systems that are construed grammatically. For example, while 'plant' is the "unique beginner" of a particular folk taxonomy, there are several steps in the construal of things that are more general than this — steps that are constructed in the grammar, in categories such as 'thing', 'conscious/ non-conscious thing', 'countable/ non-countable thing' and the like.

The Move From Folk To Scientific Taxonomies

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 85-6, 7):

The ideation base embodies not only folk taxonomies but also a range of taxonomic models such as those used by experts and by scientists. These are all variants within the overall ideational system. …

The move from folk taxonomies towards scientific ones involves both an increase in steps in delicacy and a change in the criteria used for classification. Wignell, Martin & Eggins (1990) give examples from the classification of roses and of birds of prey. … For birds of prey, they contrast a folk taxonomy with a "birdwatchers' vernacular taxonomy". We superimpose these to give a sense of the difference; see Figure 2-14. 

These examples show the difference in degree of delicacy quite clearly; an increase in delicacy reflects the move in the direction of scientific knowledge. At the same time, the criteria for categorisation also change, from overt criteria that are accessible to the naked eye to covert criteria available only through the application of scientific techniques. The change in taxonomic criteria is very clear from a review of the early taxonomic stage of science in Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries: see Slaughter (1986).

The Most Favoured Degree In Delicacy

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 84):

The most favoured 'band' in delicacy is that of the basic level: it is taxonomically most highly elaborated, it tends to be learnt first by children, and it construes categories with syndromes of usually salient functional and perceptual properties. … In addition, the "basic' degree in delicacy may have a special status in the instantiation of categories in text.In her study of lexicalisation in the pear stories, Downing (1980) found that the basic level was by far the most preferred one; these are the figures for concrete, nonhuman things (p. 106):

Such findings are interesting because they give some indication of what factors to consider in lexicalisation in text generation: a given phenomenon can, in principle, be construed at any point along the scale of delicacy. They are also interesting because they point to the relationship between the system and the instance: from the perspective of the system, we can observe that the basic degree of delicacy is most highly elaborated; from the perspective of the instance, we can observe that it is most frequent. However, we have to allow for considerable variation within a language — in particular, functional or registerial variation within the system according to the context of use, as in the variation between the spoken system of everyday life and the written system of science to which we turn next.

Berlin On The Elaboration Of Labelled Taxonomies

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 83-4):

Berlin (1972: 53) characterises the elaboration of labelled taxonomies as follows:

Generic names are fundamental and will occur first. These will be followed by the major life-form names and specific names. At yet a later period, intermediate taxa and varietal taxa will be labelled. Finally the last category to be lexically designated ... of any ethnobotanical lexicon will be the unique beginner. The suggested sequence can be seen diagrammatically as follows:

... no temporal ordering is implied for some categories. Thus no claim is made as to the priority in time of specific names over major life form names. On the other band a claim is made that a language must have encoded at least one major life-form name and one specific name before the appearance of intermediate and varietal named taxa.

The Nature And Degree Of Taxonomic Elaboration

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 83, 85):

Delicacy is a uniform ordering from most general to most delicate; but along this scale, semantic systems differ both in the number of distinctions at any one degree of delicacy and in the overall delicacy that is achieved. There are specific differences associated with particular taxonomic regions. For instance, humans and higher animals are much more highly elaborated than lower animals. But there are also general differences in the nature and degree of taxonomic elaboration associated with different 'bands' in delicacy. Such general taxonomic principles are probably best known for folk-taxonomies in the domains of plants and animals, diseases, and the like (e.g., Berlin, Breedlove & Raven, 1973; Conklin, 1962; Frake, 1962; Slaughter, 1986); these fall within 'element: participant: thing' in the ideation base. The maximum steps in delicacy in a folk taxonomy are kingdom (unique beginner), life form, basic (generic) level, specific level, and varietal level. These steps are by no means always present in every particular taxonomy; and they have different characteristics, summarised in Table 2(6) (for taxonomic examples, see Leech, 1974).

Taxonomic Elaboration

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 83):

Any option (category, semantic type) is thus located in the network relative to other options, first within its own system, and secondly in terms of the location of that system relative to others. For example, 'participant' is one option in the system 'participant/process/circumstance'; and that system is a more delicate elaboration of 'element'. We noted above in reference to Painter's work that the resources of figures of being are deployed in construing taxonomic relations. There is also a generalised set of nominal categories for construing steps in the delicacy hierarchy — e.g. type, kind, class; and some taxonomic regions have specific categories of their own, for example: brand, model, make, issue; genus, species, family.

Construing As Locating In A Network Of 3 Types Of Relations

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 82-3):

From the typological point of view, construing experience in terms of categories means locating them somewhere in this network of relations. When we examine this network more closely, we find that there are actually three types of network involved: 

(1) taxonomic in the strict sense (i.e. based on hyponymy, 'a is a kind of x/ x subsumes a, b, c'), 

(2) taxonomic in the extended sense (i.e. based on meronymy, 'd is a part of y/ y has parts d, e, f'), and 

(3) eco-functional (i.e. based on selection, 'g has function m in environment z/ environment z comprises functions m, n, p, and function m may be filled by g, h, j'). 

Of these three, the first provides the global organising principle of elaboration in delicacy; while the third relates paradigmatic organisation to organisation on the syntagmatic axis.

Summary Of The Ontogenetic Perspective On Construing Experience

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 81-2):

We can now sum up what can be learnt about construal from the ontogenetic perspective:

(i) Initially the child construes experience of phenomena that are in, or are brought into, a shared visual field; once constituted into meaning, the experience can be shared, validated and scaffolded dialogically in collaboration with other members of his/her meaning group.

(ii) The earlier experiences are clearly situated by virtue of the child's perception. But once the process of construal has been established, experience can be generalised in the form of semantic classes, and classes of classes; it can be further explored in terms of the semantic system itself; it can be developed vicariously through discourse, and extended to include purely abstract categories.

(iii) Categories are construed in the network of the ideation base in terms of different kinds of relations they enter into:

[1] globally, they are construed in terms of taxonomic elaboration: they form part of a system that is located somewhere in delicacy within the meaning base; 

[2] locally, they may be construed in terms of meronymic extension: they may form part of a local meronymic taxonomy, such as the cat and its body parts; 

[3] transcategorially, they may be construed in terms of the roles they play in some other type of category, such as the cat serving in certain participant roles of figures.

(iv) Categories are thus located within the ideational network. The network defines a multidimensional, elastic space; and locations within this space are not fixed, clearly bounded regions but rather regions with core or focal areas and more peripheral areas that shade into one another.

(v) The ideation base is a resource for construing extra-linguistic experience (such as visual experience). But it is also a semogenic resource for construing itself, since it is built up out of the kinds of relations it itself construes — relations such as intensive ascription. Once critical semantic mass has been built up, new categories can be construed internally within the system of the ideation base.

SFL Theory vs Semantic Primitives

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 76n):

² The ideational potential for construing such relations of restatement within the ideation base does not at all imply that meaning is analysed by means of decomposition into semantic primitives, 

(i) Semantic types (such as 'balance', 'cat') are not decomposed into their defining glosses within the ideation base; rather, they are construed as standing in an intensive token-value relationship to these glosses, 

(ii) The semantic types are construed internally to the ideation base according to their location in the elaborating taxonomy and can be restated in various ways, 

(iii) The semantic types may also construe extra-linguistic categories of experience; that is, they may have signification outside the ideation base.

Ontogenesis: Construing A Lexicalised Token As A Grammaticalised Value

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 76-7):

Stephen's definition of 'balance' is on a developmental path towards the kinds of definition used in educational and scientific discourse — definitions such as the dictionary definition of 'cat': a cat is a carnivorous mammal long domesticated and kept by man as a pet or for catching rats and mice… . The definition of 'cat' involves a move to a less delicate category ('carnivore' or 'carnivorous mammal', which can be reconstrued as 'mammal that eats meat' …) plus a qualification by a downranked sequence of figures of doing: see Figure 2-12.

In both examples, the definition construes a token-value relation between a fairly delicate semantic type that is lexicalised within the lexicogrammar and a restatement of this type by means of other resources in the ideation base. The restatement draws more on the resources towards the grammatical end of the scale, so that in the definition a lexicalised token is construed as a grammaticalised value.

This entails a shift from construing experience through depth in the experiential taxonomy towards construing experience through expansion in a logical sequence. In the first example, this only involves a downranked sequence of figures; in the second example, this involves a move towards a less delicate category plus a downranked sequence of figures. The first example can actually be interpreted as meaning 'the condition when you hold it on your fingers and it doesn't fall off', showing that the downranked sequence has the class meaning of 'condition'.

Ontogenesis: Construing New Meanings In Terms Of The Semantic System Itself

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 75-6):

Also in his fourth year, Stephen begins to extend his deployment of figures of being to include not only the ascriptive mode ('a is a member of x') but also the identifying mode ('y equals x') so that he can explicitly relate meanings in his ideation base in the form of definitions.

For example, in Balance means [[you hold it on your fingers and it doesn't go]], he construes a single class of abstract participant, 'balance', as something defined in terms of a sequence of figures, 'you hold it on your fingers and it doesn't fall off: see Figure 2-11. 

 

He is now in a position to construe new meanings in terms of the semantic system itself; that is, they do not necessarily have to be 'imported' from direct extra-linguistic experience. As Painter points out, this is yet another expansion of his semantic resources preparing him for educational learning in later life where experience is very often vicarious experience, constructed entirely in educational discourse.

Ontogenesis: Providing Causal Evidence For Categorisation

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 75):

In his fourth year, Stephen begins to provide causal evidence for categorisation, by adding an enhancing figure. The figure that is linked causally specifies attributes that are critical to the construal. For example: Mother refers to Bond airship as 'spaceship balloon' — Stephen: Not a spaceship — an airship — cause a spaceship has bits like this to stand it up; Stephen (pointing at page numbers): That's fifteen because it's got a five; that's fourteen because it's got a four. 

These causal relations are internal (Halliday & Hasan, 1976), i.e. oriented towards the interpersonal act of communication itself ('I know it is an x, because it has feature y') rather than external ('it is an x, because it has feature y'). 

In other words, Stephen is attending to the act of construal itself — 'I construe it as x because of y'. At this stage in the development of Stephen's construal of experience, the construal has become something that is not only shared, but can also be explicitly negotiated and argued about.

Ontogenesis: Construing Categories Externally And Internally

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 73-5):

Construing experience as meaning means locating classes such as squares and circles somewhere in the semantic system, both locally as terms in systems and also more globally in the ordering of these systems in delicacy. 

Painter comments: "... through the naming utterances where Stephen was practising signification, he was also necessarily construing the things of his experience into taxonomies". So Stephen also construes the attributes of semantic classes, attributes that will help him sort out the organisation of the semantic system. …

When Stephen's meaning potential has gained critical semantic mass, he begins to construe its own internal organisation explicitly in an effort to sort out taxonomic relations within the system. … Again, the resource for construing 'categories' is the intensive ascriptive figure of being; but now both the Carrier and the Attribute are meanings internal to the semantic system. That is, Stephen construes a taxonomic relationship between e.g. 'seal' and 'animal' by construing them as Carrier + Attribute:

Painter comments: "The importance of this development is that it constitutes a move on Stephen's part from using language to make sense of non-linguistic phenomena to using language to make sense of the valeur relations of the meaning system itself." We can diagram the contrast between these two steps in construing experience as categories of meaning as in Figure 2-10.

Blogger Comments:

Relating this to Edelman's Theory of Neuronal Group Selection, 'visually shared experience' can be understood as the meaning that perceptual (semiotic) systems construe of experience. On the SFL assumption of immanence, domains outside semiotic systems are not meaningful of themselves.

Importantly, the 'external' ascriptive relation here is the subtype 'instantiation' which is a token to type relation (op. cit.:145), so construing categories 'externally' is relating perceptual tokens to semantic types.

'Categorisation' In Ontogenesis

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 73):

Painter (1996) provides a key to the understanding of how linguistic resources are deployed in 'categorisation' in language development, drawing on her longitudinal case study of one child, Stephen, between 2 1/2 and 5 years.

The first stage in categorisation is naming individuals as members of classes; instances of the visual experience shared by the young child and his father or mother are ascribed to some general class of experience by means of a figure of being. At about 2 1/2, Stephen produced examples such as: Stephen (examining pattern on a rug): That's a square. What's that? — Mother: That's a circle. Here some perceived phenomenon of experience is brought "into intersubjective focus" by being referred to exophorically — pointing verbally, so to speak, to some feature of the material setting, sometimes accompanied by or replaced by a pointing as a gesture. This phenomenon is construed by Stephen as the Carrier of the figure of being, and is ascribed as a member of some general class of experience, construed as the Attribute of the figure. Stephen is 'importing' experience of instances into the semantic system by ascribing them to general classes in that system. This is an act of naming, and later this act itself gets named by call (see also Halliday, 1977, on calling as an early example of language being turned back on itself).

Children thus build up experience as meaning, in contexts such as the one exemplified above.

Ontogenesis: Generalising From Individual Names To Class Names

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 73):

The ideation base is thus a resource both for construing experience and for construing its own construal of experience. It has the potential for expanding itself precisely because it includes a theory of how meanings are construed When children begin to make the transition from proto-language into language (that is, when they begin to develop the system of the mother tongue, typically early in the second year of life), these resources for self-construal are not yet in place. The first things that are construed by naming are individuals; there is as yet no potential for taxonomies of general classes. But children soon take the critical step of generalising across individuals (see e.g. Halliday, 1993a, on generalisation). From a lexicogrammatical point of view, this means that naming has been generalised from individual names ("proper nouns") to class names ("common nouns").

Blogger Comments:

Viewed through the lens of SFL Theory, the shift from naming individuals to naming classes is the shift from assigning token-value relations (identity) to assigning token-type relations (ascription: instantiation); see Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 145).