The Developmental Dynamic Of Generalisation — Abstractness — Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 618):

The developmental dynamic of "generalisation — abstractness — metaphor" provides the semiotic energy for the grammar, enabling it to serve as the powerhouse for construing experience in the form of scientific knowledge. Presented in this very sketchy fashion the movement may seem catastrophic and discontinuous; but this is misleading. Rather, it is a steady progression, marked by three periods of more rapid development at the transitions: 

from protolanguage to language (generalisation, associated with bipedal motion), 

from commonsense (spoken) language to written language (abstractness: the move into primary school), and 

from non-specialised written language to technical language (metaphor the move into secondary school). 

There is a clear grammatical and semantic continuity between the various versions of experience, which we can bring out by analysing the grammar of particular instances (such as those cited above). At the same time, the ontogenetic perspective shows that in fact our experience is being ongoingly reconstrued and recategorised as we grow from infancy to maturity.  

This is the outcome of processes taking place in human history — evolutionary events that are at once both material and semiotic, and that cannot be reduced to either purely physical processes driven by technology or purely discursive processes driven by ideology. 

There is no point in asking whether the ideation base of our technologised natural languages necessarily had to evolve the way it did. But it is extremely pertinent to ask, given the enormous demands now being made on both the material and the semiotic resources of the human species, what the options are for the way it may evolve in future.

Generalisation As A Prerequisite For The Semiotic Construal Of Experience

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 615):

A prerequisite for the semiotic construal of experience is generalisation: the move from "proper" to "common" as the basic principle of referring. The protolanguage, as already remarked, is non-referring; children move into reference by gradually deconstruing the proto-linguistic sign in a sequence of steps such as 'I want Mummy to ...', 'I want Mummy!', 'Where is Mummy?', 'Mummy' (see Halliday, 1992). The sign has now become a word, functioning as a proper name.  

Typically one or two other signs have been deconstrued at the same time in similar fashion, e.g. 'I want my (toy) bird!', 'Where is my bird?', 'My bird'; and by a further step these then become common names 'bird(s)'. The child has now learnt to name a class of things; this then opens the way 

(i) to constructing hierarchies of classes — a 'pigeon' is a kind of 'bird', and so on, and 

(ii) to naming other kinds of element, processes and qualities, which can be construed only as "common" terms. 

Since these other elements have distinct and complementary functions it becomes possible to combine them into organic structures, as complex elements or as figures, such as 'blue bird', 'birds flying', 'tiny bird flew away'. The resources are now in place for construing experience in lexicogrammatical terms.

 This principle of generalisation — that is, naming general classes rather than specific individuals — is what makes it possible to construct an ideation base. When they have reached this stage, children can make the transition from protolanguage to mother tongue, building up figures and sequences of figures, and simultaneously structuring these as moves in dialogic exchanges (question, statement, etc. — the interaction base), and as messages or quanta of information (the text base). In other words, they learn "how to mean" according to the metafunctional principle of adult human semiosis.  

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).

Codifying As Generalisation: Syntagmatic Compacting vs Paradigmatic Condensing

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 24):

In general the process of creating meaning involves constructing some kind of lexicogrammatical generalisation — some form of wording that is in some respect unique. It is not possible to quantify the degree to which any semantic feature or domain has been codified at any one moment in semohistory; but meanings that are more highly codified are those that have been to a greater extent condensed and/or compacted, where 'compacting' is generalising on the syntagmatic axis (e.g. animal that has four legs > quadruped), while 'condensing' is generalising on the paradigmatic axis (forming into a system at some point along the scale of delicacy). The evolution of language (i.e. of specific languages in their various registers), the learning of language by children, and the production of language in the form of discourse constitute the historical contexts in which meanings are continuously being created along these lines.

Developmental Dynamic

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 618):

… it is a steady progression, marked by three periods of more rapid development at the transitions: from protolanguage to language (generalisation, associated with bipedal motion), from commonsense (spoken) language to written language (abstractness: the move into primary school), and from non-specialised written language to technical language (metaphor: the move into secondary school).

Developmental Dynamic

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 618):

The developmental dynamic of “generalisation — abstractness — metaphor” provides the semiotic energy for the grammar, enabling it to serve as the powerhouse for construing experience in the form of scientific knowledge.

Abstractness

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 615, 616):

General terms are not necessarily abstract; a bird is no more abstract than a pigeon. But some words have referents that are purely abstract — words like cost and clue and habit and tend and strange; they are construing some aspect of our experience, but there is no concrete thing or process with which they can be identified. … experience is being reconstrued in order to build up a form of knowledge that is systematically organised and explicit.

The Ontogenesis Of Ideation: Abstractness & Grammatical Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 615):

… there are two further developments [besides generalisation] to come before the ideation base can take the form it has to take if it is to produce discourse … and there is some elapse of time before children take these further steps … abstractness [and] (grammatical) metaphor.

The Ontogenesis Of Ideation: Generalisation

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 615):

This principle of generalisation — that is, naming general classes rather than specific individuals — is what makes it possible to construct an ideation base. When they have reached this stage, children can make the transition from protolanguage to mother tongue, building up figures and sequences of figures, and simultaneously structuring these as moves in dialogic exchanges (… the interaction base) and as messages or quanta of information (the text base). In other words, they “learn how to mean” according to the metafunctional principle of adult semiosis.

Generalisation

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 615):

A prerequisite for the semiotic construal of experience is generalisation: the move from “proper” to “common” as the basic principle of referring. … this opens the way (i) to constructing hierarchies of classes … and (ii) to naming other kinds of element, process and qualities, which can be construed only in “common” terms. Since these other elements have distinct and complementary functions it becomes possible to combine them into organic structures, as complex elements or as figures.

Construing Perceptual Experience As General And Abstract Meanings

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 82):

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.