The Problems Of Writing About Language

Halliday (1994: xxxiii):

Four Representational Challenges For SFL Metalanguage

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 45):

We shall mention four such challenges briefly here.

(i) The first representational challenge is the need to handle the dimension of instantiation.  

As a process, instantiation can be represented as involving traversal of the system network and activation of realisation statements. The instance is thus a set of features (semantic types) selected, with associated realisational specifications — an instantial pattern over the semantic potential. 

However, instantiation also defines a scale between the potential and the instance, with intermediate patterns of instantiation. We will introduce these later as register-specific domain models. Such patterns of instantiation will need to be represented: perhaps as systemic probabilities, or as domain-partitions within the overall ideation base.

(ii) The second representational challenge is the need to model how the overall ideation base is expanded by grammatical metaphor. It must be shown how metaphor adds junctional types to the ordinary types …

(iii) The third representational challenge comes from outside the account of the ideation base itself: the ideation base has to be related to the other metafunctional modes of meaning, the interaction base and the text base. The interaction base will include alternative 'projections' of the ideation base to account for the relationship between speaker and addressee. …

(iv) The fourth representational challenge concerns the non-discreteness of the various systems that construe semantic space. The semantic types represented by the features of systems in the system network do not constitute discrete Aristotelian categories; they are values on semantic clines — core regions, to use the metaphor of semantic space. We can bring this out by adopting a topological view on meaning; we can also explore the possibility of interpreting features as names of fuzzy sets.

Representation Stratum Of SFL Metalanguage Exemplified

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 44):

Figure 1-12 shows an example of a systemic representation, with the graphic conventions for the system network. Preselection is shown by means of a pointer leading from the function (role) being restricted to the feature that it is restricted to.

Representation Stratum Of SFL Metalanguage: Types Of Realisation Statement

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 43-4):

The general form of a realisation statement is 'realisation operator + one or more realisation operands', as in 'insert Senser' and 'conflate Medium and Senser'. The operators used to specify functional structuring are insert, conflate, and preselect. The first operand is always a semantic function (role); additional operands may be functions or features. The realisation statements we will make use of in our representation of ideation base information are as follows:

(1) Presence of functions in the structure: the presence of a function in a function structure is specified by inserting the function into the structure; the operation of insertion is symbolised by '+'; e.g. +Actor, +Senser, etc.

(2) Conflation of one function with another: one function from one perspective is conflated with a function from another perspective — they are identified with one another. Conflation is symbolised by '/'; for example, Medium/Senser means that Medium (ergative perspective) and Senser (transitive perspective) apply to the same element of a figure.

(3) Restriction on the type of phenomenon that can serve a particular function: this is stated by preselecting one or more features from the unit serving that function; preselection is symbolised by ':', e.g. Senser: conscious being, which means that the participant serving as Senser is restricted to the type 'conscious being'. (Since 'conscious being' is more delicate than 'participant', the fact that a participant serves as Senser can be inferred from the statement 'Senser conscious being'. In general, it is only necessary to state the most delicate or specific restriction along any subsumption path in the system network.)

Representation Stratum Of SFL Metalanguage: The Realisation Statement

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 42-3):

If we use systemic representation to encode information in the ideation base, we factor out the logic of subsumption and alternatives from the syntagmatic realisation: this logic is represented in the system network. If each feature is interpreted as a type, this gives us a lattice of types. In European structuralist terms, the network is a representation of the paradigmatic organisation of a linguistic system. However, it is also necessary to show how feature choices are realised structurally; i.e., what are the structural properties of the types. This is the province of the realisation statement.

A realisation statement is a minimal specification of a piece of structure or configuration of roles presented in a paradigmatic context; it is always associated with a particular systemic feature. For instance, the realisation statement '+ Senser' occurs in the context of 'sensing' in the system of figures; it is the syntagmatic realisation of that feature: a figure of sensing is a configuration of roles one of which is Senser.

Representation Stratum Of SFL Metalanguage: The System Network

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 41-2):

Systemic representations include (i) system networks and (ii) realisation statements.

(i) A system network is an acyclic directed graph, consisting of systems partially ordered in delicacy. Each system constitutes a choice (alternation, opposition) between two or more terms. These terms are represented by features, and a system as a whole is a Boolean combination of features:

(1) It has an entry condition, the condition under which the systemic choice is available. The entry condition may be a single feature or a complex of features, conjunct and/ or disjunct. These features must serve as terms in other systems.

(2) It has a set of terms, the options that are available given the entry condition. The terms are represented by features, which are related by exclusive disjunction. Collectively, a set of related systems form a system network (since features in the entry conditions to systems must be terms in other systems).

Metalanguage: Representation Stratum

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 33-4):

The theoretical model makes considerable demands on the representational system or systems in which it is realised. Such a system must be able to handle the axial differentiation of the meaning base so that it represents not only structural configurations but also variation in delicacy, the indeterminacy between options in meaning, the move in instantiation from potential to instance, and other theoretical specifications. …

As we have already noted, the representational semiotic may also be language itself — the theory may be represented discursively in the register(s) of linguistics. In this case, the relationship between theory and language is similar to … a relationship where theory might be construed as a connotative semiotic (in Hjelmslev's, 1943, conception: a semiotic system whose expression plane is a semiotic system) …

Finally, the representational semiotic may also be a diagrammatic one — e.g. network graphs, tree diagrams, our circle diagrams. With such graphic representation, it is important to ask (i) if the information represented graphically can be restated in some other form of representation and (ii) if its realisational relationship with respect to theory is clear. There is a certain danger that the graphic representation is simply assumed to be natural and transparent even though it depends as much on semiotic conventions as any other system. Our own experience with circle diagrams is that, unless the representational convention has been made explicit, readers favour certain types of meaning: the circles are interpreted in terms of 'extension' rather than in terms of 'elaboration' — which is to say, they are read in constituency terms rather than in realisational terms. In any case, diagrams will only serve us as 'visualisations' as long as they construe a metaphor of abstract space at the theoretical stratum.

Metalanguage: Theoretical Construal Stratum

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 32-3):

Thus any account of the ideation base has to be metalinguistically stratified It has to be constructed as a theoretical model out of the resources the theory provides and according to the constraints imposed by these resources. From a systemic-functional point of view, this means that the ideation base is construed as a multidimensional, elastic semantic space. This space is organised as a meaning potential, with an extensive system of semantic alternatives; these alternatives are ordered in delicacy. Each set of alternatives is a cline in semantic space rather than a set of discrete categories, and any alternative may be constituted structurally as a configuration of semantic roles. The meaning potential is thus differentiated axially into (i) systems of options in meaning and (ii) structural configurations of roles by which these options are constituted.

The meaning potential itself is one pole on the dimension of instantiation: it is instantiated in the unfolding of text, with patterns of typical instantiation (specific domains of meaning) lying somewhere in between the potential and the instance. At the same time, this overall ideation base can be expanded by various semogenic strategies, among which we are foregrounding that of grammatical metaphor.

The Stratification Of Metalanguage

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 30):

Metalanguage has the same basic properties as any semiotic system. This means that it is stratified. It construes language in abstract theoretical terms; but this construal is in turn realised as some form of representation — either language itself, in discursive constructions of theory, or some form of designed semiotic (system networks, constituency rules, conceptual networks, logical formulae, and so on).

Metalanguage

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 30):

Johnston's insight into the power of representation embodied in Sign is central also to the general challenge of representation in metalanguage. We noted above that the semantics/ lexicogrammar of natural language is itself a 'realisation' (an abstract construction) of daily experience. Likewise, the system we use to explore the semantics/ lexicogrammar — our theory of semantics and our grammatics — is a 'realisation' of that part of daily experience that is constituted by semantics and lexicogrammar; that is, it is an abstract construction of language. This system is itself a semiotic one — a metalanguage; in Firth's more everyday terms, it is language turned back on itself. So whereas a language is (from an ideational point of view) a resource for construing our experience of the world, a metalanguage is a resource for construing our experience of language.

Blogger Comments:

Here Matthiessen confuses 'a realisation' with 'a construal' (an abstract construction). To be clear, a realisation is the Token of an identifying relation; that is, it is less abstract than the Value it signifies. On the other hand, a construal is an intellectual construction that is the Value of an identifying relation; that is, it is more abstract than the Token that signifies it. The first two sentences above can be made consistent with the final sentence above by re-expressing them as:

We noted above that the semantics/ lexicogrammar of natural language is itself a 'construal' (an abstract construction) of daily experience. Likewise, the system we use to explore the semantics/ lexicogrammar — our theory of semantics and our grammatics — is a 'construal' of that part of daily experience that is constituted by semantics and lexicogrammar; that is, it is an abstract construction of language.

Language is a construal of daily experience, not a realisation of it.

Representing The Model Of Ideational Semantics Diagrammatically

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 34):

… the representational semiotic may also be a diagrammatic one — e.g. network graphs, tree diagrams, our circle diagrams. […] diagrams will only serve us as ‘visualisations’ as long as they construe a metaphor of abstract space at the theoretical stratum.

Representing The Model Of Ideational Semantics Through Language

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 34):

As we have already noted, the representational semiotic may be language itself — the theory may be represented discursively in the register(s) of linguistics. In this case, the relationship between theory and language is […] a relationship where theory might be construed as a connotative semiotic (in Hjelmslev’s, 1943, conception: a semiotic system whose expression plane is a semiotic system) …

The Stratification Of Metalanguage

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 30):

Metalanguage has the same basic properties as any semiotic system. This means that it is stratified. It construes language in abstract theoretical terms; but this construal is in turn realised as some form of representation — either language itself, in discursive constructions of theory, or some form of designed semiotic (system networks, constituency rules, conceptual networks, logical formulæ, and so on).

Metalanguage: Language Turned Back On Itself

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 30):

We have noted above that the semantics/lexicogrammar of natural language is itself a ‘realisation’ (an abstract construction) of daily experience. Likewise, the system we use to explore the semantics/lexicogrammar — our theory of semantics and our grammatics — is a ‘realisation’ of that part of daily experience that is constituted by semantics and lexicogrammar; that is, it is an abstract construction of language. This system is itself a semiotic one — a metalanguage; in Firth’s more everyday terms, it is language turned back on itself.  So whereas a language is (from an ideational point of view) a resource for construing our experience of the world, a metalanguage is a resource for construing our experience of language.