Why The "Scientific" Model Of The Mind Is Problematic

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 602-3):

In the last chapter we reviewed the "scientific" model of the mind that informs cognitive science, looking at it from our point of view of construing experience through meaning. We showed that 'mind' is a construct of the ideation base, owing much to the commonsense picture of the world that is embodied in everyday grammar; but problematic because it draws on this account one-sidedly. 

The scientific model takes off from the grammar of mental processes (seeing, feeling, thinking), but ignores verbal processes (saying) — although the two are both processes of consciousness, are closely related grammatically, and share the critical feature of being able to create meaning by projection. 

It takes off from the ideational metafunction, but ignores the interpersonal — although our folk perception of consciousness derives from both. 

Our sense of ourselves as conscious beings comes as much from the fact that we talk as from the fact that we think and feel; and owes as much to the nature of meaning as social action as it does to the nature of meaning as individual reflection.

The Value Of The Folk Model For Cognitive Science

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 601):

Both of these paths leading beyond the figures of sensing embodied in the folk model, beyond the ideational domain of sensing, are of fundamental importance to our conception of the individual mind and hence of the domain of cognitive science. By implication, cognitive science should not only be 'cognitive', it should also be semiotic, because it is the notion of meaning that enables us to see the connection between sensing and saying, and between theory and enactment of consciousness. 

The folk model — developed unconsciously and collectively out of shared experience over hundreds of generations — construes and enacts the complexity of being a person by bringing to it a multiplicity of perspectives. It extends the 'mind' by refracting it through language, the resource that makes the "cognitive operations" possible and by the same token ensures that they are not subjective but intersubjective.

Extensions Of Sensing In Scientific vs Folk Models

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 600-1):

The two extensions of scientific and folk models are contrasted in Figure 14-11.

Insights From The Folk Model: Projection

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 600):

What is common to these two further sources of insight [saying as well as sensing, and enacting as well as construing] is that both depend on projection. 

(i) The potential for projecting is shared by sensing and saying; and when they are considered together, they reveal a very powerful principle that is embodied in the folk model: that through projection, we construe the experience of 'meaning' — as a layered, or stratified, phenomenon, with 'meanings' projected by sensing and 'wordings' projected by saying. 

(ii) Projection also brings the ideational and the interpersonal aspects of consciousness together. Ideationally, projection is an mode of construal — in figures of sensing and saying, sensers and sayers construe meanings and wordings. Interpersonally, projection is an mode of enactment — in moves in dialogue, interactants enact propositions and proposals. Interpersonal metaphors of mood and modality bring out the relationship between the two: here interactants simultaneously both enact propositions and proposals interpersonally and construe this enacting in such a way that the ideational construal comes to stand as a metaphor for aspects of the interpersonal enactment.

Complementary Perspectives On Consciousness In the Grammar Of English

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 599-600):

At the same time the 'scientific' models of the mind fail to extend consciousness in the way it is extended by the grammar of English. There are, in fact, two complementary perspectives embodied in the semantic and grammatical systems of English; and together they point towards an alternative interpretation both of 'information' as constructed in cognitive science and of the individualised 'mind' that is its object of study. 

(i) Ideational: Sensers and Sayers. The ideational resources of language are primarily a theory of experience, so they are reflected fairly directly in consciously designed theories such as those of cognitive science. If we stay within the ideational metafunction, where mental processes are construed, we also find other processes that are complementary to these: those of saying (verbal processes) and those of symbolising (a type of relational process). 

(ii) Interpersonal: interactants. If we move outside the ideational metafunction to the interpersonal, the resource through which we interact with other people, we find that here we are acting out our conscious selves — "modelling" consciousness not by construing it but by enacting it. Since this kind of meaning is non-referential it is not taken account of in scientific theories at all.

The Differentiation Of Inner And Outer Experience

 Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 584-5):

This 'world view' can be depicted using the conventions of comic strips: see Figure 14-7.

The conventions of comic strips clearly differentiate between figures of sensing and saying on the one hand and figures of being & having and doing & happening on the other: the latter are represented graphically, whereas the former are represented linguistically, in terms of their projected content Comic strips thus codify the higher-order nature of projections and their constitution in language.

The Folk Model Of Consciousness

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 577):

We have shown how the system of the ideation base construes consciousness: as conscious processing by a conscious being. Conscious processing can create a higher-order world of ideas (or, as we would say, meanings), comparable in certain respects to Popper's World 3; this defines the essential distinction between projection and expansion as ways of relating one figure to another. Conscious processes themselves appear as the central figures in the construal of experience, and they are pivotal in differentiating among the various types of participant. This folk model is constituted in innumerable encounters in the course of casual conversation; and it is instantiated again and again in contexts of everyday life. 

Conscious processes are of two kinds: sensing, and saying. Since what we are exploring here is the modelling of "mind", our concern in the first instance will be with sensing.

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.

Expansion And Projection In The Construal Of Domains Of Experience

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 222):

These two motifs together have made it possible for human beings to transform experience into meaning, taking the experience of meaning itself — the "inner" processes of consciousness — as the central figures, and those with the ability to mean — prototypically humans themselves — as the central participants. These then serve as the point of reference for construing "outer" experience, the complementary experiences of the processes of doing and of being. 

The Process As The Central Element Of A Figure

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 213):

The key to the construal of experience is the perception of change; the grammar construes a quantum of change as a figure (typically one clause) and sorts out figures in the first instance into those of consciousness (sensing and saying), those of the material world (doing & happening) and those of logical relations (being & having). The central element of a figure is the process; 'things' are construed as entities participating in processes, having different roles, of which one is 'that participant in which the process is actualised' (if there is 'flying', there has to be something that flies or is flown: birds fly, people fly kites); hence the grammatical nucleus of the clause is the configuration of Process with Medium.

Relationship Of The Range To The Process: Projected vs Enhancing

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 170):

[The projected type of Range] is like [the enhancing] type in that in both types the agnate expression takes the form of a circumstantial element (grammatically, a prepositional phrase). But in the projected type the circumstance is one of Matter, whereas in the enhancing type it is typically one of Extent or Location. This corresponds in process type to the distinction between saying and sensing on the one hand and doing and being on the other.

Figures Of Sensing And Saying: General Motifs

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 153):

But these "impacting" figures of sensing and saying are only submotifs within these two overall types. The general motif of figures of sensing is 'conscious processing'; that of figures of saying is 'symbolic processing'. And in figures of being, where we might characterise the general motif as 'relational ordering', there is no trace of a submotif of impacting at all.

Figures Of Saying: 'Impacting' Submotif

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 153):

In figures of saying, the Sayer is the symbolic source: prototypically human, but not necessarily so (e.g. the instructions tell you to switch it off first). The Process is symbolic; but here too there is a subtype of figures of saying that imparts a similar sense of action and impact, those where the Sayer 'does something to' another participant by means of a verbal process, as in Don't blame the messenger, Everybody praised her courage. We refer to this participant as the Target; and again we may note a partial analogy with figures of doing (though only partial — for example, such figures cannot take a resultative Attribute or other representation of the outcome).

Figures Of Saying: Semantic Characterisation

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 151):

Here one participant, the Sayer, is involved as the originator of a process of symbolic (semiotic) activity, or "saying". There may be another participant the Receiver, whose role is that of 'decoding' what is said. What is said may itself be construed as a further participant, the Verbiage; or else it may be projected as another figure [locution] within the same sequence. Finally, there may be a participant functioning as Target of the saying process.

The Particularistic Model Of Figures

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 150-1):

In what we are calling its "particularist" modelling the grammar is categorising experience for us (or we are categorising experience through our grammar) by construing a small number of different types of figure, differentiated according to what kind of process is taking place and what kinds of participant are involved — in what relationships to each other and to the process.

What is the principle on which the grammar categorises experience? In the most general terms, as we have seen, the principle is that all phenomena can be interpreted as falling within a small number of broad experiential domains:

• those happening "inside", within the realm of our own consciousness;
• those happening "outside", in the perceptual world that lies around us;
• those that are not kinds of happening at all, but rather kinds of being and of relating to something else.

We have referred to these as, respectively:

(1) figures of sensing — or, more inclusively (since 'languaging' is treated as a distinct phenomenal realm), (1) figures of sensing and

(2) figures of saying;

(3) figures of doing — or, more explicitly (since the word 'doing' might suggest intentionality), figures of doing & happening;

(4) figures of being — or, more accurately (since 'having' is construed as a kind of relative 'being'), figures of being & having.

Each of these types of figure has its own special character, as revealed by the way it is organised in the lexicogrammar. We are not attempting to spell out here the grammatical features by which they are differentiated. But we shall characterise them briefly in semantic terms with reference to the forms of participation involved.

Distinctions Among Subtypes Of Sensing: (4) Verbal Causation

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 141):

Both cognition and desideration may be brought about through verbal action:

I have told you that : you know that :: I have persuaded you to : you intend to. 

There are no related verbal types causing perception and emotion.

Distinctions Among Subtypes Of Sensing: (1) Projection Of Ideas

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 140):

While both cognition and desideration project ideas, they project ideas of different kinds. Cognition projects propositions — ideas about information that may or may not be valid: he believed/ imagined/ dreamt —> that the earth was flat. In contrast, desideration projects proposals — ideas about action that has not been actualised but whose actualisation is subject to desire: he wanted/intended/hoped for —> her to leave. Projection is the critical link between sensing and saying; cf. property (4) [verbal causation].

Borderline Locations In The Semantic Space Of Figures

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 132):

There is of course a great deal of indeterminacy here, including such borderline cases as those where sensing and saying are construed as forms of action (and therefore cannot project), e.g. watching, listening, chatting, speaking. These properties reflect the borderline location of such processes in the overall semantic space.

Sensing vs Saying: Directionality

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 131):

Saying is construed as proceeding from Sayer to Receiver (she asked/told/commanded him — 'she addressed him'). In contrast, sensing embodies two complementary perspectives: either the Senser's involvement in the sensing ranges over the Phenomenon or the Phenomenon is construed as impacting on the Senser's consciousness (she likes the design : the design pleases her).

Sensing vs Saying: Constituency Boundaries

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 130-1, 131n):

Figures of saying construe the addressee of exterior symbolic processing in the form of a participant, the Receiver, as in She told/asked/commanded him…; She said to him/ asked of him… . In contrast, interior symbolic processing cannot be addressed; figures of sensing cannot be configured with a Receiver.

Here there is a subtle difference between sensing and saying in their grammatical realisation by verbal and mental clauses that project reports. In the verbal case, the Receiver is a grammatical constituent of the verbal clause, as in she told him —> to leave. Being a constituent participant, it can serve as Subject in the verbal clause: he was told (by her) —> to leave. However, although the mental case, e.g. she wanted him to leave, looks similar, it is not, since mental clauses do not have a Receiver. The element him is a constituent of the reported clause: she wanted —> him to leave. Consequently, it cannot serve as Subject in the reporting mental clause; we cannot get He was wanted (by her) to leave. The difference also shows up clearly when the projected clause is in the passive voice; contrast the incongruence of she told the car to be washed with the acceptability of she wanted the car to be washed. The analysis shows the difference: she told the car —> to be washed (where the car gets interpreted as Receiver) : she wanted —> the car to be washed.¹

∞ 

¹ As always, there are departures from the general principle. For instance, while 

she asked/told/persuaded/implored/encouraged/promised/threatened the car to be washed 

is incongruent, 

she ordered the car to be washed 

is perfectly fine, which suggests the mental model of the constituency boundary between the projecting and the projected clause — he ordered —> the car to be washed. This gets support from the fact that the car was ordered to be washed is odd.