The Terms 'Semiotic' And ‘System’

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 507):

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 dynamic perspectives (we have referred to the term “climatic system” with the same observation on how it is to be understood).

Polysystemicity Of The Semantic System

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 to 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 understanding of its fundamental principles.

Complementarities In The Semantic System

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.

Choosing Between Descriptions: Fawcett’s Relational Processes

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 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.

Choosing Between Descriptions

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 505):

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 through 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.

No Unique ‘Correct’ Description

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 504):

… there is no unique ‘correct description’ of a semiotic system, or any other 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.

Fawcett’s Relational Processes

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 504):

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.

Fawcett’s Relational Processes

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 504):

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. 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.

Martin’s Nuclear Transitivity As Orientation

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 504):

As we have already noted, Martin, in his systemic treatment of processes in Tagalog, 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.

Trinocular Perspective

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 504):

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.

Process Types As Regions In An N–Dimensional Semantic Space

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.

Grammatics As Metaphor For The Grammar

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 503):

We have tried to show that such indeterminacy [inherent in language] as a positive feature, and build it into our 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.

The Inherent 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 multi-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.

Why Take 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.

Alternative Perspectives On Transitivity

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 503):

The participant rôles Medium, Agent, Range and Beneficiary embody not just a different degree of generality from the process-specific participant rôles Actor, Goal, Recipient; Senser, Phenomenon; etc but more importantly, a different perspective. They capture different kinds of facts about the transitivity system of a language.

The Basis Of Process Types

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 495):

… the process types used in systemic interpretations are based on considerations of the nature of nuclear transitivity — how participants interact, what kinds of entities they are, whether projection is possible, etc.

Agent [Defined]

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 494):

… in addition to the Medium, there may be another participant functioning as an external cause. … Either the process is represented as self-engendering, in which case there is no separate Agent; or it is represented as engendered from outside, in which case there is another participant functioning as Agent.

Medium: Characteristics

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 494):

… the Medium is restricted relative to the Process in the same way regardless of whether the clause is effective (+ Agent) or middle …

the Medium is the participant that is most bonded to the Process by lexical collocation.

the Medium is the element which combines with the Process to form the clause nucleus; it is the nucleus which determines how the process is subclassified and interpreted …

the Medium is the one participant that cannot be treated circumstantially; hence (other than one special kind of clause, the medio-passive) it is never mediated by a preposition.

Medium [Defined]

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 493-4):

Every process has associated with it one participant that is the key figure in that process; this is the one through which the process is actualised, and without which there would be no process at all. … It is the entity through the medium of which the process comes into existence.

Being–&–Having And Expansion Types

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 490):

…the different types of expansion (elaboration, extension and enhancement) are manifested as different subtypes of being & having — intensive, possessive, and circumstantial…

Figures Of Sensing: Metaphenomena

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 490):

…one of the other reasons for recognising sensing as a distinct type: as we have seen, a figure of sensing may combine with a metaphenomenon or fact (It frightened/surprised/pleased John that there was no reply to his letter). They are, of course, quite different from figures of doing in this respect. For example, while metaphenomena can please and frighten conscious beings (sensing), they cannot open doors (doing).

Figures Of Sensing: Impinging Vs Emanating

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 489):

In other words, a figure of sensing, configured as Senser + Process + Phenomenon, can be represented either as the Phenomenon impinging on the Senser’s mental processing (effective: Phenomenon as Agent) or as the Senser’s mental processing ranging over the Phenomenon (middle: Phenomenon as Range). This kind of a reversal of perspective on the figure (like/please, fear/frighten, believe/convince, etc.) is a special feature of sensing and one important reason for recognising it as a distinct type. (This is also true of the metaphorical variant; cf. John was afraid of the dog : The dog was scary [to John].)

Ideational Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 489):

Grammatical metaphors do reorganise experience; that is one reason why they are identified as metaphors, rather than simply being incorporated into the congruent options.

Intentionality: Ideational

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 478):

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 found 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.

Intentionality: Interpersonal

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 478):

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: Ideational Vs Interpersonal

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.

Transitivity Profile & Temporal Profile

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 468-9):

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. Blandings 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.

Two Perspectives On A Process: Transitivity Profile Vs Temporal Profile

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 468):

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

‘Temporal Instantiation’ Perspective On Processes: States vs Non-States

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 468):

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 dichotymy is state vs non-state (with terminological oppositions such as stative/dynamic)… . 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).

‘Temporal Instantiation’ Perspective On Processes

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, and so on.

‘Participant Organising’ Perspective On Processes: General Typological Considerations

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 467-8):

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)?

‘Participant Organising’ Perspective On Processes: Nature Of The Participants

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 467):

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?

Two Perspectives On A Process

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 466): 

… 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. … 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

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 466):

… we have to keep in mind that we are dealing with a semantic system and not with a collection of unrelated items. … For example, if we recognise figures of saying … 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 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 Method Of Traditional Grammar

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 466):

A characteristic of work on grammatical semantics, where this has been based on linguistics or on natural language philosophy, is to move in at the lower ranks of the grammar rather than the higher ones, and to start with classes rather than with functions. This is a continuation of the method of traditional grammar, which (because it originated with the study of observable features of language) was word-oriented and leant heavily on word classes in its descriptive statements. We find this tendency in discussions of word classes and their semantic values — the issue of the proper interpretation of adjectives, the exploration of various verb types, and so on.

Two Versions Of The Intensive Relation

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 461):

… ascriptive intensive relations … represent a relation of inclusion … Identity and inclusion are two versions of the intensive relation: identity is the limiting case of inclusion and inclusion is partial identity.

Non-Ranged Ascriptive Processes

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 460):

… although ascriptive relational processes are typically ranged, with the quality ascribed to the Carrier as the Attribute/Range, we find ascriptive non-ranged processes as well. For example … The problem matters … In a sense, the Attribute is incorporated into the Process ‘matter’ in the same way as the Means is incorporated into a verb such as hammer. This class of ascriptive processes includes matter, count … suffice and figure, and also an evaluative set, such as stink, suck, drip, reek. … these processes are clearly not material, as is shown by the unmarked tense selection …

The Two Transforming Transitivity Interpretations

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 455):

Both transforming interpretations can be seen as attempts to find a canonical logical form, either Subject – Copula – Predicate or Subject – Predicate, rather than have to operate with different forms. These two logical structurings correspond to relational and material models respectively:

material			relational
Subject	Predicate		Subject	Copula	Predicate
Actor	Process		Carrier	Process	Attribute

Three Different Transitivity Interpretations: Consequences For Word Class Assignments

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 453-4):

According to the first approach, verbs are really adjectives (their true shape is revealed in the adjectival participle), while the second approach assumes that adjectives are really verbs; they just happen to be superficially defective (in English) in that they cannot be inflected. The third approach aligns adjectives with ‘substantives’, but it still allows for two possibilities. They can be either treated as independent classes or they can be grouped together as nouns.

Three Different Transitivity Interpretations: iii. Material And Relational

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 453):

The third position accepts both the material process model and the relational process model without trying to interpret one in terms of the other. According to this model, Socrates is white is not primarily like Socrates ran but is more directly related to Socrates was a philosopher and, by an additional step, to Socrates was the teacher of Plato. In this model, nuclear processes are verbs and participants are nominals (substantival or adjectival).

Three Different Transitivity Interpretations: ii. Relational As Material

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 453):

The second position is the reverse of the first in terms of the distribution of the nuclear process and participants. A relational process is interpreted on the model of a material one; the attribute (participant) is interpreted as if it was a nuclear process. Thus, to continue with the same artificial examples, Socrates is white is analysed as ‘Socrates whited’. The copula is not interpreted as representing a process but is thought to be only a “bearer” of tense, person and number.

Three Different Transitivity Interpretations: i. Material As Relational

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 452-3):

According to the first position, a material nuclear process is interpreted as if it was a participant in a relational process. This gives a logical analysis of the form “Subject ‘be’ Predicate”: Socrates ran is analysed as “Subject: ‘Socrates’ ‘be’ Predicate: ‘running’”. In terms of grammatical classes, a verb is a copula plus an adjective.

The Attributive Relation

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.

Process Type & Temporal Sequence

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 450):

Material processes lend themselves naturally to sequential ordering in time; this is much less a feature of other process types.

Traditional vs Functional Grammar

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 448):

The problem of classifying qualities is often approached grammatically as a question of word classification: are adjectives funny verbs, funny nouns, or a completely distinct word class? All three questions have been asked, and all three answered in the affirmative. The questions themselves reflect one of the biases of traditional grammar: it is based on words. Our approach is a functional one, which does not start with word classes taken out of context; … Semantically, the relevant question is how a figure is organised in English. This allows us to look at qualities ‘from above’, keeping their semantic environment in view.

Evolving Registers

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 448):

… 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.

Reasons For Rejecting The Belief Of Language As Distortion

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 447):

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.

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 465):

… if you treat language as distortion, you end up distorting language.

Stratal Slippage

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 447n):

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 stratal slippage: categories from the level of representation in the metalanguage are imported into the theoretical account of the object language.

The Outcome Of The Belief That Lexicogrammar (Syntax) Distorts Semantics

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 446):

Such analyses were often supported by universalist arguments such as “negation is a verb in certain languages, so it is reasonable to claim that it really is a verb in all”. … they tend 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. This view has largely been abandoned and the notion of a semantically irresponsible surface structure is no longer generally held.

The Belief That Lexicogrammar (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 structural 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.

The Belief That Language Distorts (Thinking About) Reality

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.

The Belief That Language Is A “Clothing” For “Naked Ideas"

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 445-6):

The same attitude continues to prevail in ways people talk about language in our own time. It dominated much of the early work on machine translation in the 1950s and 1960s; the task of the analysis was seen to be that of stripping the underlying ideas of their linguistic disguise (Firth, 1956, referred scathingly to current formulations according to which language was a “clothing” for “naked ideas”). When the “interlingua” model was proposed, many of those working in the field regarded it not as a construction of meaning that would be a compromise among different linguistic systems but as a language-free representation of concepts and conceptual structures (cf. Schank’s conceptual dependency), very much in the 17th century tradition.

Blogger Comment:

It was Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) who said:

Language is the dress of thought, 

though he also said:

Words are but the signs of ideas.

The Belief That Language Distorts (Thinking About) 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 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.

The Belief That There Is A Mismatch Between Language And Thought

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 444):

The view that language distorts the picture of reality, and that there is a mismatch between language and thought, is reflected [in] the opposition of “deep” and “surface” as these figured in a prominent approach to text generation. In this model, “deep generation” is concerned with thinking what to say (the thoughts “behind” the words) and “surface generation” with how to say it.

The Belief That Language Deceives: Extra-Linguistic Vs Intra-Linguistic

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 444):

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-linguistic deception: language is deceiving us by the way one part of it represents another part.

The Belief That Language Distorts Our Awareness Of 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.

Scientific And Metaphysical Models

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 444):

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 Central Integrative Rôle Of Language

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 444):

Here let us just reiterate our view that all of our 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.

The Frame Of Reference For Participant & Circumstance Rôles

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 443):

Our own approach is also language–based: participant rôles and circumstance rôles in the figures are based on intra-semantic considerations (e.g. the transphenomenal types of projection and expansion) and on inter-stratal considerations from below, from lexicogrammar.

Contextual Considerations In Modelling Meaning

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 442):

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.

Blogger Note:

Don't repeat the sloppy mistake that incautious readers have made.  This does not equate context with register.  Registers are the varieties of linguistic content (semantics and lexicogrammar) that realise varieties of context (situation types).

Lexicogrammatical Considerations In Modelling Meaning

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.

Modelling The Relation Of Semiotic To Material Systems

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 439):

…this does not mean that, from our standpoint, it does not make sense to model the steps that relate semiotic systems to material ones.  It does; but the relationship has to be modelled in such a way that we can show how people as biological organisms and socio-semiotic persons interact with their material environment.

Different Approaches To Meaning As Complementary Perspectives

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 439):

Looked at from the standpoint of a stratal interpretation of language, these different approaches are not so much mutually exclusive alternatives — as they have often been thought to be — as complementary perspectives on meaning: they focus on different aspects of the stratum of semantics — its internal organisation or its interfaces to other systems, linguistic, conceptual or physical.

Stratal Perspectives On Meaning: Extra-Stratal (Relation Between Language And Non-Semiotic Systems)

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 438-9):

a theory may focus on how language in general and semantics in particular relate to systems of other kinds, i.e. to non-semiotic systems. We have already discussed the way in which this focus has been built into transcendent approaches to meaning, where meaning is ‘exported’ into the realms of the material world or the mind.

Stratal Perspectives On Meaning: Inter-Stratal: Downwards (Semantics In Relation To Lexicogrammar)

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 437-8): 

the interface between semantics and lexicogrammar is internal to language and has received far more attention in studies of meaning from all standpoints than has the interface between semantics and context.  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 interstratal 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.

Stratal Perspectives On Meaning: Inter-Stratal: Upwards (Semantics In Relation To Context)

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 437):

the question of how meaning relates upwards to context is foregrounded in rhetorical-ethnographic approaches rather than in logical-philosophical ones. We discussed the contextual perspective on meaning… focussing on the relation between differences in contextual settings of field, tenor and mode, and on registerial variation in meaning.

Stratal Perspectives On Meaning: Inter-Stratal

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 437):

a theory may focus on the stratal interfaces of the semantic stratum — how meaning relates upwards to context (according to our approach) and how it relates downwards to lexicogrammar.

Stratal Perspectives On Meaning: Intra-Stratal (Internal Organisation Of Semantics)

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 437):

a theory of meaning may focus on the organisation of meaning itself using some framework for describing sense relations — e.g. the paradigmatic organisation of the meaning potential as in our present work; the dimensions of semantic agnation, as in (classical) componential analysis; the syntagmatic decomposition of senses as in Katz & Fodor’s theory, in interpretive semantics and in generative semantics.

The Theoretical Advantage Of Modelling Knowledge As Meaning

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 429):

… for us [Fawcett's extralinguistic] “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 rôle in the overall system. It is the one semiotic system which is able to construe meanings from semiotic systems in general.

How Fawcett’s Derived Model Differs From Halliday’s Original Model: Extralinguistic Knowledge

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 429):

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".

The Theoretical Advantage Of Two System–Structure Cycles

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 429):

… 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 [unlike Fawcett] 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.

How Fawcett’s Derived Model Differs From Halliday’s Original Model: System–Structure Cycles

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 429):

In Fawcett’s model, there is only one system–structure cycle within the content plane: systems are interpreted as the semantics, linked through a “realisational component” to [content] form, which includes items and syntax, the latter being modelled structurally but not systemically; […] 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.

Lakoff Compared To SFL

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 428):

… while our view that the ideational semantic system construes human experience is similar to what Lakoff calls the position of “experientialist cognition” (the position he has himself espoused, in contrast to what he calls “objectivist cognition”), it differs in that for us construing experience is an intersubjective process. It is both semiotic (the construction of meaning) and social (as in Peter Berger’s “social construction of reality”). It is the intersection of these two perspectives that characterises the social semiotic we are attempting to present in this book.

Jackendoff Compared To SFL

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 428):

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. … The semantic system (as part of the linguistic system) is shared; it is part of our social being.

Reality Interpretation Is A Semiotic Process

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 423-4):

We also [like Jackendoff and Lakoff] 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 …

‘Model Theoretic’ Semantics

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 421):

This approach to meaning is objectivist: (extensional) meanings are phenomena existing in the world. There are no meaners construing meanings, and there is no perceptual system mediating between semiotic expressions and their extensions.  Truth is a matter of correspondence, not (as in everyday discourse) a question of consensus among people.

Semantic Organisation In The Logico–Philosophical Tradition

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 417-8):

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.

Metafunctional Scope Of The Logico–Philosophical Tradition

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 417):

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. … 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 its ideational construal) and has come to be included in pragmatics.

The Basic Unit Of Meaning In Western Traditions

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 417):

In the logico-philosophical orientation, the basic unit tends to be determined “from below”, from grammar: since sentences are seen as 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[s] is the text (see Halliday & Hasan 1976; Halliday 1978). So in the logico-philosophical orientation, semantics means in the first instance propositional semantics, whereas in the other orientation it means text or discourse semantics.

The 'Meaning As Transcendent' Tradition: World-Oriented Vs Mind-Oriented Views

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 [e.g. formal semantics] interprets meaning by reference to (models of) the world; for example, the meaning of a proper noun would be an individual in the world… . The mind-oriented tradition [e.g. cognitive semantics] 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 [‘transcendent’] 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 language, either the ‘real’ world or another semiotic system such as that of imagery.

The Location Of Meaning In Western Traditions

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 416):

… the [two Western] orientations [towards meaning] differ with respect to where they locate meaning in relation to the stratal interpretation of language:

(i) 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 approach. 

(ii) 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.

Orientations Towards Meaning In Western Traditions

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 416):

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.

… 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 to the overall picture. Our own foundation, however, is functional.

Evolved Vs Designed Semiotic Systems

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 413):

We have already seen that the textual metafunction is a powerful part of the explanation of ideational metaphor: ideational meaning is reconstrued in such a way that it suits textual organisation when meanings are being distributed in text. This is an area where the evolved system of English and designed systems such as logics differ sharply: the latter are not designed to construe textual differences and instead place a high value on canonical forms.

Ideation Base & Text Base

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 412-3):

It is clear, then, that the ideation base supports the text base: textual information can be stated as patterns over the [ideation] base — partitions, and moves between partitions. At the same time, it is also very clear that the way the ideation base is organised — the various configurations that have evolved — must have been shaped by textual pressure. So, for instance, given that a relationship could be construed either as ‘that boy’s hair is green’ or ‘that boy has green hair’, the preference in English for the construal where the whole is Carrier and the part is Attribute can be understood in textual terms: it means that the whole can serve as Theme.

Transitions Between Textual States: Method Of Development

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 410):

Bateman & Matthiessen (1993) suggest that Rhetorical Structure Theory can be used to model transitions from one textual state to another. These rhetorical transitions constitute the method of development of a text (see Fries, 1981, 1995 for the relationship between Theme and method of development).

Modelling The Guided Transitions Between Different Textual States: Stacks

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 409):

As a discourse develops, focus spaces are stacked one on top of another so that the most recent is always on top of the stack. The stack itself can thus be used [as] a record of progression through discourse time. Now the stack is always manipulated from the top: if a new focus space is to be added to the stack, it is pushed onto the top of the stack; and if an old one is to be removed, it is popped off the top of the stack.

Thematic Spaces & Semogenesis

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 407):

The speaker thus selects ‘thematic spaces’ as points of entry into larger regions of the ideational semantic network. From the listener’s point of view, these thematic spaces constitute indications of where to integrate the new information being presented in the text… . If we think of the listener’s processing of a text as being partly a matter of expanding his or her current semantic network with new information, the thematic spaces guide him/her to appropriate expansion points.

Thematic Spaces In An Ideational Semantic Network

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 407):

Thematic spaces in an ideational semantic network can be seen as a model of the systemic understanding of Theme and method of development articulated by Martin, where [Martin’s] “field” corresponds to what has been discussed here in terms of ideational semantic networks in the ideation base.

How Information In The Text Base Can Be Modelled

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 406-7):

(i) The second-order character of textual information is captured by defining it in terms of the already existing semantic network in the ideation base (the first-order representation…). This is clearly only a first approximation… the textual metafunction may in fact motivate ideational metaphor as a means of ‘carrying’ textual organisation. 

(ii) Textual prominences constituting textual statuses can then be modelled as partitioned textual spaces of the semantic network. … This is also only a first approximation: textual prominence is a matter of degree and we need to think of a textual space not as a clearly bounded region but rather as a central region, the peak of prominence, from which one can move to more peripheral regions, the troughs of non-prominence. Such gradience is necessary not only to deal with degrees of thematicity and newsworthiness but also to handle identifiability by ‘bridging’…