Misunderstanding Field As A Semantic Sequence That Realises It

Doran, Martin & Herrington (2024: 185-6):

A complementary perspective on field is a dynamic perspective that construes phenomena as a set of activities. For example, in our classroom the teacher explains mitosis as an activity where a single cell divides into two daughter cells (underlined). 

This example presents mitosis as a single activity – what we can call an unmomented activity. Alternatively, activities can be divided into a series of moments. When Mukherjee (2022: 99) visualises mitosis, he presents a caption that explains it in terms of its moments – what we call a momented activity. After describing that the chromosomes are initially present in loose threadlike forms in the nucleus, he explains:

Then the threads tighten into dense bundles. The nuclear membrane dissolves, and the chromosomes separate into two sides of the cell, as if drawn by some forces. When they’ve fully separated […] the cell splits, generating two new cells. (Mukherjee 2022: 99)

The activities that Mukherjee (2022) describes are as follows (where ^ indicates a sequence):

The threads tighten into dense bundles

^

The nuclear membrane dissolves

^

The chromosomes separate into two sides of the cell, as if drawn by some forces

^

They (the chromosomes) fully separate

^

The cell splits

^

Two new cells are generated

(Mukherjee 2022: 99)

This presents a complementary view to the static one focused on items – it outlines a dynamic unfolding of events. These activities are interconnected with the items and taxonomies that are involved in them. In this instance, the cell splits due to activities associated with two of its parts: the nuclear membrane dissolving and the chromosomes separating.

Reviewer Comments:

To be clear, the field of this text, 'what is happening' in cultural terms, is a classroom lesson in cell biology. The sequence of figures is the language that realises the (second-order) field in this instance.

In English Text (Martin 1992), such activity sequences are similarly misunderstood as field, but in Working With Discourse (Martin & Rose 2007), they became misinterpreted as experiential, not logical, discourse semantics.

Misunderstanding Field As A Lexical Hyponomy That Realises It

Doran, Martin & Herrington (2024: 184, 185):

Alternatively, items can be related in terms of type and sub-type into a classification taxonomy. Mukherjee (2022: 67–69) draws on this when he lays out the diversity of cells that occur on Earth:

Every cell on Earth – which is to say every unit of every living being – belongs to one of three entirely distinctive domains, or branches of living organism. The first branch comprises bacteria: single-celled organisms that are surrounded by a cell membrane, lack particular cellular structures found in animal and plant cells, and possess other structures that are unique to them […] We think of them as pathogens – batonella, pneuomococcus, salmonella – because a few of them cause disease […]. We – you and me – inhabit a second branch, or domain, called eukaryotes. The word eukaryote is a technicality: it refers to the idea that our cells, and the cells of animals, fungi, and plants, contain a special structure called a nucleus (karyon, or “kernel” in Greek). This nucleus, as we will soon learn, is a storage site for chromosomes. Bacteria lack nuclei and are called prokaryotes – that is, “before nucleii” […] And now the third branch: archaea. It may be the single most startling fact in the history of taxonomy that this full branch of living beings remained undiscovered until about fifty years ago […] they lack the defining features of the other two domains. (Mukherjee 2022: 67–69)

This stretch of text is organised around three subtypes of organism (in bold above), for which he also gives some examples. We can visualise this classification taxonomy as in Figure 3.

Reviewer Comments:

To be clear, the field of this text, 'what is happening' in cultural terms, is cell biology. The hyponymic taxonomy of the set of lexical items is the language that realises the field in this instance.

Misunderstanding Field As A Lexical Meronomy That Realises It

Doran, Martin & Herrington (2024: 183-4):

Beginning with the static perspective, this involves viewing fields as sets of items that can be arranged into taxonomies. One type of taxonomic relation is that of composition – where items are arranged into a part-whole relations. For example, in a classroom lesson in cell biology, the teacher at one stage reads from the textbook:

Here, the teacher explains that animal cell centrosomes are composed of two centrioles, which in turn include nine groups of three microtubules. We can visualise this as a compositional taxonomy as in Figure 2.

Reviewer Comments:

To be clear, the field of this text, 'what is happening' in cultural terms, is a classroom lesson in cell biology. The meronymic taxonomy of the set of lexical items is the language that realises the (second-order) field in this instance.

Misunderstanding Field As The Ideational Language That Realises It

Doran, Martin & Herrington (2024: 183):

Accordingly, in this section we will outline field as a resource for construing phenomena. This perspective emphasises the resonance between field and the ideational metafunction in language, as well as offering tools that can link upwards with genre. The model presented here is that of Doran and Martin (2021). Under this model, phenomena can be construed dynamically as a set of activities oriented to some social action or they can be construed statically as relations among items.

Reviewer Comments:

[1] As previously explained, and as will be seen, this misunderstands field, 'what is happening' in terms of the culture, as the ideational language that realises it.

[2] To be clear, the "resonance" here derives from misinterpreting field as language.

[3] It will be seen that the 'dynamic' construals are semantic: sequences, and that the 'static' construals are lexical: meronymic and hyponymic taxonomies.

Deconstructing The Authors' Notion Of Field, Tenor, And Mode As Guiding Principles For Instantiation

Doran, Martin & Herrington (2024: 182):

In essence, what we are proposing in this paper is that given the significant expansion in the architecture of SFL in recent decades – in terms of more clearly distinguishing the hierarchies of realisation, instantiation, and individuation – we have an opportunity to rethink our understanding of field, tenor, and mode. In particular, we will suggest that given the wide-range of things field, tenor, and mode have been asked to account for, a fruitful avenue for exploration is to consider them from multiple angles. Rather than just considering them as components of a single stratum within the hierarchy of realisation, we can also consider them in terms of guiding principles for the probabilistic co-selection and arrangement of choices in instantiation (linking more closely to Halliday’s ‘register’ and Gregory’s [and our] ‘diatype’). We can also consider them from the perspective of individuation as arenas of variation, contestation, and collaboration (though this latter perspective will only briefly be touched upon in this paper). In short, field, tenor, and mode are asked to do a lot in SFL theory, and we propose it is time to give SFL the theoretical space it needs to do so.

Reviewer Comments:

[1] This is a mere pretext. Realisation has been part of the theory since its inception more than 50 years ago, instantiation has been clearly distinguished from realisation for about 40 years, and individuation is not explored in this paper.

[2] This demonstrates an ignorance of the architecture of language already proposed by SFL Theory. To be clear, Halliday's register is a point of variation on the cline of instantiation, at the level of language content, from system (potential) to text (instance). Registers differ by instantiation probabilities, with each register realising a situation type, which is a point of variation on the cline of instantiation, at the level of context, from culture (potential) to situation (instance). 

That is, the probabilistic instantiation that distinguishes registers varies with the contextual configuration (Hasan) of field, tenor and mode variables that define a situation type. It is in this sense that field, tenor and mode are already "guiding principles" for the instantiation of the linguistic features that distinguish registers. Situation type, however, does not feature in the authors' model.

The Two Basic Misunderstandings From Which This Paper Proceeds

Doran, Martin & Herrington (2024: 182):

In this paper we take another step by reconstruing field, tenor, and mode as resources for making meaning (as opposed to classifications of kinds of context) – with a view to designing networks that strengthen the correlation of intrinsic with extrinsic functionality (Section 3 below). In addition we will offer an interpretation of permeability from the perspective of instantiation – with respect to principles for coupling choices across metafunctions which we refer to as mass, association, and presence (see Section 4 below).

Reviewer Comments:

[1] As previously explained, this is the first major misunderstanding of SFL Theory in this paper: misunderstanding the context of meaning making as the language that makes meaning.

[2] As previously explained, this is the second major misunderstanding of SFL Theory in this paper: misunderstanding 'context-metafunction resonance' as an exclusive metafunctional relation between context and language.

[3] To be clear, 'permeability' refers to Hasan's observation that field, tenor and mode are partially interdependent. Hasan (1999: 244):

The contextual parameters – field, tenor and mode – are not, to use Bernstein’s (1975) terminology, three strongly classified domains, each with a clear-cut boundary of its own: they are in fact permeable. What choices are made in field is relevant to some extent to the choices in tenor and in mode.

This is, of course, the same for language. For example, a choice in the system of THEME (textual) is relevant to choices in MOOD (interpersonal) and TRANSITIVITY (experiential).

Misunderstanding Context-Metafunction Resonance

 Doran, Martin & Herrington (2024: 180):

This division of labour distributes the wide range of phenomena a model of social context must conceptualise if it is to engage closely with language across four context variables instead of three, and helps ensure that each component of field, tenor, and mode is not doing so much work that it no longer matches up with the internal metafunctional organisation of language.²

² Matthiessen et al. (2022: Figure 7.9) make this lack of resonance in their modelling clear in a diagram linking what they consider to be different fields of activity with different areas of grammar “at risk” – implicating ideational, interpersonal, and textual systems, not just ideational ones.

Reviewer Comments:

[1] To be clear, the fourth variable is Martin's genre, which, unlike his register, is not organised according to the three metafunctions. This reflects the fact that genre is a misunderstanding of one metafunction, the textual, as projected onto context as mode.

[2] This misunderstands the metaphor of 'resonance' in the hypothesis of 'contextual-metafunction resonance' (Hasan 2014: 8). As previously explained, the hypothesis is simply that the contextual parameters of field, tenor and mode are identifiable by the ideational, interpersonal and textual choices, respectively, in language (and vice versa).

The authors, on the other hand, misunderstand 'contextual-metafunction resonance' as requiring that the three parameters of context exclusively "match up wth" their respective metafunction of language. This is their second major misunderstanding of theory, and the one that motivates the second half of this paper.

Misunderstandings Of Mode As Field In SFL

Doran, Martin & Herrington (2024: 180):

Note however that when genre is treated as a supervenient system there are implications for more specific characterisations of field, tenor, and mode. 

As far as field is concerned it means that with respect to the modelling of socio-semiotic processes such as enabling, exploring, expounding, reporting, and the like in Matthiessen’s work (e.g. Figure 6.13 in Matthiessen et al. 2008) or the modelling of verbal action such as instructing, planning, narrating, informing, and the like in Hasan’s work (e.g. Figure 3 in Hasan 1999) – both are handled at the stratum of genre, not register (see Martin 1992; Martin and Rose 2008). 

Similarly in relation to mode, the modelling of rhetorical ‘modes’ such as expository, didactic, persuasive, descriptive, and the like in Halliday’s work (e.g. Halliday 1978: 143–145) is also handled at the stratum of genre, not register.

Reviewer Comments:

To be clear, as the work of Halliday demonstrates, the work of Matthiessen and Hasan confuses rhetorical modes (the part language is playing in the culture) with field (what's happening in the culture). This can be seen, for example, in Matthiessen's confusion of mode ('the part played by language') with field ('what's happening') in Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 37):

Clarifying The SFL Model Of Field, Tenor And Mode

Doran, Martin & Herrington (2024: 180):

Turning to register variables, field is concerned with what is going on, tenor addresses who is taking part, and mode deals with the role assigned to language (alongside attendant modalities of communication and behaviour). Halliday (in Halliday and Hasan 1985: 12) provides a little more detail:

field is concerned with “what is happening […] the nature of the social action that is taking place: what is it that the participants are engaged in, in which the language figures as some essential component?” (Halliday and Hasan 1985: 12) 

tenor addresses “who is taking part, to the nature of the participants, their statuses and roles, including permanent and temporary relationships of one kind of another […] and the whole cluster of socially significant relationships in which they are involved.” (Halliday and Hasan 1985: 12) 

mode deals with “what part the language is playing […] including the channel (is it spoken or written or some combination of the two?)” (Halliday and Hasan 1985: 12)

These general characterisations offer a useful starting point for viewing language in relation to context.

Reviewer Comments:

[1] Importantly, for Halliday and Hasan, and SFL Theory, context is the culture modelled as a semiotic system that is realised as language. So it is important to understand that

• field is 'what is happening' in terms of the culture,
• tenor is 'who is taking part' in terms of the culture, and
• mode is 'what part the language is playing' in terms of the culture.

[2] It will be seen that the authors of this paper do not use these characterisations as a starting point, but instead misunderstand context as the language that realises it.

Misunderstanding The Realisation Relation Between Context And Language

 Doran, Martin & Herrington (2024: 179):

In this model, register is the name of the stratum comprising the contextual variables field, tenor, and mode. This contrasts with Halliday’s use of the term register to refer the skew of probabilities in semantic systems inside language by field, tenor, and mode (e.g. Halliday 1991a, 1991b). 

As far as the realisation relationship between the contextual variables field, tenor, and mode and language is concerned (i.e. probabilistic realisation), this difference is purely terminological. Language realises field, tenor, and mode in both models, and field, tenor, and mode choices skew language choices in both models. 

The substantive difference in the models revolves around whether or not context is stratified into field/tenor/mode and genre, or only includes field/tenor/mode.¹

 ¹ As this terminological distinction has often led to confusion, it would perhaps be useful in the model assumed here to use Gregory’s (1967) suggestion of ‘diatype’ for the skewing of probabilities in the systems of language by choices in field, tenor and mode (i.e. Halliday’s register), leaving register as the cover term for field, tenor, and mode.

Reviewer Comments:

[1] This is potentially misleading. For Halliday, and SFL Theory, register is a point of variation on the cline of instantiation of the content plane of language, midway between potential (system) and instance (text). Registers differ from each other in terms of the probabilities of feature instantiation.

[2] This is misleading because it misrepresents the relation between levels of symbolic abstraction, context and language, as causal (enhancing). Importantly, the relation between any two levels of symbolic abstraction is intensive identity (elaborating).

[3] This confuses realisation with instantiation. It is instantiation, the selection of features in logogenesis, that is probabilistic. Realisation is simply the identity relation between any two levels of symbolic abstraction.

[4] This is very misleading indeed, because the difference is considerably more than merely terminological. To take one example, in Halliday's model of context, the cline of instantiation extends from culture (potential) to situation (instance), but neither culture nor situation has a terminological counterpart in Martin's model.

[5] This is not misleading because it is true. But it hints that the second half of this paper is motivated by the authors' intention to refute the criticism of Martin's model of stratified context in The Conception Of Context In Text (Hasan 1995).

Problems With Context Stratified As Genre Realised By Register

Doran, Martin & Herrington (2024: 179, 180):

The stratified model of context assumed here is outlined in general terms in Figure 1 – where genre is a supervenient system realised through choices in register (after Martin 1992).

… In general terms, genre models context as a system of staged, goal-oriented social processes realised through register, the latter comprising field, tenor, and mode (Martin 1992; Martin and Rose 2008).

Reviewer Comments:

As previously explained, in rebranding context (of culture) as 'genre', Martin (1992) confuses rhetorical mode (context) with text type (language), which is register viewed from the instance pole of the cline of instantiation. So, from the perspective of SFL Theory, in Martin's model,

• genre is mode realised by field tenor and mode;
• genre is register (text type) realised by register (system sub-potential).

Problems With The Authors' Perspectives On Context

 Doran, Martin & Herrington (2024: 178):

In this paper, we draw attention to two key developments since that time that arise from viewing the register variables of field, tenor, and mode from multiple perspectives. These are the perspectives from 

(i) realisation, where the register variables field, tenor, and mode are reconstrued as resources for making meaning; and 

(ii) instantiation, involving a reconsideration of register from a multifunctional perspective on knowledge building (mass), social relations (association), and context dependency (presence).

Reviewer Comments:

[1] To be clear, from the perspective of realisation, field, tenor and mode are at the level of context, whereas resources for making meaning are at the level of language. In reconstruing context as language, the authors confuse distinct levels of symbolic abstraction. This alone is sufficient to invalidate their model.

[2] To be clear, from the perspective of instantiation, context is the cline from culture (potential) to situation (instance), and field, tenor and mode are the metafunctional perspectives on context. On the other hand, register, from the perspective of instantiation, is a point of variation in language, between system (potential) and text (instance).

[3] To be clear, in taking a 'language-based approach to cognition', SFL models 'knowledge' as meaning. Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: ix-x):

It seems to us that our dialogue is relevant to current debates in cognitive science. In one sense, we are offering it as an alternative to mainstream currents in this area, since we are saying that cognition "is" (that is, can most profitably be modelled as) not thinking but meaning: the "mental" map is in fact a semiotic map, and "cognition" is just a way of talking about language. In modelling knowledge as meaning, we are treating it as a linguistic construct: hence, as something that is construed in the lexicogrammar. Instead of explaining language by reference to cognitive processes, we explain cognition by reference to linguistic processes.

The Starting Point For This Paper

Doran, Martin & Herrington (2024: 178):

As reviewed in Tann (2017), Martin (2010) outlines an SFL framework for the study of semantic variation organised around three ‘hierarchies’ of meaning – realisation (strata of abstraction), instantiation (cline of generalisation), and individuation (scale of belonging). This is our starting point for this paper. 

Reviewer Comments:

[1] This is misleading because it misrepresents these SFL dimensions of language as Martin's framework. To be clear, 'realisation' and 'instantiation' are dimensions in Halliday's original model, and 'individuation' was introduced in the work of Matthiessen.

[2] This seriously misunderstands these three dimensions of language. 'Meaning' refers to the semantic stratum of language, but the three dimensions are also relevant to other strata of language, as well as to context. The error derives from Martin's misunderstanding of 'all strata make meaning', which describes semogenesis (making meaning) not stratification, as 'all strata are meaning'. It will be seen that this fundamental misunderstanding is the basis of the authors' "rethinking" of context from the perspective of realisation.

[3] This seriously misunderstands these three dimensions of language. 'Realisation' is not a hierarchy, but a relation (of symbolic identity) between any two levels of symbolic abstraction, such as between strata or between axes.

Instantiation is not a cline of generalisation, which is the scale of delicacy, but an elaborating relation of class membership between a token (instance) and a type (potential). Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 144-5) distinguish delicacy, realisation and instantiation as three types of elaboration:

In other words, the elaboration sets up a relationship either of generality (delicacy), of abstraction (realisation), or of token to type (instantiation): see Table 4(4).

And individuation is not a scale of belonging (extension) of meaners, but a cline of differentiation (elaboration) of meaning. However, this dimension is not explored in this paper.

[4] As can be seen from the above, the starting point for this paper involves very serious misunderstandings of SFL theory.

Misconceiving Context As Language

Doran, Martin & Herrington (2024: 178):

In this paper, we propose a new perspective on modelling field, tenor, and mode in systemic functional linguistics (SFL hereafter). This involves treating each contextual variable as a resource – reconceiving field as a resource for construing phenomena, tenor as a resource for negotiating social relations, and mode as a resource for composing texture. In doing so we outline some of the key implications of this new perspective for SFL’s conception of realisation (as strata of abstraction), instantiation (as a cline of generalisation), and individuation (as a scale of belonging). 

For realisation, we argue that it bears critically on the issue of whether or not to adopt a stratified model of context (as register and genre) and the relationship between extrinsic functionality (field, tenor, and mode) and intrinsic functionality (ideational, interpersonal, and textual metafunctions). 

For instantiation, we suggest that it bears critically on our modelling of principles for coupling (co-selecting and arranging choices within and across languages and related modalities of communication) – for example mass, presence, and association. 

And for individuation, we propose that it bears critically on the perspectives of allocation (i.e. how access to meanings and their uptake is distributed across communities) and affiliation (i.e. how meanings are used to collaborate and struggle, within and between social groups). 

Our main concern is to develop a model which improves traction as far as SFL work on language in context is concerned, fully embracing a multimodal perspective on language and related modalities of communication as resources for meaning.

Reviewer Comments:

[1] To be clear, this new perspective confuses the cultural context of language with the language that realises the cultural context. Specifically, the authors  misconceive:

• contextual field as the ideational function of language in construing experience as meaning;
• contextual tenor as the interpersonal function of language in enacting social relations as meaning;
• contextual mode as the textual function of language in making discourse relevant to context.

[2] As will be seen, the authors do not cover individuation in the proposals made in this paper.

The "Lack Of Consensus" On Context And Its Relation To Language

 Doran, Martin & Herrington (2024: 177):

In spite of decades of research developing a model of language and context, there is little consensus in systemic functional linguistics (SFL) about how context should be modelled and how language and context are related. …

For realisation it bears critically on the issue of whether or not to adopt a stratified model of context (as register and genre) and the relationship between extrinsic functionality (field, tenor, and mode) and intrinsic functionality (ideational, interpersonal, and textual metafunctions).

Reviewer Comments:

[1] To be clear, Halliday originally modelled context as the culture as a semiotic system. He used Hjelmslev's notion of a connotative semiotic to model language as the expression plane of context.

Any lack of consensus on how to model context only arises from the fact that Martin (1992) misunderstood Halliday's model, and that two generations of Martin's students accept Martin's misunderstanding without question.

Martin's misunderstandings of context are examined in great detail in the review of Martin (1992), here, but the confusions can be summarised briefly as follows.

Martin (1992) rebrands context of situation (instance) as register and context of culture (potential) as genre. That is, he misconstrues the relation of instantiation on the plane of context as a relation of realisation between strata on the plane of context.

In rebranding (context of) situation as 'register', Martin misconstrues instances of context as subpotentials of language, registers, that realise situation types. That is, he confuses instances of the stratum that is more abstract than language, context, with a point of variation on the cline of instantiation of language, register.

In rebranding (context of) culture as 'genre', Martin confuses rhetorical mode (context) with text type (language), which is register viewed from the instance pole of the cline of instantiation. The structures proposed for different genres are semantic structures that vary for different text types (language) that realise different rhetorical modes (context).

As this deconstruction demonstrates, Martin's misunderstandings are multidimensional, and are so convoluted that students have little option but to accept them on trust.

[2] As will be seen in the course of this review, the authors devote the second half of this paper to addressing their own misunderstanding of how the contextual parameters of field, tenor and mode are related to the ideational, interpersonal and textual metafunctions of language — what Hasan (2014: 8) terms the hypothesis of 'context-metafunction resonance' (CMR).

To be clear, Halliday (1978: 117) explains his original claim as follows:

In other words, the type of symbolic activity (field) tends to determine the range of meaning as content, language in the observer function (ideational); the role relationships (tenor) tend to determine the range of meaning as participation, language in the intruder function (interpersonal); and the rhetorical channel (mode) tends to determine the range of meaning as texture, language in its relevance to the environment (textual).

That is:

• field (e.g. biology) decides the range of ideational content,
• tenor (e.g. teacher-student) decides the range of interpersonal content, and 
• mode (e.g. spoken dialogue) decides the range of textual content.

This relation can be made more formal by turning the theory back on itself. Taking a decoding perspective on the identity of language and context, language is the Medium of the realisation and context is the Range of the realisation:

On the other hand, taking an encoding perspective on the identity of language and context, language is the Agent of the realisation and context is the Medium of the realisation:

It is this latter perspective that underlies the interpretation that language construes context.