Rebranding Speech Functions (Semantics) As Tendering And Rendering (Tenor) [1]

Doran, Martin & Herrington (2024: 189):

Under this model, people can tender meanings to be engaged with, or they can render meanings that have been put forward. For example in the classroom we have looked at, following the teacher asking the students what is inside the centrosome, a student tenders an answer that the teacher then renders by supporting it (by both repeating the answer and using positive attitude Right, Sweet). This follows a prompt from the teacher “Inside the centrosome is…again?” An arrow shows the direction of the rendering.

In other instances, the teacher rejects students’ suggestions. In the following, they do this by using the Modal Adjunct No, plus they’re not condensed yet:

These instances illustrate simple instances where rendering cleanly follows tendering.

Reviewer Comments:

[1] To be clear, the tenor of this situation — 'who is taking part' — is student and teacher. What is presented above, however, is speech function, interpersonal semantics, misunderstood as tenor. Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 137):

[2] To be clear, in terms of speech function:

• the teacher initiates the exchange with a question,
• the student makes the expected response, an answer, and
• the teacher makes the expected response, an acknowledgement.

That is, in this instance, the authors have rebranded an answer to a question as 'tender' and an acknowledgement of an answer as 'render: support', and misunderstood it as tenor instead of speech function.

[3] To be clear, in terms of speech function:

• the student initiates the exchange with a statement, and
• the teacher makes the discretionary response, a contradiction.

That is, in this instance, the authors have rebranded a statement as 'tender' and a contradiction of the statement as 'render: reject', and misunderstood it as tenor instead of speech function.

As can be seen, the authors' model is less informative than the model it rebrands.