The Misunderstanding Behind 'Accord'

Doran, Martin & Herrington (2024: 205):

From an interpersonal perspective we are concerned with what we will generalise as accord – i.e. sharing feelings about people and things and cooperating in dialogue. Shared feelings may involve emotional reactions to triggers of various kinds, judgements of people’s character and behaviour and the value of ‘things’ (including natural phenomena, books, films, songs, performances, and so on).

Reviewer Comments:

For the authors, 'accord' is interpersonal meaning viewed from an interpersonal perspective. That is, 'accord' is 'enacting social relations' viewed from the perspective of 'enacting social relations'. For SFL Theory, on the other hand, 'accord' is simply the interpersonal enactment of social relations, misunderstood here as tenor. The interpersonal perspective taken here is on language itself, not on interpersonal meaning.