The Misunderstandings Behind 'Participation'

Doran, Martin & Herrington (2024: 204):

From an ideational perspective we are concerned with what we will generalise as participation – i.e. undertaking or discussing some domestic or institutionalised activity (e.g. at home, at work, in recreation, in worship). These activities involve shared knowledge about what to do and who or what is involved. The more you understand the more you are part of the group. As far as language is concerned, a lot of such knowledge is encoded in specialised or technical lexis that only insiders can follow and whose development depends on informal and formal mentoring practices.

 

Reviewer Comments:

[1] To be clear, the authors characterise 'participation' as an ideational ('construing experience') perspective on social relations (tenor). But

• undertaking some domestic or institutionalised activity is material, not semiotic;
• discussing some domestic or institutionalised activity is the languaging that realises a field;
• knowledge about what to do and who is involved is ideational meaning;
• knowledge encoded in specialised or technical lexis is ideational meaning;

[2] To be clear, the more you know about SFL Theory, the less you are part of the group.🎄