The Problem With 1st And 2nd Person Reference

Doran, Martin & Herrington (2024: 209-10):

From an interpersonal perspective, we are concerned with negotiability – the extent to which texts engage speakers with listeners as they unfold. This links with long-standing concerns within SFL between variation associated with monologue versus dialogue. In the previous example, taken from face-to-face classroom interaction, we find 1st and 2nd person exophoric pronouns referring to the teacher and students involved (in bold below) – pronouns which tie the text more closely to the ‘here and now’ than endophoric third person ones.

Reviewer Comments:

To be clear, personal reference items signal that an identity has to be retrieved from elsewhere. However, no identity needs to be retrieved for 1st and 2nd person pronouns, because they are defined by the speech situation itself (which is why they "tie the text more closely to the ‘here and now’ "). Accordingly, 1st and 2nd person pronouns do not make exophoric reference, as demonstrated by the following analysis by Halliday (1994: 317):

This misunderstanding arose in Martin (1992: 99), and was imported into IFG by Matthiessen, e.g. Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 604).