The Misunderstanding Of Stratification On Which This Work Depends

 Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 8):

In this book we will treat social context as a semiotic system realised through patterns of language (Figure 1.1).

This model conceives of context and language as being intricately related and co-developed, with each continually impacting the other (what Martin (2011), adopting a term suggested by Chris Cléirigh, calls a ‘supervenient’ perspective on social context). 

Such an approach contrasts with perspectives which either treat social context as an independent phenomenon alongside language (that is, at best, correlated with language choices but otherwise having no co-genetic relation) or alternatively as a circumvenient phenomenon in which language is in some sense embedded in context but where there is only a one-way determination – so that context determines language choice, but language has no or minimal effect on context. 

Our project, in other words, involves working towards a model in which social context is realised through recurrent patterns of meaning – where realisation involves a two-way process of mutual actualisation between language and context. Accordingly anything we say about social context is an abstraction from recurrent patterns of semantic choice (Martin, 2014) – a relationship Lemke (e.g. 1995) refers to as metaredundancy.

Reviewer Comments:

[1] To be clear, in SFL Theory, context is the culture as a semiotic system that is realised in language (inter alia). The ideational dimension of context, field, is what is going on, in terms of the culture; the interpersonal dimension of context, tenor, is who is taking part, in terms of the culture; and the textual dimension of context, mode, is the role played by language, in terms of the culture.

[2] To be clear, in SFL Theory, the stratal relation between context and language is one of intensive symbolic identity (realisation). That is, context and language form the one identity, with context as the higher level of symbolic abstraction, and language as the lower level. On the other hand, the "co-development" of context and language, is distinct from their stratal relation, and here refers to the process of logogenesis: the development of the text. That is, the authors here have confused stratification with semogenesis.

[3] To be clear, in SFL Theory, the "co-development" of context and language in logogenesis is the development of the one identity, viewed at two different levels of symbolic abstraction. Two different levels of symbolic abstraction cannot "impact" each other. For example, a pipe and a representation of a pipe cannot "impact" each other.

[4] This is misleading. On the one hand, it misrepresents Cléirigh's use of the term 'supervenient'. Cléirigh used the term to refer to the emergence of higher levels of organisation in complex systems, as in the emergence of chemical systems from physical systems, and of biological systems from chemical systems. That is, it covers similar ground to Halliday's (2002 [1996]: 388) evolutionary typology of complex systems. On the other hand, contrary to the implication, Cléirigh did not apply the term 'supervenient' to the relation between context and language. Instead, he applied it to the three strata of language, and conceived of these as embedded in context:

(This is a view that Cléirigh soon abandoned as his understanding of SFL Theory improved.)

[5] To be clear, these 'other perspectives' are the authors' own misunderstandings of work in SFL Theory, and so function here fallaciously as straw men to be attacked. See further below.

[6] To be clear, in SFL Theory, context and language are not independent, since they are two aspects of the one identity, and their "co-genetic relation" is the development of this identity in logogenesis.

[7] To be clear, 'circumvenient' was the term Cléirigh (almost facetiously) suggested to Martin when Martin rejected the term 'embedding'.

[8] To be clear, in SFL Theory, there can be no determination between context and language because the logical relation between them is elaboration (intensive identity), not causal enhancement (circumstantial identity). What is true is that during logogenesis, previous language instantiations probabilise following language instantiations, and these potentially construe changing contextual features, as when a speaker changes the subject (second-order field).

[9] To be clear, the model that the authors are working toward in this project is therefore based on a confusion of stratification ('realisation') with instantiation ('patterns of meaning'). In SFL Theory, stratification means that the systems of context are realised by the systems of language. Patterns of meaning, on the other hand, are created in the instantiation process of logogenesis: the selection of features and the activation of their realisation statements, and constitute variation along the cline of instantiation.

[10] To be clear, the model that the authors are working toward in this project is therefore based on a fundamental misunderstanding of realisation. In SFL Theory, realisation is one-way relation: the lower level of symbolic abstraction (language) realises the higher level (context). As such, context cannot realise language. Moreover, the use of the term 'actualise' here invites confusion with instantiation as the actualisation of potential as instance. Again, the authors have confused stratification with semogenesis: the instantiation of potential in logogenesis.

[11] As will be seen, in the model that the authors are working toward in this project, their misunderstanding of stratification leads them to mistake the lower level of symbolic abstraction (semantic choice) for the higher level they plan to model (context), thereby invalidating their model and their project.

[12] This is a serious misunderstanding of metaredundancy. As the term implies, 'metaredundancy' is a redundancy on a redundancy. Applied to the stratification hierarchy, it means that semantics is redundant on the redundancy of lexicogrammar and phonology, or alternatively, that the redundancy of semantics and lexicogrammar is redundant on phonology. Applying the term to just two levels of symbolic abstraction, context and semantics, is therefore nonsensical.