The Problem With The System Of Positioning

Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 23):

How we put forward positions and react to them is described in Chapters 2 and 3 within a system called POSITIONING. Chapter 2 focuses on resources for rendering meanings and Chapter 3 focuses on resources for tendering. 

When we tender meanings, we will describe different ways in which we can position others to respond. For example, when Jodie’s mother asks at the beginning of the conversation ‘What are you on about Jodie?’, she asks this as a genuine question. With this question she positions Jodie as the one who has the knowledge for this exchange. 

By contrast, later on in the conversation, Jodie notes that her not being allowed to go to the pub contrasts with her friend Billie, who is also six, getting to go to the pub. Her mother notes that this is because it was her Daddy’s birthday. But Jodie is not convinced and insists by saying ‘and did I get to go’. Although this is a question and grammatically an interrogative, Jodie is not genuinely asking for information – both Jodie and her mother know full well that she was not allowed to go to the pub. Rather, Jodie is using this to emphasise her point that she thinks there is a double standard at play. 

 Reviewer Comments:

[1] As previously demonstrated, tendering and rendering are moves in an exchange that realise the system of SPEECH FUNCTION, and so are interpersonal potential at the level of semantics, not at the level of context (tenor). The system of POSITIONING is thus interpersonal semantics misunderstood as tenor.

[2] To be clear, in interpreting the meanings of the exchange in terms of the knowledge of the interlocutors, the authors have adopted a cognitive perspective on language. However, this is inconsistent with SFL, the theory the authors are concerned with expanding. To be clear, in taking a 'language-based approach to cognition', SFL models 'knowledge' as meaning. Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: ix-x):

It seems to us that our dialogue is relevant to current debates in cognitive science. In one sense, we are offering it as an alternative to mainstream currents in this area, since we are saying that cognition "is" (that is, can most profitably be modelled as) not thinking but meaning: the "mental" map is in fact a semiotic map, and "cognition" is just a way of talking about language. In modelling knowledge as meaning, we are treating it as a linguistic construct: hence, as something that is construed in the lexicogrammar. Instead of explaining language by reference to cognitive processes, we explain cognition by reference to linguistic processes.