Misunderstanding Interpersonal Meaning as Tenor

Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 45, 55):

Support can be done through a range of heteroglossic proclaiming resources (Martin & White, 2005). In this case a position is endorsed, pronounced or concurred with, as in (26), but like (25) it renders the position it tenders.¹² 

Similarly in (27) Kristy’s mother supports the position that she will be home about the same time as Dee’s big kids get home by using probably.

 

¹² This example also illustrates the role of engagement in realising internal rendering. Here the of course is not rendering an opinion on whether they support or reject Indigenous lands being stolen, but rather is supporting this as a linguistic act – i.e. supporting it as true. We can contrast this with an external support – Fortunately, Indigenous lands were stolen, which is definitely not what is being said. Heteroglossia when used for rendering is often used for internal rendering in this sense, functioning as it does to manage the play of voices.

Reviewer Comments:

[1] Here the authors again rebrand the semantic system of ENGAGEMENT (White 1998) as their contextual system of tenor. In terms of Halliday's semantic system of SPEECH FUNCTION, each instance of 'support' is an initiating move in an exchange: a statement. On the other hand, as Halliday (1994: 390) puts it:

Tenor refers to the statuses and role relationships; who is taking part in the interaction.

i.e. not to the language that enacts those statuses and role relationships.

[2] To be clear, in SFL theory the difference between of course and fortunately is not one of internal vs external ‘rendering’, but one of interpersonal meaning — specifically, between asseverative and qualificative comment Adjuncts (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 190–2). Of course realises the meaning ‘obviously’ (asseverative), while fortunately realises the meaning ‘luckily’ (qualificative). These are clearly linguistic resources — part of the speaker’s meaning potential — not contextual roles. The authors misattribute these semantic choices to their model of tenor.