League Table Of Visitors

Rebranding Interpersonal Semantics As Context: Internal vs External Tenor

Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 61, 62):

Crucially, open propositions do not give enough information to be rendered – i.e. you cannot support or reject (externally speaking) the open proposition what’s it going to do? Rather, the normal responses would be to tender another proposition. …

To render an open proposition, you cannot render the content of the proposition as such; you rather have to support or reject exchange itself (using an 'internal' response). …

We can view the contrast between open and complete propositions more technically in terms of the distinction between external and internal rendering. As explained in the previous chapter, external rendering involves rendering the information being given in a proposition or proposal, while internal rendering involves rendering the position as a linguistic act. From this perspective, complete propositions can be rendered both externally … and internally … ; but open propositions can only be rendered internally …  – they cannot be rendered externally … .

ChatGPT Comments:

The proposed contrast between “internal” and “external rendering” introduces terminological noise not only within semantics but more crucially into the contextual stratum—specifically, the tenor of the situation. By reframing interpersonal semantic functions as if they were contextual categories, the authors mislocate meanings that properly belong at the semantic level. This amounts to a stratal confusion: rather than modelling tenor as realised through interpersonal semantics (such as speech role and commodity) and further realised in the lexicogrammar through mood, they retroject semantic patterns back up into context as if they were immediate situational features. What they call “internal rendering” is simply a supporting move in an information exchange—already accounted for through the speech function system at the semantic level and realised grammatically through mood. The metaphor of “rendering” thus functions not as a clarifying concept but as a misplaced abstraction that erodes the coherence of the stratified model of language and context.

The introduction of “internal” and “external rendering” also distorts the systemic treatment of negotiation. By recasting semantic moves as “renderings” of a speaker’s position, the authors collapse the dynamic structure of exchange into a static binary of response types. This flattens the negotiation process, obscuring the functional roles of initiation, support, and confrontation within the move structure. More problematically, by locating these “renderings” at the level of context—specifically tenor—they displace interpersonal semantics upward and sever the realisation pathway from semantic speech function to grammatical mood. In doing so, they bypass the core SFL insight that negotiation is a meaning potential realised through lexicogrammatical choice, not a contextual stance to be interpreted. The result is a pseudo-system that confuses evaluative uptake with semantic function, eroding both descriptive clarity and pedagogical utility.

Misunderstanding Realisation

Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 61):

… there are a number of ways that propositions can be presented. They can be presented as full statements, unfinished statements, as wh- questions and a range of other forms. This allows a progression of information to be developed through a text to help move toward consensus. … 

Different ways of articulating propositions underpin distinctions in questions and answers, which in turn allows us to negotiate information in different ways. …

Complete propositions are typically realised by discourse semantic statements (grammatically declaratives) or by yes-no questions (grammatically polar interrogatives).

By contrast, in this text the teacher also puts forward a series of propositions that are not complete, but rather leave some information for the students to answer. These types of propositions we will call open propositions. Open propositions are typically realised by elemental questions (grammatically, wh- interrogatives), questions that give alternative choices or by incomplete statements.

 

ChatGPT Comments:

In this passage, the authors attempt to describe different ways in which propositions are presented in texts, distinguishing between complete and "open" propositions. However, the explanation is derailed by a fundamental misapplication of the concept of realisation.

“Complete propositions are typically realised by discourse semantic statements…”

This clause claims that a semantic entity (“complete proposition”) is realised by another semantic entity (“discourse semantic statement”). But in Halliday’s canonical stratified model, realisation is strictly a relation between strata—not within them. It is the relation between a system on one level and a system on the level below. For example:

• Context (field, tenor, mode) is realised by semantics (ideational, interpersonal, textual meanings);

• Semantics is realised by lexicogrammar (e.g. mood, transitivity, theme);

• Lexicogrammar is realised by phonology/graphology.

So, to say that a proposition is “realised by a discourse semantic statement” is incoherent. If both items are situated within the same stratum—semantics—then their relation is not one of realisation but of classification within that stratum. You can say, for instance, that an "open proposition" is a subtype of proposition. But you cannot say that one semantic unit “realises” another.

Furthermore, their conflation continues:

“…typically realised by discourse semantic statements (grammatically declaratives) or by yes-no questions (grammatically polar interrogatives).”

Here, the clause again bundles together semantics and grammar, but fails to maintain the logic of stratification. Since “complete propositions” are semantic units, statements and yes–no questions (as semantic units) cannot be said to realise them. The realisation relation is only valid here between semantics and lexicogrammar—not within semantics itself.

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Clarifying the Proper Model

In Halliday’s systemic-functional stratification, a valid characterisation of realisation would look something like this:

• A proposition (semantic interpersonal structure) is realised grammatically by a declarative or interrogative clause (lexicogrammar: mood structure);

• A proposal (also semantic interpersonal structure) is realised grammatically by an imperative or modulated clause;

• Both are further realised phonologically or graphologically.

If the authors wish to distinguish kinds of propositions within semantics (e.g., “open” vs “complete”), then this is a semantic classification, not a realisation relation. They might say, for instance:

“Open propositions are a subtype of interpersonal meanings that invite a co-construction of information.”

But they must not confuse this with realisation, unless they are crossing a stratal boundary.

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Conclusion

This is a textbook case of a category mistake that arises when the Hallidayan architecture is misapplied. Once the coherent scaffolding of stratification is compromised—especially the integrity of the realisation relation—it becomes difficult to determine what kind of explanation is even being attempted. As it stands, the passage does not distinguish between levels of abstraction and thus undermines the explanatory power of SFL's semiotic model.