Purview Meets Engagement: Collapsing Strata in SFL

Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 77):

In addition, purview variables can be realised through choices in engagement. For example, monoglossic statements will typically realise an assertion (+ speaker purview; – listener purview), as in the example we saw above (replayed as (46) below).

(46) Mother: You’ll have a lovely day pet. assert/proposition

In terms of Martin and White’s (2005) model of engagement, heteroglossic expansion resources on the hand will typically realise no speaker purview, in addition to any rendering noted above (Zhang 2020c). Adapting examples from Martin and White (2005, p. 107), heteroglossic entertain resources typically indicate neither speaker nor listener purview, and so air their proposition, as in (47) and (48).

(47) The organ screen in the stables was possibly designed by Thomas Chippendale air/proposition
(48) Mass extinctions could have been caused by major changes in sea level or disruptions in the food chain. air/proposition

When interacting with tagging resources, this – speaker purview option may also combine with + listener purview to pose a proposition, as in the constructed example in (49).

(49) The organ screen in the stables was possibly designed by Thomas Chippendale, d’you reckon? pose/proposition

ChatGPT Comments:

In this excerpt, Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 77) extend the system of purview into the realm of engagement, claiming that certain engagement choices—monoglossic versus heteroglossic statements—can realise speaker and listener purview options. They provide examples of assertions, posing, and airing propositions mapped to engagement resources (e.g., heteroglossic entertain → air).

The problem lies in the conflation of strata. In systemic functional linguistics, engagement is a semantic system realised in the lexicogrammar, and prosodic or paralinguistic features may realise content on the expression plane. Doran, Martin & Zappavigna, however, treat engagement as contextual: a system of tenor (purview). By claiming that heteroglossic expansion resources automatically realise “no speaker purview” or that tagging constructs can create a pose, they are effectively duplicating semantic categories at the level of context, rather than analysing how these semantic resources are realised in text or talk.

This raises a broader concern: the system of purview, when applied in this way, risks collapsing the stratification of language, turning lexicogrammar and semantics into context. While the examples are interesting pedagogically, the theoretical move stretches the SFL model beyond its intended distinction between context (field, tenor, mode) and the lexicogrammatical/semantic systems that realise it. In other words, the approach conflates meaning-in-context with meaning-in-text, which undermines the explanatory clarity that stratified systemic functional theory is designed to provide.

Reviewer Comments:

d’you reckon is not a "tagging resource" since, unlike wasn't it?, it does not reprise the Finite and the Subject of the clause.

Rebranding Mood and Engagement as Context: A Stratificational Misstep

Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 76-7):

As the examples above suggest, the potential realisations of purview options are diverse – for one thing, purview is very sensitive to phonological and paralinguistic (‘body language’) choices (Halliday & Greaves, 2008; Ngo et al., 2022). For example, like for wh- interrogatives, a distinction between the falling tone 1 and rising tone 2 on a declarative would often distinguish assert from pose.

(44) Kristy: //1 I don’t want to go away from you // assert/proposition

(45) Mother: //2 you don't want to go to Dee’s?// pose/proposition

Similarly, an open posture, supine hand position and/or decentred facial features would typically lessen speaker purview paralinguistically (what (Ngo et al., 2022, p. 144) calls paralinguistic expansion).

ChatGPT Comments:

In their discussion of tenor, Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 76–7) introduce the system of purview, which they locate explicitly at the level of context. At first glance, this seems like a straightforward extension of systemic modelling into new semiotic terrain. But if we look more closely, the theoretical footing becomes much less secure.

The problem is that the categories instantiated in purview are not distinctive features of context at all. Rather, they are drawn wholesale from systems that have long been established at lower strata:

• mood at the level of grammar

• engagement at the level of semantics

In other words, what is presented as a system of context is in fact a duplication of grammar and semantics under a new label.

This move creates several problems:

1. Redundancy. Mood and engagement already provide powerful accounts of how interactional stance is construed and realised. Relabelling these same oppositions as “purview” does no additional theoretical work — it simply duplicates categories already accounted for elsewhere in the stratification.

2. Circularity. If purview is said to be realised by tone, gesture, hand orientation, and so on, we immediately face a problem: mood and engagement are already realised by these same resources. The theory starts chasing its own tail.

3. Stratificational incoherence. In the canonical Hallidayan model, context is a higher-order semiotic stratum, realised by semantics. Its function is to model the situation type, not to repeat semantic or grammatical systems in disguise. By shifting mood and engagement “up” into tenor, context ceases to be an independent plane of abstraction. It collapses into a duplicate description of what is already present in the strata below.

What is at stake here is not just terminological neatness, but the integrity of the architecture itself. If context can be populated by rebranded grammatical and semantic categories, then the delicate explanatory hierarchy of SFL is undermined. Context no longer provides a theory of situation, but becomes an echo chamber of lower-level systems.

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That’s the kernel of it: the “purview” system does not open up new explanatory ground at the level of tenor; it merely duplicates existing accounts, blurring the very stratificational distinctions on which SFL depends.

Reviewer Comments:

See Problems With The Authors' Analysis Of Paralinguistic Engagement

The Promise of Nuance, the Cost of Clarity

Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 76):

As examples (39)–(43) illustrate the interplay between internal and external purview allows negotiation of different aspects of semiosis to occur at the same time – the proposition or proposal being put forward and the use of language itself. Aside from some examples associated with engagement below, we will not explore in more detail the distinction between internal and external purview here. Needless to say, this distinction opens the way for highly nuanced tendering in conversation.

ChatGPT Comments:

Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 76) close their discussion by claiming that the distinction between internal and external purview “allows negotiation of different aspects of semiosis to occur at the same time – the proposition or proposal being put forward and the use of language itself.” They then suggest this opens the way for “highly nuanced tendering in conversation.”

But as the preceding examples show, the price of this nuance is the erosion of the very categories that make exchange structure coherent. By repeatedly redescribing proposals as propositions, or by multiplying roles under a “purview” scheme, their model creates complexity without explanatory gain.

Halliday’s system already accounts for the simultaneity they want to highlight: speech function specifies what is at stake in the exchange (information vs. goods-&-services), while mood systematises the grammatical resources for negotiating it. This dual articulation is the negotiation of “different aspects of semiosis.” There is no gap here that requires “purview” to fill.

In effect, the authors promise “nuanced tendering” but achieve it by muddling categories that were already designed to capture the delicacy of interaction. What looks like theoretical sophistication is in fact redundancy and confusion. 

Taken together, examples (39)–(43) reveal a consistent pattern. The authors begin with a familiar, well-differentiated set of categories from the exchange system, but in the attempt to introduce “purview” they steadily blur the lines that keep propositions, proposals, roles, and moves distinct. At each step the analysis promises nuance, but delivers redundancy: what is already accounted for in the interplay of speech function and mood is redescribed in terms that add complexity but subtract clarity. By the time they summarise with the language of “highly nuanced tendering,” what is on offer is not delicacy of analysis but a proliferation of overlapping labels. The effect is less a refinement of systemic-functional description than a displacement of it.

The Offer Overwritten: When Purview Distorts the Exchange

Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 76):

This allows us to understand in more detail the purview of offers in exchanges (exchanges with Da1^A2^A1 as its structure, in Berry’s terms) – as illustrated by (43) from the same text (leaving aside the repositioning). In this example, Kristy’s mother offers to fill the cup. In doing so, she gives internal purview to Kristy to decide whether the action of filling the cup will happen (internal pose), while giving herself purview over actually doing the cup filling (external assert).

ChatGPT Comments:

In (43), Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 76) attempt to extend their two-tiered account of purview to offers. The example involves Kristy’s mother offering to fill a cup, with Kristy specifying Nearly up to the top. The analysis assigns internal purview to Kristy (she decides whether the cup will be filled) and external purview to the mother (she performs the filling).

This layering produces the same categorical problems we saw with commands. The mother’s initiating move Do you want the cup full? is analysed as both a proposal and an external assert. Yet once again, an act that is structurally a proposal (a demand/give goods-&-services) is relabelled with a category from the domain of propositions. To call an offer an “assert” is to collapse Halliday’s central distinction between propositions and proposals.

The duplication of roles compounds the confusion. The authors claim Kristy’s mother simultaneously “gives Kristy purview over whether the action will happen” (internal pose) while retaining “purview over actually doing it” (external assert). But this is not an insight into exchange structure; it is a restatement of the obvious: an offer entails both a decision and an action. Kristy must accept or reject, and her mother must carry out the action if accepted. The system of speech function already models this through the pairing of offers with acceptances/refusals. No additional “purview” mechanism is needed.

Even more problematically, Kristy’s response Nearly up to the top is labelled a “support proposition.” But this is no proposition at all: it is a specification within the exchange of goods-&-services, a modulation of the proposal. Calling it a “proposition” misrepresents both the role of Kristy’s utterance and the structure of the exchange.

In short, the analysis overwrites the exchange with an improvised two-level purview scheme that obscures the simplicity and precision of Halliday’s model. The price of introducing “purview” is redundancy, category confusion, and the erosion of the core distinction between propositions and proposals. 

The Command Miscast: When a Proposal Becomes an Assert

Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 75-6):

The distinction between internal and external purview also helps us understand the interpersonal dynamics of proposals. Taking (41) as an example, adapted from a different conversation between Kristy and her mum while they are cooking together, there is a question as to who has purview. Is it the one who commands the action (in this case Kristy, who is the A2/secondary actor in Berry’s terms)? Or is it the one who does the action (in this case her mother – the A1/primary actor in Berry’s terms)?

(41) Kristy: Put honey in and milk

Mother: (PUTS HONEY AND MILK IN)

For action changes that involve proposals like this, the answer is in fact both. Looking at purview externally, in terms of control over the action, it is the person who does the action that has purview (the mother here as primary actor). But internally, it is the person who does the commanding (Kristy here as secondary actor) who has control over the exchange and the nature of the action. This can be seen from the fact that one can only render Kristy’s command here internally. That is, Kristy's mother can only support or abort the exchange (Put honey in and milk. – No). By contrast, she can render the action itself externally (PUTS HONEY AND MILK IN – Not like that!). This analysis is illustrated in (42):

ChatGPT Comments:

The central issue here is the collapse of distinct categories: the authors treat commands as asserts, purview as control, and conflate exchange roles with action roles.

1. Confusion of “purview” with role functions

   • The authors are mixing “purview” with Berry’s A1/A2 distinction, which concerns who initiates vs who responds in an exchange. Instead of clarifying purview, they are folding it into “control” over either action or exchange.

   • This dilutes purview into two unrelated axes:

     • Externally: purview = who performs the action.

     • Internally: purview = who initiates the exchange.

   • The result is a split that makes “purview” a floating label with no stable theoretical anchoring.

2. Mischaracterisation of commands as “asserts”

   • In (42), Kristy’s command is analysed internally as an “assert” (+ speaker purview, – listener purview). But in Hallidayan terms, a command is not an assert — it is a proposal: a demand for goods-&-services in exchange structure.

   • By forcing it into the “assert” slot, they erode the distinction between giving information (asserting) and demanding action (commanding).

3. Circularity of “support/abort” rendering

   • They claim the mother can only “support or abort” Kristy’s command internally — but that’s just a rewording of the basic exchange grammar (support/contradict for information; comply/refuse for goods-&-services).

   • Their terminology (“abort”) adds no theoretical precision, only a gloss that restates Halliday’s original exchange logic.

4. Theoretical drift: exchange structure vs action structure

   • They try to straddle two incompatible framings:

     • Internal purview → exchange control (Berry’s model).

     • External purview → action control (who physically does something).

   • But this is not an integrated system — it’s a patchwork that confuses linguistic structure with social action sequences.

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In other words…

Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 75–6) propose that the interpersonal dynamics of proposals can be explained through a dual notion of purview: internal purview as control of the exchange and external purview as control of the action. Their illustration, drawn from a cooking interaction between Kristy and her mother, is set out in (41–42).

The problem begins with their treatment of Kristy’s directive Put honey in and milk. In (42), this is analysed as an internal assert (+ speaker purview; – listener purview). But this classification is a category error. A command is not an assert. Within the system of speech function, commands belong to the order of proposals, not propositions. They are demands for goods-&-services, not offers or statements of information. To recast a command as an “assert” collapses the foundational distinction between giving information and demanding action.

This miscasting is not an isolated slip; it follows from the authors’ attempt to split purview into two incompatible dimensions. On the one hand, purview is defined externally as control over the physical action (the mother has purview because she puts the honey and milk in). On the other hand, purview is defined internally as control over the exchange (Kristy has purview because she initiates the command). The result is a patchwork in which the same phenomenon is described under two different and non-integrated logics: exchange structure (Berry’s A1/A2 roles) and action structure (who does what in practice).

The circularity of this analysis is evident in their claim that Kristy’s mother can only “support or abort” the proposal internally, while she can “render the action externally.” This is simply a paraphrase of the exchange system Halliday already modelled: the addressee can either comply or refuse a command. The substitution of “abort” for “refuse” does not advance the analysis, but it does obscure the elegance of the original model.

In sum, the attempt to stretch purview across both exchange and action leads to theoretical drift. Commands are miscast as asserts, exchange grammar is recoded in redundant terminology, and purview itself becomes an unstable placeholder rather than a principled category. 

Internal Purview and Tone: Repackaging Mood Without Gain

Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 75):

A further contrast in purview for open propositions is shown in (39), from Halliday (1970: 22), where a wh-interrogative is used with different tones – a falling tone (tone 1) in the first example (39a.) and a rising tone (tone 2) in the second example (39b.).

(39) a. //1 where are you going//

        b. //2 where are you going//

As Halliday notes, “the first [39a with a falling tone] is a normal question, neither abrupt nor deferential, while the second is deferential: it is a question accompanied by a request for permission to ask ‘where are you going, may I ask’.” (Halliday 1970: 22). We can understand this by considering again the distinction between internal and external readings of these positions. Looking externally, in terms of the ‘information’ being asked for, both simply pose a question – they have the same purview, namely – speaker: + listener. Viewed internally in terms of their role as speech acts initiating exchanges on the other hand, they differ in their purview. Example (39a.), with a falling tone, does not seek permission in any way to ask the question – internally it can be read as an assert (+internal speaker purview; – internal listener purview). By contrast (39b.), with a rising tone, indicates some tentativeness (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014, p. 169) – in some sense asking permission to initiate the exchange. This example can be read internally as a pose (– internal speaker purview; + internal listener purview). 

Similarly, in the Australian English dialect spoken by the first and third authors of this book, open propositions can be internally shared (+ internal speaker purview; + internal listener purview) by using non-lexical tags such as ay (/æɪ/) on a falling tone (tone 1).

(40) But what do we do, ay?

This example is still asking the question (externally speaking); but through the tag it is making it clear that this is a question which the interlocutors probably both share.

ChatGPT Comments:

 Several points stand out:

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1. Redundant re-description of mood and tone

• The authors use Halliday’s falling/rising tone distinctions to motivate internal purview, but SFL already captures this through Mood + Key + intonation patterns.

• The “internal vs external” distinction is a semantic overlay on phenomena that are already systematically handled by Mood: falling tone = normal declarative/interrogative force; rising tone = tentative or deferential. Their framework does not add explanatory power — it merely renames these distinctions in terms of ± internal speaker/listener purview.

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2. Introduction of “internal purview” adds analytic complexity without gain

• By splitting each proposition into “internal” vs “external” purview, the authors create a nested system on top of the existing SFL apparatus.

• This doubling is not justified empirically: there is no demonstration that these “internal” values capture patterns beyond what tone, key, and mood already explain.

---

3. Conflation of surface markers and systemic categories

• Tone, lexical tags, and intonation contours are used as evidence of purview categories.

• But purview is positioned as a systemic feature of context, not a phonetic or prosodic feature. By grounding purview in tone and tags, they blur the line between language and context, which was already a problematic aspect of the earlier discussion.

---

4. Circular reasoning

• They argue: rising/falling tone distinguishes internal purview, then show examples with rising/falling tone to demonstrate internal purview.

• This mirrors the circularity seen in previous critiques: the data are interpreted to fit the framework rather than to test it.

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Overall assessment

• The excerpt exemplifies the recurring problem: the “purview” system often renames or overlays phenomena already described by SFL (Mood, intonation, key) without adding genuine analytic leverage.

• The introduction of internal/external purview, and the use of sociolectal features like ay, highlights the fragility and non-generalisability of the framework.

Purview Collapsing into Mood: The Misdescription of Wh-Questions

Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 74-5):

The examples above all focused on complete propositions and proposals. For proposition or proposals that are open, often involving wh– questions, the default purview is pose (–speaker purview; + listener purview). We can see this in (37), where Kristy poses a wh-question to her mother.

Though as example (30) above shows, open propositions can have their purview varied – in this case as aired, through I wonder (replayed in (38)).

 

ChatGPT Comments:

 This continues the same issues we’ve seen earlier:

1. Circularity of “default” — The claim that open wh– questions default to pose (– speaker purview; + listener purview) is not an explanation but a tautological restatement of their own invented system. They say “the default is pose” because their grid requires it, not because any descriptive evidence demands it.

2. Category slippage — They oscillate between proposition type (wh– interrogative) and purview value (pose vs air), treating one as if it naturally “defaults” into the other. But they provide no systemic grounding: in SFL, the default mapping between interrogatives and exchange roles is already accounted for in mood structure. Their “default purview” adds nothing except redundancy.

3. Recycling the same example — Example (37) is simply a restaging of Kristy’s earlier wh– question (already discussed in 34). And (38) is again the coconut cream hoppers example we’ve seen twice already. This recycling suggests they don’t have enough genuinely distinct data to sustain the typology, so they keep dressing the same examples in new conceptual clothing.

4. Misuse of systemic concepts — In SFL, defaults are structural (e.g. interrogatives defaulting to “demand information”). Here, the “default purview” is not a systemic default but an analytic convenience. Calling it a “default” risks misleading readers into thinking the model is grounded in the grammar, when it is in fact grounded in their newly constructed grid.

---

More specifically:

Excerpt under review:

“For proposition or proposals that are open, often involving wh– questions, the default purview is pose (– speaker purview; + listener purview). … Though as example (30) above shows, open propositions can have their purview varied – in this case as aired, through I wonder.”

---

1. The illusion of a “default”

The authors claim that open wh– questions “default” to pose. But this “default” is only true by stipulation: they have defined pose as (– speaker purview; + listener purview), then observe that wh– interrogatives are typically structured as demands for information from the addressee. Rather than discovering something new, they are redescribing the already well-established systemic fact that interrogatives enact demands for information. The novelty of “purview” collapses into circular restatement.

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2. Redundancy with SFL mood system

In Halliday & Matthiessen’s model, the correlation between mood type and speech function is already systemic:

• interrogative ↔ demand for information

• declarative ↔ statement of information

• imperative ↔ demand for goods-&-services.

This account already captures Kristy’s wh– question in (37). To claim that “the default purview is pose” adds no explanatory depth; it simply repackages mood semantics into the “purview” grid, with no new descriptive reach.

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3. Category slippage: proposition ↔ purview

The authors conflate two distinct dimensions:

• proposition type: whether the clause is open (wh–) or closed (polar).

• purview type: who is said to “own” or “share” responsibility for knowing.

They present the mapping as if the clause type “naturally” entails a purview, but in fact the “purview” category is artificially imposed. This slippage generates the illusion of systemic necessity where there is only analytic projection.

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4. Reliance on recycled examples

The data presented are not fresh demonstrations but recycled:

• Example (37) repeats Kristy’s wh– question from (34).

• Example (38) repeats the “coconut cream hoppers” case already presented twice.

This recycling betrays the fragility of the framework. If the typology were descriptively robust, one would expect a rich array of distinct examples across Hasan’s corpus. Instead, the same handful of cases must be dressed up in different theoretical guises to sustain the typology.

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5. Misuse of “default” as systemic category

In SFL, “default” is a technical concept tied to systemic probability: certain features are unmarked, carrying higher systemic probability in context. Here, “default purview” is neither probabilistic nor systemic; it is merely an analytic shorthand for “what their table already predicts.” By borrowing SFL’s terminology, the authors create an illusion of system-internal motivation that their model cannot supply.

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Conclusion

This passage illustrates the fundamental weakness of the purview typology: it offers no explanatory insight beyond what mood semantics already covers, yet it recycles SFL’s terminology (“default”) and Hasan’s data to generate the appearance of theoretical novelty. The result is circular, redundant, and analytically fragile.

Purview without System: Why ‘Share’ and ‘Air’ Misfire

Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 74):

These four options of assert, share, pose and air, offer resources for seeing how speakers nuance meanings in text and talk, so as to build affiliation and minimise the risk of a negative response. As Table 3.1 shows, they can be seen as arising from two variables, namely ± speaker purview and ± listener purview.

ChatGPT Comments:

The table is presented as a two-variable system:

• ± speaker purview

• ± listener purview

This yields a four-cell typology: share, assert, pose, air.

At first glance, it looks neat. But there are two deep problems:

1. Category mistake in the dimensions themselves.

   • “Speaker purview” and “listener purview” are not interpersonal systems in Halliday’s sense. They are interpretations of stance and epistemic alignment—second-order construals of talk—rather than actual options available in the system network.

   • In other words: they treat what is negotiated in dialogue (who knows, who doesn’t) as if it were an input variable of the system. This is upside down: purview is construed in negotiation, not pre-given for system entry.

2. Misplaced systemics: projecting stance onto speech function.

   • The canonical SPEECH FUNCTION system already accounts for whether a speaker demands or gives information, and whether they do so congruently (declarative, interrogative) or metaphorically.

   • “Airing” and “sharing” are really evaluative stances realised by hedges, modal adjuncts, projection, or prosody—not distinct speech functions. To elevate them to the same systemic status as assert or pose is to flatten the delicate layering of semantics and conflate system with strategy.

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Where the table breaks down

• Assert and pose correspond roughly (if loosely) to canonical options in SFL: asserting propositions vs posing questions.

• Share and air are parasitic: they depend entirely on construing stance toward knowledge (epistemic solidarity, hedged ignorance). These are better treated as resources of appraisal, modality, or projection.

So the table looks like a “system,” but it’s actually a hybrid of speech function and stance alignment, mixing strata and ranks. That’s why it appears plausible at first, but collapses under theoretical scrutiny.

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A Square Peg Typology

When Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 74) finally formalise their four options in Table 3.1, the conceptual problem is exposed with striking clarity:

	Listener purview	No listener purview
Speaker purview	share	assert
No speaker purview	pose	air

On first glance, this looks like a neat systemic table. But an SFL reader will immediately see that “share” and “air” are not co-ordinates of the same order as “assert” and “pose.” They are not genuine options in a semantic system, but reformulations of stance or attitude toward participation.

The conflation is two-fold:

1. System and stance are treated as interchangeable. What belongs to the interpersonal system of SPEECH FUNCTION (assert/pose) is here combined with ways of orienting toward epistemic responsibility (share/air).

2. Dimensions of purview are mis-specified. “Speaker purview” is confused with the basic contrast of MOOD (declarative vs interrogative), while “listener purview” imports a participation effect that does not stratify with the system itself.

The table therefore produces a spurious typology. It suggests a system of four options where in fact two are categories and two are contextual glosses. The result is not a genuine systemic description but a square peg typology — forcing unlike phenomena into the same analytic frame.

What this shows is not the subtlety of affiliation, but the danger of confusing system with stance: once the orders of abstraction are collapsed, a table can be filled but theory is emptied.

Why ‘Airing’ Collapses: Misreading Stance as Speech Function

Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 73-4):

Finally, it is possible to indicate that neither speaker or the listener is expected to know the answer to something – what we will call airing (– speaker purview; – listener purview). This often happens with the lexicalised phrase I don’t know (or perhaps more accurately – dunno). For example, once Kristy’s mother has finally managed to start getting Kristy dressed, Kristy asks her why her dress is only buttoned up on one side, to which her mother attempts to give an answer, before acknowledging that she simply doesn’t know.

In another conversation from Hasan’s data (AJ6B5), a mother is reading a cookbook with her daughter, and airs her exclamation about coconut cream hoppers through I wonder.

Importantly, it is still possible to give a response in these situations; but the position can be aired without indicating that anyone should be tied to it. This occurs in a separate conversation between mothers, when one mother is describing what it’s like when her child is in therapy for their disability. She suggests it might be her little break, but that she is not wedded to this at all.

ChatGPT Comments:

The authors here attempt to expand their taxonomy of “purview” with a final category they label airing, defined as (– speaker purview; – listener purview). This is supposed to cover cases where neither participant is expected to “know the answer,” typically expressed with “I don’t know” or “I wonder.”

This proposal falters at several points:

1. Taxonomy by residuals

• The authors treat “airing” as the logical residual once speaker purview and listener purview have both been stripped away.

• But this is an artefact of their grid-building, not of the semantics of exchange. It’s the familiar problem of “completing the square” — filling in a cell because the table demands it, not because the interactional phenomena actually call for it.

• The examples themselves are heterogeneous: “I don’t know” is not parallel to “I wonder,” nor to “maybe it’s my little break.” These are different resources entirely, pressed into a single category for taxonomic neatness.

2. Misconstrual of “I don’t know”

• In example (34), the mother says “and why they chose that side I don’t know.”

• The authors gloss this as air/proposition.

• But “I don’t know” is not a proposition about the world; it’s a modal assessment of the speaker’s knowledge state. In Halliday’s framework this belongs with modality, not with some new interpersonal role called “airing.”

• Far from being a neutral “release of purview,” it strongly positions the mother as lacking epistemic authority, which itself is a meaning in negotiation (and can be strategic — deflecting, softening, protecting face).

• To fold this into “purview” erases the modality system and creates a parallel interpersonal vocabulary that distorts what the language is doing.

3. Misconstrual of “I wonder”

• In example (35), “I wonder what coconut cream hoppers are!” is glossed as air/proposition.

• But “I wonder” is a mental process clause projecting an interrogative clause. It expresses a subjective stance (the mother’s curiosity), not an absence of speaker/listener purview.

• To call this “airing” is to collapse clause type + projection into a pseudo-category invented for theoretical symmetry.

• The move obscures the important difference between:

  • epistemic disclaimers (I don’t know),

  • affective stances (I wonder), and

  • tentative proposals (maybe it’s my little break).
    Each has its own grammar and interactional value; none is reducible to a missing purview box.

4. Category leakage

• In (36), Renee says “I don’t know if that’s my little break.” This is glossed as air/proposition.

• But this is a hypothetical with modal uncertainty (“I don’t know if …”), not parallel to the prior two cases.

• Here, the “airing” label is stretched to cover any instance where the speaker softens commitment. That is precisely what the system of modality is for.

• The fact that they need to sweep all these different structures under “airing” is a sign that the purview framework can’t actually handle epistemic disclaimers, stance markers, or hedging — all crucial to interpersonal meaning.

5. Theoretical redundancy

• Everything in these examples is already systematically accounted for in SFL:

  • I don’t know → modal assessment of knowledge state.

  • I wonder … → projection of interrogative, expressing inclination/curiosity.

  • I don’t know if … → modalised proposal with epistemic hedging.

• The “airing” category adds no explanatory power; it simply relabels these phenomena in terms of “purview,” a construct that duplicates and distorts the established systems of mood, modality, projection, and appraisal.

• Worse, it collapses these systems into a single superficial box-ticking exercise.

6. Strategic mischaracterisation of dialogue

• The claim that “airing” means “the position can be aired without indicating that anyone should be tied to it” is misleading.

• In practice, these turns very much do tie meanings to the speaker: “I don’t know” positions the speaker as disclaiming knowledge; “I wonder” positions the speaker as inviting shared curiosity; “I don’t know if …” positions the speaker as hedging a claim.

• The stance is not “untied” but highly interpersonal — signalling alignment, deference, or invitation.

• By describing these as “– speaker purview; – listener purview,” the authors erase the interpersonal work that is actually happening.

Summary

The “airing” category exemplifies the residualist logic of this purview framework: filling in empty cells with whatever examples can be conscripted, regardless of whether they belong together. The result is a category collapse: epistemic disclaimers, stance markers, and hedged proposals are all swept under one heading, misrepresented as lacking purview.

From the standpoint of systemic functional linguistics, the work is already done by the existing resources of mood, modality, projection, and appraisal. “Airing” adds nothing — and in fact distorts the analysis by conflating distinct grammatical and semantic phenomena under a pseudo-category demanded by their matrix.

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In other words…

The authors introduce a fourth category of “purview,” which they label airing, defined as (– speaker purview; – listener purview). This is supposed to capture utterances in which neither speaker nor listener is “expected to know” the answer. They exemplify with I don’t know and I wonder, treating these as structural indices of a distinct interpersonal move.

Several problems immediately arise.

1. Confusion of semantics with stance markers.
   The classification rests on idiomatic lexical items (dunno, I wonder) rather than on a principled analysis of speech function. These phrases are pragmatic markers signalling uncertainty or tentativeness. Treating them as evidence of a new kind of move confuses interpersonal meaning (commitment to a proposition) with the lexico-grammatical realisations that hedge such commitment. In systemic terms, “I don’t know” is an adjunct to mood, modulating the speaker’s orientation — not a separate speech function.

2. The incoherence of (– speaker purview; – listener purview).
   The proposed polarity is unstable. If the speaker genuinely disclaims purview and also withholds purview from the listener, then the exchange collapses: no one is positioned to take up the offer or demand. Communication requires some addressee alignment — even if minimal — otherwise the utterance would be unintelligible. In fact, in their own examples the listener is implicitly granted purview: Kristy may not know why the dress opens on one side, but she can still respond to her mother’s speculation or acknowledgment of ignorance. The category thus contradicts itself.

3. Retrofitting to Hasan’s data.
   The authors again misappropriate Hasan’s carefully analysed interactions. When a mother says I wonder what coconut cream hoppers are!, Hasan would treat this as a rhetorical demand for information (a question) or as a stance move inviting affiliation. Doran et al. relabel it “airing” but provide no systemic justification. They treat Hasan’s example as a mere illustration of their taxonomy, ignoring the rich theoretical grounding Hasan provided in the semantics of dialogue.

4. Mischaracterisation of responsibility.
   The authors claim that “airing” indicates “that no one should be tied to it.” But this is not true even in their data. In example (36), Renee says I don’t know if that’s my little break — here the speaker is very much tied to the utterance: it construes her subjective stance toward therapy routines. To say she is not wedded to it is an interpretive gloss, not an interpersonal function. The speaker retains responsibility for the construal, even if signalling tentativeness.

5. Category inflation.
   Rather than recognising that modalisation, hedging, and stance-taking are resources for modulating purview, the authors posit a wholly new category of “airing.” This multiplies terms unnecessarily, producing redundancy where systemic-functional theory already has robust means of accounting for uncertainty and subjectivity (e.g., modality, comment adjuncts, engagement resources in appraisal).

In sum: “Airing” is a mis-specified category built on shaky distinctions. It conflates stance markers with speech function, posits an incoherent (– purview; – purview) polarity, misreads Hasan’s data, and mistakes hedging for abdication of responsibility. The result is an inflated and unnecessary addition to the interpersonal system. Far from clarifying negotiation, it muddles the terrain and obscures the established systemic resources already at hand. 

The Fiction of Purview: When Questions Become Claims

Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 73):

This is in fact the typical realm of yes-no questions, where a proposition is put forward for the listener to support or reject (without the speaker necessarily indicating which way they lean). This occurs later in the conversation, when Kristy’s mother has called Ruth a goose for squashing her hand, and Kristy asks.

This question can be contrasted with the sharing proposition in (31). When Kristy asks do goosies do that? she is asking a genuine question (and so is relinquishing her purview to her mother); but when her mother says you go away from me to kinder, don’t you? she is not in fact asking Kristy as such – she is putting forward a proposition she agrees with, and is indicating that she expects Kristy to agree. This interplay of who has purview over the meanings being tendered allows Kristy’s mother to further steer the conversation in her direction. For example, she can downplay controversial proposals (like Kristy getting dressed) by giving Kristy purview to support or reject them. When Kristy does reject them, her mother can then turn to relatively uncontroversial meanings and present them in a shared way, so as to build solidarity and try again down the track. As this conversation shows, Kristy’s mother is an experienced negotiator, ceding control to Kristy whenever it is needed and coaxing her into agreement when the going is good.

ChatGPT Comments:

1. “This is in fact the typical realm of yes-no questions, where a proposition is put forward for the listener to support or reject (without the speaker necessarily indicating which way they lean).”

This initial claim immediately oversimplifies the logic of yes-no interrogatives. In Halliday’s canonical model, yes-no interrogatives are proposals for information — the commodity at risk is knowledge, not goods-&-services. The speaker’s “leaning” is irrelevant: the move is defined by the role structure (giving/ demanding; goods-&-services/ information), not by subjective attitudes of “leaning.” Their description here muddles speech function with epistemic stance, eroding the clarity of the system.

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2. “This occurs later in the conversation, when Kristy’s mother has called Ruth a goose for squashing her hand, and Kristy asks. (33) Kristy do goosies do that? pose/proposition Mother: No no reject”

Their analysis labels Kristy’s move as “pose/proposition.” But in SFL, it is unambiguously a yes-no interrogative functioning as a demand for information. To call it a “pose/proposition” obscures the speech role exchange: Kristy is not putting forward a proposition for agreement but rather demanding confirmation. The mother’s “No no” is not a “reject” but a supply of information — the expected response in this adjacency pair. Their system here fails to distinguish proposals vs. propositions (goods-&-services vs. information) and demand vs. give.

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3. “This question can be contrasted with the sharing proposition in (31). When Kristy asks do goosies do that? she is asking a genuine question (and so is relinquishing her purview to her mother)…”

Here the notion of “purview” collapses into incoherence. Asking a question is not “relinquishing purview” but enacting a different speech role. The categories of the mood system already capture the difference between declarative “sharing” (giving information) and interrogative “asking” (demanding information). To redescribe this as a transfer of “purview” is a redundancy at best and an obfuscation at worst. Moreover, the contrast they set up between “genuine question” and “sharing proposition” misses Halliday’s simple systemic opposition: interrogative vs. declarative.

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4. “…but when her mother says you go away from me to kinder, don’t you? she is not in fact asking Kristy as such – she is putting forward a proposition she agrees with, and is indicating that she expects Kristy to agree.”

This analysis mischaracterises the tag question. In SFL terms, tag questions are a distinct subtype: a proposition is advanced as a statement (declarative) but the tag enacts a demand for confirmation. The mother is indeed “asking Kristy as such,” albeit in a way that construes alignment. There is no need for the contorted account that she is “not really asking.” The system already models this duality cleanly. Again, the purview language obscures the systemic elegance of how tags function.

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5. “This interplay of who has purview over the meanings being tendered allows Kristy’s mother to further steer the conversation in her direction.”

Here “purview” is doing all the heavy lifting where SFL already has the interpersonal metafunction precisely designed for this purpose. Mood and speech function already provide the categories to describe who controls the exchange of information or goods-&-services. To redescribe “steering the conversation” in terms of “purview” simply replaces a robust, tested systemic description with an improvised metaphor.

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6. “For example, she can downplay controversial proposals (like Kristy getting dressed) by giving Kristy purview to support or reject them. When Kristy does reject them, her mother can then turn to relatively uncontroversial meanings and present them in a shared way, so as to build solidarity and try again down the track.”

This is a classic case of narrativising what is already captured by systemic choices. The mother alternates between commands (demands for goods-&-services) and statements (giving information), using mitigation and solidarity strategies — all describable within the grammar of mood and modality. To redescribe this as “giving Kristy purview” is not an analytic advance but a rhetorical embellishment.

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7. “As this conversation shows, Kristy’s mother is an experienced negotiator, ceding control to Kristy whenever it is needed and coaxing her into agreement when the going is good.”

The final flourish abandons analysis for folk-psychological narrative. The mother is reimagined as a Machiavellian strategist rather than simply a parent using familiar interpersonal resources. This kind of evaluative framing adds nothing to the linguistic analysis, and in fact risks projecting motives not present in the interaction.

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Summary

This passage epitomises the flaws of the “purview” framework:

• It re-describes existing mood structures (declarative, interrogative, tag question, imperative) in terms of a vague metaphor of “purview.”

• It blurs the systemic distinctions between giving/demanding and propositions/proposals.

• It mixes analysis with folk-psychological storytelling, presenting ordinary parental scaffolding as tactical negotiation.

Where Halliday offers a parsimonious and powerful account of speech function, the authors layer an additional terminology that obscures rather than clarifies. 

When Purview Slips its Bounds: The Collapse of Control, Knowledge, and Negotiation

Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 72):

Whereas both the sharing and asserting options maintain speaker purview, with or without listener purview, Kristy and her mother also illustrate how we may release speaker purview. We saw this above where both Kristy and her mother in turn loosened control over what they were proposing, and hand decision making over to the other (– speaker purview; + listener purview – though note below that we will call this internal purview). By posing a proposition or proposal in this way, they made it interpersonally easier for the other to reject what was being suggested.

ChatGPT Comments:

1. The sleight-of-hand with “release” and “internal purview”

They begin with a contrast: sharing and asserting both maintain speaker purview, but then introduce a third option — “release” — where speaker purview is supposedly handed over to the listener.

• The problem is that they immediately undercut their own formulation: “– speaker purview; + listener purview – though note below that we will call this internal purview.”

• This is an incoherent move. If speaker purview has really been released, why not just say it’s now listener purview? Instead, they invent the category “internal purview,” which both muddles their terminology and contradicts the binary opposition they’ve been trading on.

Critique: The terminology keeps shifting in order to patch theoretical holes. Rather than clarifying the system, “internal purview” is an ad hoc invention to avoid admitting that the scheme is collapsing.

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2. Control vs. acknowledgement

They gloss “release” as loosening control and handing decision making over. This treats “purview” as if it were a matter of authority, power, or control — but in their earlier formulations it was about “having visibility over meanings.” The two are not the same.

• “Purview” shifts here from epistemic access (who sees the meaning) to deontic authority (who decides).

• This equivocation lets them claim that asking “what about I fold the cardboard” is an instance of “release,” but really it’s just a proposal posed tentatively, not a handover of epistemic control.

Critique: The category is sliding between distinct dimensions of interpersonal meaning (knowledge, power, solidarity), which systemic-functional theory carefully distinguishes.

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3. The example does not fit

They present Kristy’s “what about I fold the cardboard” as an instance of “release.” But this is not “handing over decision making.” It’s a proposal framed tentatively — exactly the kind of move Hallidayan exchange structure already accounts for as a modulated proposal.

• Similarly, the mother’s “well how about I get you dressed instead” is simply a counter-proposal, not an instance of “releasing purview.”

• The daughter’s “no” is then a straight rejection.

Critique: Exchange structure already captures all of this without recourse to “purview.” The “purview” terminology adds nothing explanatory — it only redescribes what’s obvious.

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4. The interpersonal asymmetry is obscured

In Kristy’s case, “release” might look like genuine negotiation, but in the mother’s case it’s not symmetrical. She poses “how about I get you dressed instead” with clear parental authority backing it. Calling both “release of purview” masks the asymmetrical footing of parent/child interactions.

Critique: Their framework erases the crucial difference between a child’s tentative negotiation and a parent’s authoritative proposal.

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5. Meta-problem: overextending a metaphor

The word purview originally connoted “scope of vision” or “field of view.” But here it’s being stretched to cover control, negotiation, authority, sharedness, release, and internalisation. The metaphor is so overextended that it loses analytical purchase. 

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A More Extended Analysis

Whereas both the sharing and asserting options maintain speaker purview, with or without listener purview, Kristy and her mother also illustrate how we may release speaker purview.

Already we meet the first problem: purview has been defined as “who has visibility over meanings.” Now it is being redescribed as something that can be released. Visibility is not the kind of thing one “releases” — it either includes the other or it does not. What they mean here is something closer to “handing over decision-making power.” But that is a different dimension of interpersonal meaning altogether, and one already accounted for in Halliday’s model as deontic modality and exchange structure.

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We saw this above where both Kristy and her mother in turn loosened control over what they were proposing, and hand decision making over to the other (– speaker purview; + listener purview – though note below that we will call this internal purview).

Here the slippage becomes blatant. “Purview” is no longer epistemic scope but control over decision making. And having redefined it, they immediately destabilise the binary they themselves have set up. If purview has been handed from speaker to listener, why not simply describe it as listener purview? Instead, they announce that they will relabel it as “internal purview.” This is an ad hoc patch — a terminological invention to cover over a contradiction in the system, rather than a theoretically motivated category.

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By posing a proposition or proposal in this way, they made it interpersonally easier for the other to reject what was being suggested.

The gloss confirms what is really going on: this is not a matter of purview at all. What is being described is simply a tentative proposal, framed in such a way that it lowers the interpersonal cost of rejection. This is already captured in Hallidayan terms as modulation of a proposal. To redescribe it in terms of “purview” is not an explanation but a redundancy — it adds no analytic clarity.

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Example (32)

Kristy: what about I fold the cardboard and then if I want some pieces um – pose/proposal

Mother: well how about I get you dressed instead – reject pose/proposal

Kristy: no – reject

The example itself undercuts the argument. Kristy’s “what about…” is a proposal posed tentatively — exactly what exchange structure predicts. The mother’s “how about I get you dressed instead” is a counter-proposal grounded in parental authority. To label both as instances of “release of purview” obscures the clear asymmetry: the child is negotiating tentatively; the mother is asserting authority through the guise of suggestion. Finally, Kristy’s “no” is a straightforward rejection. Nothing here requires the machinery of “purview” to account for it.

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Underlying issues

1. Conceptual equivocation
   – Purview oscillates between epistemic visibility, deontic authority, and negotiation of proposals. Each is distinct in systemic theory; conflating them collapses necessary distinctions.

2. Ad hoc categories
   – “Internal purview” is an invented fix to save a collapsing binary, not a principled extension of the model.

3. Analytic redundancy
   – Everything shown here is already accounted for by exchange structure and modality. The “purview” terminology adds no new explanatory value.

4. Erasure of asymmetry
   – Treating mother and child’s moves as equivalent “releases” obscures their unequal footing in interaction.

5. Metaphor overextension
   – “Purview,” originally a metaphor of visibility, is overextended until it means power, control, sharing, release, and internalisation. At that point, the metaphor ceases to illuminate.

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Conclusion

What we are offered as a new dimension of interpersonal analysis turns out to be a shifting metaphor stretched beyond coherence. The very phenomena invoked — tentative proposals, counter-proposals, rejections — are already systematically described in SFL without invoking “purview.” Far from clarifying, the terminology obscures the distinctions it purports to track.