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.