Purview without Clarity: Assertions, Proposals, and the Misframing of Rejection

Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 71-2):

As example (28) illustrates, a speaker can maintain purview with no suggestion that the listener will already share the meanings (i.e. no listener purview). This often occurs when a speaker relatively baldly asserts a proposition or proposal (+ speaker purview; – listener purview).

In this instance, Kristy’s mother is stating a proposition without suggesting that Kristy necessarily has much say in the matter. For proposals, this often takes the form of a command (or an A2 in exchange structure), where the speaker proposes what the listener is to do, without any acknowledgement of whether the listener wants to or not. This occurs when Kristy yells at Ruth after she annoys Kristy (Don’t!), and again when Kristy’s mother chastises her for getting cranky (each of these instances are shaded in grey in (29), along with an assertion of a proposition). In each of these instances, the positions are working to reject something – first Ruth’s action, then Kristy’s reaction and finally the possibility of Kristy getting cranky (a prospective rendering, Zhang 2020c).

ChatGPT Comments:

What makes this section interesting is how much theoretical weight the authors place on very ordinary exchange-structural phenomena, while simultaneously relocating them into their “purview” framework. Let me unpack where the problems are:

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1. Purview as a relabel of exchange structure

• What they are calling “+speaker purview / –listener purview” is simply the canonical asymmetry of moves in negotiation: an A2 command or a bald assertion without explicit concession to alternative voices.

• Hallidayan exchange structure already models this as giving/demanding information/goods-&-services, with recognition of the speaker’s and listener’s relative options.

• To rebrand this as “purview” adds no explanatory power — it only reframes what’s already well-covered in the system network of MOOD + EXCHANGE.

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2. Context vs language

• Once again, they locate “purview” in context, but the examples (commands, assertions, rejections) are linguistic choices that realise context.

• The conflation makes it seem as if context itself is being “assertive” or “rejecting,” whereas in Halliday’s model the interpersonal semantics realise those contextual dynamics.

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3. Dialogic vs structural confusion

• They bring in Zhang’s “prospective rendering” to explain Kristy’s mother’s “Don’t get cranky.” But the phenomenon is perfectly well explained in exchange structure: a rejection of an anticipated action.

• Again, “purview” here is simply a gloss over well-established SFL tools, not an actual extension.

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4. Critical summary

This section illustrates the redundancy and slippage in their model:

• Redundancy: “Purview” is exchange structure and ENGAGEMENT with new labels.

• Mislocation: They situate purview in context, but all their data are linguistic realisations.

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A More Extended Line-By-Line Analysis

“As example (28) illustrates, a speaker can maintain purview with no suggestion that the listener will already share the meanings (i.e. no listener purview).”

→ Already muddled. They are defining “purview” as if it is something the speaker “has” or “maintains,” yet they deny that the listener has any share in meaning. But in SFL, meaning is always intersubjective — “sharing” is not optional but built into the very concept of language as semiotic. They are imposing a quasi-possession model (“having purview”) onto what is in fact a relational negotiation of meaning.

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“This often occurs when a speaker relatively baldly asserts a proposition or proposal (+ speaker purview; – listener purview).”

→ “+/- speaker/listener purview” is a clumsy binary encoding of epistemic stance, but stripped of its proper grounding in the exchange system. In SFL terms, a “bald assertion” is a proposition without modalisation or explicit negotiation of validity. That’s not “purview,” it’s mood choice + modality. The binarisation of “listener purview” is just a way of smuggling in conversational analysis’s “epistemic authority” under a new name, while pretending to innovate.

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Example (28): “Mother: You’ll have a lovely day pet. proposition/assert.”

→ This is a classic declarative functioning as offer of reassurance. It is not “speaker purview” at all, but rather an interpersonal move combining assertion with affective positioning. In fact, the mother is construing Kristy’s future experience as already aligned with her own assessment. Calling this “no listener purview” misses the point: the speech act is inherently oriented toward the listener’s uptake.

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“In this instance, Kristy’s mother is stating a proposition without suggesting that Kristy necessarily has much say in the matter.”

→ Wrong register. The mother isn’t suppressing Kristy’s say; she’s construing Kristy’s future as a taken-for-granted shared value. This is interpersonal positioning, not a denial of listener “purview.” The gloss reads like an outsider’s imposition of power asymmetry, rather than a systemic analysis of the interpersonal choice.

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“For proposals, this often takes the form of a command (or an A2 in exchange structure), where the speaker proposes what the listener is to do, without any acknowledgement of whether the listener wants to or not.”

→ Misrepresentation of SFL exchange structure. A command is not “an A2”; it is a proposal for goods-&-services. A2 is a role in adjacency pairs, but Halliday’s exchange system doesn’t reduce proposals to adjacency roles. Also: all commands presume some form of negotiation (even if suppressed). To say there is “no acknowledgement” of the listener is to erase the very logic of dialogue that makes a command meaningful.

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“This occurs when Kristy yells at Ruth after she annoys Kristy (Don’t!), and again when Kristy’s mother chastises her for getting cranky…”

→ “Don’t!” is not adequately described as “+ speaker purview; – listener purview.” It is simply an imperative clause realising a command. The interpersonal force comes from the imperative, not from an invented “purview setting.” The misdescription leads them to confuse functional categories with affective glosses.

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“(each of these instances are shaded in grey in (29), along with an assertion of a proposition).”

→ Red flag: they collapse proposals and propositions into the same shading, as if their “purview” variable overrides the distinction. This is precisely backwards — mood is the primary systemic resource; “purview” is a secondary interpretive construct (if it exists at all).

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“In each of these instances, the positions are working to reject something – first Ruth’s action, then Kristy’s reaction and finally the possibility of Kristy getting cranky (a prospective rendering, Zhang 2020c).”

→ Here the confusion doubles: they conflate rejection with “purview” while borrowing Zhang’s “prospective rendering.” But rejection is simply polarity: the negative. No new category is needed. Worse, they present Kristy’s mother’s utterance “Don’t get cranky” as a rejection of a possibility, when it is transparently a command. Calling this “prospective rendering” mystifies what is perfectly obvious in terms of mood, polarity, and exchange roles.

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Summary of the analysis:

• The authors smuggle CA’s “epistemic authority” into SFL under the rebrand “purview.”

• They confuse speech function (proposition/proposal), polarity (positive/negative), and exchange roles (giving/demanding) with this invented “purview” dimension.

• They misdescribe declaratives as “no listener purview,” erasing the inherently dialogic nature of propositions.

• They misrepresent imperatives as if the listener’s role were absent, when in fact it is constitutive.

• They over-complicate obvious exchanges (“Don’t!” = imperative command) with pseudo-technical terms (“prospective rendering”).

Net effect: a proliferation of categories that obscure the interpersonal system Halliday already modelled with precision.