Repositioning: Stratal Slippage and Analytical Overreach

Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 70):

We will not explore repositioning any further here, other than to note that it offers a resource for significantly expanding interpersonal meaning, as multiple tenor resources are imposed on one another. As noted above, repositioning works with interpersonal grammatical metaphor as a resource for layering interpersonal meaning. Interpersonal grammatical metaphor does this by establishing a relation of incongruence between discourse semantics and lexicogrammar, whereas repositioning does this through an iteration of choices within tenor. As we have seen, this iteration of choices allows for more than two layers of meaning to be presented at a time, so as to engage in social regulation in some sense – whether that be in a classroom, a legal setting or in a political context. Repositioning allows proposals and propositions to come together to organise both ideas and people at the same time.

ChatGPT Comments:

1. Slippage between strata and metafunctions
   The claim that “multiple tenor resources are imposed on one another” frames repositioning as an iteration of choices within tenor. But tenor is a contextual variable, not a stratal system — so “choices within tenor” is metaphorical at best and risks implying that interpersonal systems operate inside tenor, rather than tenor being realised by interpersonal meaning at discourse semantics and lexicogrammar. This confuses the relationship between context and language strata.

2. Analytical imprecision in ‘layering’
   The distinction they draw — grammatical metaphor as incongruence between discourse semantics and lexicogrammar, versus repositioning as iteration within tenor — puts the two phenomena at different levels of description. One is explicitly stratal; the other is being characterised in contextual terms. This makes them hard to compare in a principled way and blurs the framework’s internal architecture.

3. Repositioning as resource vs phenomenon
   The text calls repositioning a “resource” but also treats it as an effect of interacting choices. It’s not clear whether they mean repositioning is a systemic option, a recurring pattern, or an analyst’s category for describing discourse effects. Without that clarity, it’s difficult to determine whether it belongs in the system network or as an analytical heuristic.

4. Proposals and propositions ‘coming together’
   The claim that repositioning “allows proposals and propositions to come together to organise both ideas and people at the same time” could be seen as simply restating that proposals are interpersonal enactments with content (ideas) and interpersonal force (people). This is not unique to repositioning — it’s true of proposals and propositions in general — so the explanatory gain here is unclear.

5. Overgeneralisation of applicability
   The reference to classrooms, legal settings, and politics is gestural rather than analytic. Without unpacking how repositioning operates differently across these registers/situations, it risks becoming an all-purpose descriptor for layered interpersonal work, rather than a well-defined category.

The authors’ characterisation of repositioning as “an iteration of choices within tenor” raises concerns regarding theoretical consistency within the stratified model. Tenor is a contextual variable, not a linguistic stratum, and thus does not itself contain “choices” in the systemic sense; rather, it is realised by interpersonal meaning at discourse semantics and lexicogrammar. Framing repositioning in contextual rather than stratal terms makes its comparison with interpersonal grammatical metaphor problematic, since the latter is explicitly defined as an incongruence between discourse semantics and lexicogrammar. It is also unclear whether repositioning is to be understood as a systemic resource available to interactants, a recurring discourse pattern, or an analyst’s descriptive category, and this lack of definitional precision weakens its explanatory value. Furthermore, the claim that repositioning “allows proposals and propositions to come together to organise both ideas and people at the same time” does not appear unique to repositioning, as proposals and propositions inherently combine ideational content with interpersonal force. Finally, the general reference to contexts such as classrooms, legal settings, and politics is suggestive but underdeveloped; without demonstrating how repositioning operates differently across these situation types, the description risks overgeneralisation and loss of analytic sharpness.

Framing repositioning as “choices within tenor” conflates contextual variables with linguistic strata, making its comparison with interpersonal grammatical metaphor theoretically inconsistent. The status of repositioning — systemic resource, discourse pattern, or analytic category — remains unclear, reducing explanatory precision. The claim that it uniquely combines proposals and propositions to organise ideas and people is not convincing, as this is inherent to their nature. The contextual examples are gestural rather than analytic, risking overgeneralisation without demonstrating register-specific operation.