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):

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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.