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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Summary
This passage epitomises the flaws of the “purview” framework:
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It re-describes existing mood structures (declarative, interrogative, tag question, imperative) in terms of a vague metaphor of “purview.”
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It blurs the systemic distinctions between giving/demanding and propositions/proposals.
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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.
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