Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 72):
Whereas both the sharing and asserting options maintain speaker purview, with or without listener purview, Kristy and her mother also illustrate how we may release speaker purview. We saw this above where both Kristy and her mother in turn loosened control over what they were proposing, and hand decision making over to the other (– speaker purview; + listener purview – though note below that we will call this internal purview). By posing a proposition or proposal in this way, they made it interpersonally easier for the other to reject what was being suggested.
ChatGPT Comments:
1. The sleight-of-hand with “release” and “internal purview”
They begin with a contrast: sharing and asserting both maintain speaker purview, but then introduce a third option — “release” — where speaker purview is supposedly handed over to the listener.
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The problem is that they immediately undercut their own formulation: “– speaker purview; + listener purview – though note below that we will call this internal purview.”
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This is an incoherent move. If speaker purview has really been released, why not just say it’s now listener purview? Instead, they invent the category “internal purview,” which both muddles their terminology and contradicts the binary opposition they’ve been trading on.
Critique: The terminology keeps shifting in order to patch theoretical holes. Rather than clarifying the system, “internal purview” is an ad hoc invention to avoid admitting that the scheme is collapsing.
2. Control vs. acknowledgement
They gloss “release” as loosening control and handing decision making over. This treats “purview” as if it were a matter of authority, power, or control — but in their earlier formulations it was about “having visibility over meanings.” The two are not the same.
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“Purview” shifts here from epistemic access (who sees the meaning) to deontic authority (who decides).
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This equivocation lets them claim that asking “what about I fold the cardboard” is an instance of “release,” but really it’s just a proposal posed tentatively, not a handover of epistemic control.
Critique: The category is sliding between distinct dimensions of interpersonal meaning (knowledge, power, solidarity), which systemic-functional theory carefully distinguishes.
3. The example does not fit
They present Kristy’s “what about I fold the cardboard” as an instance of “release.” But this is not “handing over decision making.” It’s a proposal framed tentatively — exactly the kind of move Hallidayan exchange structure already accounts for as a modulated proposal.
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Similarly, the mother’s “well how about I get you dressed instead” is simply a counter-proposal, not an instance of “releasing purview.”
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The daughter’s “no” is then a straight rejection.
Critique: Exchange structure already captures all of this without recourse to “purview.” The “purview” terminology adds nothing explanatory — it only redescribes what’s obvious.
4. The interpersonal asymmetry is obscured
In Kristy’s case, “release” might look like genuine negotiation, but in the mother’s case it’s not symmetrical. She poses “how about I get you dressed instead” with clear parental authority backing it. Calling both “release of purview” masks the asymmetrical footing of parent/child interactions.
Critique: Their framework erases the crucial difference between a child’s tentative negotiation and a parent’s authoritative proposal.
5. Meta-problem: overextending a metaphor
The word purview originally connoted “scope of vision” or “field of view.” But here it’s being stretched to cover control, negotiation, authority, sharedness, release, and internalisation. The metaphor is so overextended that it loses analytical purchase.
A More Extended Analysis
Whereas both the sharing and asserting options maintain speaker purview, with or without listener purview, Kristy and her mother also illustrate how we may release speaker purview.
Already we meet the first problem: purview has been defined as “who has visibility over meanings.” Now it is being redescribed as something that can be released. Visibility is not the kind of thing one “releases” — it either includes the other or it does not. What they mean here is something closer to “handing over decision-making power.” But that is a different dimension of interpersonal meaning altogether, and one already accounted for in Halliday’s model as deontic modality and exchange structure.
We saw this above where both Kristy and her mother in turn loosened control over what they were proposing, and hand decision making over to the other (– speaker purview; + listener purview – though note below that we will call this internal purview).
Here the slippage becomes blatant. “Purview” is no longer epistemic scope but control over decision making. And having redefined it, they immediately destabilise the binary they themselves have set up. If purview has been handed from speaker to listener, why not simply describe it as listener purview? Instead, they announce that they will relabel it as “internal purview.” This is an ad hoc patch — a terminological invention to cover over a contradiction in the system, rather than a theoretically motivated category.
By posing a proposition or proposal in this way, they made it interpersonally easier for the other to reject what was being suggested.
The gloss confirms what is really going on: this is not a matter of purview at all. What is being described is simply a tentative proposal, framed in such a way that it lowers the interpersonal cost of rejection. This is already captured in Hallidayan terms as modulation of a proposal. To redescribe it in terms of “purview” is not an explanation but a redundancy — it adds no analytic clarity.
Example (32)
Kristy: what about I fold the cardboard and then if I want some pieces um – pose/proposalMother: well how about I get you dressed instead – reject pose/proposalKristy: no – reject
The example itself undercuts the argument. Kristy’s “what about…” is a proposal posed tentatively — exactly what exchange structure predicts. The mother’s “how about I get you dressed instead” is a counter-proposal grounded in parental authority. To label both as instances of “release of purview” obscures the clear asymmetry: the child is negotiating tentatively; the mother is asserting authority through the guise of suggestion. Finally, Kristy’s “no” is a straightforward rejection. Nothing here requires the machinery of “purview” to account for it.
Underlying issues
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Conceptual equivocation– Purview oscillates between epistemic visibility, deontic authority, and negotiation of proposals. Each is distinct in systemic theory; conflating them collapses necessary distinctions.
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Ad hoc categories– “Internal purview” is an invented fix to save a collapsing binary, not a principled extension of the model.
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Analytic redundancy– Everything shown here is already accounted for by exchange structure and modality. The “purview” terminology adds no new explanatory value.
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Erasure of asymmetry– Treating mother and child’s moves as equivalent “releases” obscures their unequal footing in interaction.
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Metaphor overextension– “Purview,” originally a metaphor of visibility, is overextended until it means power, control, sharing, release, and internalisation. At that point, the metaphor ceases to illuminate.
Conclusion
What we are offered as a new dimension of interpersonal analysis turns out to be a shifting metaphor stretched beyond coherence. The very phenomena invoked — tentative proposals, counter-proposals, rejections — are already systematically described in SFL without invoking “purview.” Far from clarifying, the terminology obscures the distinctions it purports to track.
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