Why ‘Airing’ Collapses: Misreading Stance as Speech Function

Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 73-4):

Finally, it is possible to indicate that neither speaker or the listener is expected to know the answer to something – what we will call airing (– speaker purview; – listener purview). This often happens with the lexicalised phrase I don’t know (or perhaps more accurately – dunno). For example, once Kristy’s mother has finally managed to start getting Kristy dressed, Kristy asks her why her dress is only buttoned up on one side, to which her mother attempts to give an answer, before acknowledging that she simply doesn’t know.

In another conversation from Hasan’s data (AJ6B5), a mother is reading a cookbook with her daughter, and airs her exclamation about coconut cream hoppers through I wonder.

Importantly, it is still possible to give a response in these situations; but the position can be aired without indicating that anyone should be tied to it. This occurs in a separate conversation between mothers, when one mother is describing what it’s like when her child is in therapy for their disability. She suggests it might be her little break, but that she is not wedded to this at all.

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The authors here attempt to expand their taxonomy of “purview” with a final category they label airing, defined as (– speaker purview; – listener purview). This is supposed to cover cases where neither participant is expected to “know the answer,” typically expressed with “I don’t know” or “I wonder.”

This proposal falters at several points:

1. Taxonomy by residuals

• The authors treat “airing” as the logical residual once speaker purview and listener purview have both been stripped away.

• But this is an artefact of their grid-building, not of the semantics of exchange. It’s the familiar problem of “completing the square” — filling in a cell because the table demands it, not because the interactional phenomena actually call for it.

• The examples themselves are heterogeneous: “I don’t know” is not parallel to “I wonder,” nor to “maybe it’s my little break.” These are different resources entirely, pressed into a single category for taxonomic neatness.

2. Misconstrual of “I don’t know”

• In example (34), the mother says “and why they chose that side I don’t know.”

• The authors gloss this as air/proposition.

• But “I don’t know” is not a proposition about the world; it’s a modal assessment of the speaker’s knowledge state. In Halliday’s framework this belongs with modality, not with some new interpersonal role called “airing.”

• Far from being a neutral “release of purview,” it strongly positions the mother as lacking epistemic authority, which itself is a meaning in negotiation (and can be strategic — deflecting, softening, protecting face).

• To fold this into “purview” erases the modality system and creates a parallel interpersonal vocabulary that distorts what the language is doing.

3. Misconstrual of “I wonder”

• In example (35), “I wonder what coconut cream hoppers are!” is glossed as air/proposition.

• But “I wonder” is a mental process clause projecting an interrogative clause. It expresses a subjective stance (the mother’s curiosity), not an absence of speaker/listener purview.

• To call this “airing” is to collapse clause type + projection into a pseudo-category invented for theoretical symmetry.

• The move obscures the important difference between:

  • epistemic disclaimers (I don’t know),

  • affective stances (I wonder), and

  • tentative proposals (maybe it’s my little break).
    Each has its own grammar and interactional value; none is reducible to a missing purview box.

4. Category leakage

• In (36), Renee says “I don’t know if that’s my little break.” This is glossed as air/proposition.

• But this is a hypothetical with modal uncertainty (“I don’t know if …”), not parallel to the prior two cases.

• Here, the “airing” label is stretched to cover any instance where the speaker softens commitment. That is precisely what the system of modality is for.

• The fact that they need to sweep all these different structures under “airing” is a sign that the purview framework can’t actually handle epistemic disclaimers, stance markers, or hedging — all crucial to interpersonal meaning.

5. Theoretical redundancy

• Everything in these examples is already systematically accounted for in SFL:

  • I don’t know → modal assessment of knowledge state.

  • I wonder … → projection of interrogative, expressing inclination/curiosity.

  • I don’t know if … → modalised proposal with epistemic hedging.

• The “airing” category adds no explanatory power; it simply relabels these phenomena in terms of “purview,” a construct that duplicates and distorts the established systems of mood, modality, projection, and appraisal.

• Worse, it collapses these systems into a single superficial box-ticking exercise.

6. Strategic mischaracterisation of dialogue

• The claim that “airing” means “the position can be aired without indicating that anyone should be tied to it” is misleading.

• In practice, these turns very much do tie meanings to the speaker: “I don’t know” positions the speaker as disclaiming knowledge; “I wonder” positions the speaker as inviting shared curiosity; “I don’t know if …” positions the speaker as hedging a claim.

• The stance is not “untied” but highly interpersonal — signalling alignment, deference, or invitation.

• By describing these as “– speaker purview; – listener purview,” the authors erase the interpersonal work that is actually happening.

Summary

The “airing” category exemplifies the residualist logic of this purview framework: filling in empty cells with whatever examples can be conscripted, regardless of whether they belong together. The result is a category collapse: epistemic disclaimers, stance markers, and hedged proposals are all swept under one heading, misrepresented as lacking purview.

From the standpoint of systemic functional linguistics, the work is already done by the existing resources of mood, modality, projection, and appraisal. “Airing” adds nothing — and in fact distorts the analysis by conflating distinct grammatical and semantic phenomena under a pseudo-category demanded by their matrix.

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In other words…

The authors introduce a fourth category of “purview,” which they label airing, defined as (– speaker purview; – listener purview). This is supposed to capture utterances in which neither speaker nor listener is “expected to know” the answer. They exemplify with I don’t know and I wonder, treating these as structural indices of a distinct interpersonal move.

Several problems immediately arise.

1. Confusion of semantics with stance markers.
   The classification rests on idiomatic lexical items (dunno, I wonder) rather than on a principled analysis of speech function. These phrases are pragmatic markers signalling uncertainty or tentativeness. Treating them as evidence of a new kind of move confuses interpersonal meaning (commitment to a proposition) with the lexico-grammatical realisations that hedge such commitment. In systemic terms, “I don’t know” is an adjunct to mood, modulating the speaker’s orientation — not a separate speech function.

2. The incoherence of (– speaker purview; – listener purview).
   The proposed polarity is unstable. If the speaker genuinely disclaims purview and also withholds purview from the listener, then the exchange collapses: no one is positioned to take up the offer or demand. Communication requires some addressee alignment — even if minimal — otherwise the utterance would be unintelligible. In fact, in their own examples the listener is implicitly granted purview: Kristy may not know why the dress opens on one side, but she can still respond to her mother’s speculation or acknowledgment of ignorance. The category thus contradicts itself.

3. Retrofitting to Hasan’s data.
   The authors again misappropriate Hasan’s carefully analysed interactions. When a mother says I wonder what coconut cream hoppers are!, Hasan would treat this as a rhetorical demand for information (a question) or as a stance move inviting affiliation. Doran et al. relabel it “airing” but provide no systemic justification. They treat Hasan’s example as a mere illustration of their taxonomy, ignoring the rich theoretical grounding Hasan provided in the semantics of dialogue.

4. Mischaracterisation of responsibility.
   The authors claim that “airing” indicates “that no one should be tied to it.” But this is not true even in their data. In example (36), Renee says I don’t know if that’s my little break — here the speaker is very much tied to the utterance: it construes her subjective stance toward therapy routines. To say she is not wedded to it is an interpretive gloss, not an interpersonal function. The speaker retains responsibility for the construal, even if signalling tentativeness.

5. Category inflation.
   Rather than recognising that modalisation, hedging, and stance-taking are resources for modulating purview, the authors posit a wholly new category of “airing.” This multiplies terms unnecessarily, producing redundancy where systemic-functional theory already has robust means of accounting for uncertainty and subjectivity (e.g., modality, comment adjuncts, engagement resources in appraisal).

In sum: “Airing” is a mis-specified category built on shaky distinctions. It conflates stance markers with speech function, posits an incoherent (– purview; – purview) polarity, misreads Hasan’s data, and mistakes hedging for abdication of responsibility. The result is an inflated and unnecessary addition to the interpersonal system. Far from clarifying negotiation, it muddles the terrain and obscures the established systemic resources already at hand.