Dialogue, Positions, and the Promise of "Deep" Values

Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 83):

In the next chapter we extend our exploration of interpersonal meanings by considering how different positions can be connected to one another in dialogue and monologue. In particular, we will explore how these connections support the development of integrated sets of values – both those that are ephemeral (that are needed for only a particular situation at a particular point in time) and those that are deep and long-standing (that organise the way we see and engage with the world). By taking this step, we will not simply gain insight into how we negotiate social relations, but also into what the meanings are that underpin these social relations.

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1. From negotiation to values: a category mistake

The transition from modelling interpersonal positioning to theorising values conflates two distinct dimensions of social organisation:

• Tenor realised by interpersonal meaning → how social relations are negotiated.

• Value systems → institutional, cultural, and biological infrastructures that orient practices and judgements.

2. Ephemeral vs. deep values

The distinction between “ephemeral” (situation-specific) and “deep and long-standing” values is not grounded in the systemic architecture of SFL. Instead, it imports a sociological/psychological register of “values” that sits awkwardly with the semantics of appraisal. What counts as ephemeral meaning in SFL terms would usually be explained by instantiation (a temporary patterning of system), not by positing a special category of “ephemeral values.”

3. “Integrated sets of values” as overreach

The promise to show how dialogue connects positions into “integrated sets of values” suggests that interpersonal negotiation builds social ontology directly. This collapses the distinction between construal (meaning as symbolic alignment) and coordination (value-laden social practices). Without maintaining this distinction, their model risks suggesting that every micro-interaction is already the formation of a cultural value system — a claim that is both theoretically unsound and empirically untenable.

4. Theoretical drift under cover of expansion

This concluding gesture epitomises the drift of the chapter:

• Starting with interpersonal negotiation,

• Expanding to a broad umbrella system (POSITIONING),

• Sliding into the terrain of values and cultural organisation.

At each step, a new term is layered on top, but instead of clarifying strata and systems, the expansion collapses them into a single continuum of “negotiation → value → underpinning.” The effect is a grand rhetorical flourish that disguises theoretical incoherence.