The POSITIONING System Network

Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 81-2):

Figure 3.3 brings together the options for rendering built in the previous chapter with those of tendering in this chapter to show the full system of POSITIONING.

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 Here are some theoretical tensions and confusions in this model that stand out:

1. Heterogeneous criteria of system delicacy
The network presents “POSITIONING” as a unified system, yet the delicacy expansions combine very different dimensions of meaning. The initial branching (render vs tender) sets up the primary contrast, but subsequent sub-systems shift criteria inconsistently:

• address vs note concerns interpersonal orientation versus commentary,

• placement (external vs internal) invokes discourse-structural positioning,

• proposition vs proposal introduces metafunctional clause type,

• open vs complete invokes structural polarity,

• purview introduces epistemic stance.
  What is presented as systemic delicacy is in fact a heterogeneous aggregation of distinctions that originate in different metafunctions and strata.

2. The tendering/rendering ambiguity
The diagram signals both a disjunctive and a conjunctive relationship between render and tender. This produces a conceptual inconsistency: are rendering and tendering mutually exclusive choices, or are they simultaneous dimensions of meaning? The attempt to code both at once collapses two theoretically distinct relations:

• paradigmatic opposition (choosing one or the other), and

• simultaneous activation (both may apply to a single instance).
  In practice, rendering and tendering often co-occur (e.g. “I think you’re wrong” both evaluates an existing stance and advances a counter-claim). The network’s simultaneous disjunctive/conjunctive representation fails to clarify how these dimensions intersect, instead producing analytical indeterminacy.

3. The purview problem
The addition of speaker purview versus listener purview exemplifies the model’s attempt to taxonomise epistemic stance as if it were a structural variable of the same order as mood or polarity. The resulting options (share, assert, pose, air) artificially discretise what is in practice a gradient of interpersonal alignment. More significantly, this construct duplicates resources already modelled in SFL (mood, modality, projection) without clarifying how these interact, leading to redundancy rather than theoretical integration.

4. Systemic incoherence
Although each sub-system is presented as if of the same systemic order (“rendering,” “placement,” “completion,” “purview”), they draw from divergent theoretical bases:

• speech function (proposition vs proposal),

• stance (support vs reject),

• logical completion (open vs complete),

• epistemicity (purview).
  The overall appearance of comprehensiveness masks the fact that the network is a collage of heterogeneous categories. The combination of inconsistent logics undermines systemic coherence.

5. Terminological inflation
By gathering these distinctions under the heading “POSITIONING,” the model creates the impression of a novel interpersonal system. Yet all the included options correspond to resources already theorised within canonical SFL: speech function, mood, modality, appraisal, and thematic organisation. The rebranding substitutes terminological novelty for theoretical clarity, risking obfuscation rather than refinement of the interpersonal system.