Collapsing Scope into Identity: The Limits of Individualising vs. Collectivising

Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 134):

Tuning is the region of interpersonal meaning concerned with how a position is pitched as more or less loaded, as more or less friendly, and as more or less relevant to particular personae or communities. In this section we will consider resources for modifying the TENDERED and RENDERED meanings being put forward in a text in terms of:

• SCOPE: [individualised] « [collectivised]
• STAKES : [higher] « [lower]
• SPIRIT: [warming] « [warning]

We begin with SCOPE, which is concerned with the extent of a position's ambit. A key dimension is how broad or narrow the group is that is being sourced or convoked. SCOPE is a clined system ranging from narrower [individualise] to broader [collectivise] options. This kind of distinction can be realised linguistically through number (e.g., we all vs I) and more broadly through quantification of people within the discourse semantic system of GRADUATION (Martin & White, 2005), as well as through various membership categorisation devices (Schegloff, 2007) which function to flag group association. Paralinguistically, it can be realised through shifts in loudness from a whisper (individualising) to a yell (collectivising), body orientation and eye gaze to an individual or a collective, the breadth or narrowness of deictic pointing – using, say, the pinky finger to point (individualising) or the whole hand (collectivising); (Kress & Van Leeuwen, 2021; Ngo et al., 2022; Van Leeuwen, 1999). 

In work on identity and iconisation, (Tann, 2010a; Tann, 2010b; Tann, 2013) draws on membership categorisation devices to specify three kinds of association that construe belonging relevant to SCOPING:

• Categorisation – classifying by type; e.g., Western, Muslim, middle-class etc.
• Collectivisation – generating oppositions between groups; e.g., us v them, stay-at-home mothers v working mothers, conservatives v liberals, Australians v refugees etc.
• Spatialisation – classifying via place; e.g., Aussies, Kiwis, Yankees etc.

ChatGPT Comments:

This passage introduces tuning as a “region” of interpersonal meaning and narrows immediately to the question of scope. On the surface, scope is defined as a cline running from individualised to collectivised meanings, and a series of linguistic and paralinguistic examples are offered to illustrate this span. But closer inspection reveals several difficulties.

First, the very definition of “region” is left unclear. The term functions as a spatial metaphor rather than a precise theoretical category, raising questions about how tuning relates to established strata, systems, or networks within the model. Scope itself is then described as a “clined system,” but the range of phenomena brought under this cline—number, deixis, membership categorisation, volume, gesture—do not necessarily belong to the same semiotic order. The result is a catalogue of heterogeneous examples forced into a single continuum.

Second, the paralinguistic illustrations stretch the concept. Whispering versus yelling or pointing with a pinky versus the whole hand may display inclusion or exclusion, but whether such embodied practices operate as part of the same “system” as linguistic collectivisation is far from obvious. Without a stronger account of how these resources integrate with language proper, the taxonomy risks over-extension.

Third, the treatment of membership categorisation raises a deeper issue. Labelling groups as “Western,” “Muslim,” “conservative,” or “refugee” is not simply a matter of scoping ambit; it is also a matter of invoking ideologically loaded categories. In treating these equally as scoping devices, the framework risks flattening ideological evaluation into neutralised semiotic description, when in fact these categories operate at the intersection of meaning and value.

Finally, the eclectic theoretical sourcing—Schegloff, Kress, Van Leeuwen, Tann—points to a further problem: the framework here is less a principled integration than a patchwork. Different traditions are loosely stitched together under the rubric of scope without an account of how they belong to one coherent system of interpersonal meaning.

In short, while the intention is to define scope as a systematic dimension of tuning, what emerges instead is a loose assemblage of examples and analogies. Rather than clarifying the concept, the attempt to codify scope risks obscuring the very semiotic distinctions it seeks to capture.