Scaling Belonging: The Semiotic Gradient of Scope

Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 136):

Tuning may be adjusted by expanding or restricting the range of individual personae or groups to whom a particular meaning is applicable. In the case of our corpus, we have to a certain extent built scoping into our selection criteria for constructing the corpus since the #momguilt hashtag broadly concerns mothers. Scoping can involve both expansion and contraction in terms of the group or personae relevant to the meaning in play. For instance, embracing a whole community through choices in pronominal grammar is a choice to enlarge scope.

(17) We all have it. And it's never easy #momguilt [link to an article about 'mom guilt'] #parenting #momlife #guilt

(18) Moms, if this isn’t all of us on some level I don’t know what is. We try to do it all because the #momguilt tells us we have to ...but God didn’t make us to live like that. It takes a village! Walk alongside each other and lift each other up!

At the same time various resources for identifying participants can reduce the scope to the level of individuals.

(19) Telling my four babies goodbye yesterday. Enjoying some me time, but I miss them when I’m away. #momguilt

Scope can also be narrowed down to particular kinds of groups. For instance, in (20) the clients who experience guilt are subspecified as mothers in particular.

(20) #Guilt is such a common emotion from my anxiety clients, particularly moms. #momguilt

While the distinction between whole communities and individuals is the most obvious case, social relations are very complex. Within communities there will be different arrays of subgroups, and groups which span multiple communities. There are different ways of 'dog whistling' with reference to these groups without naming them or addressing them directly.

ChatGPT Comments:

While the authors frame SCOPE as a tenor-level system—a feature of context governing the range of personae and communities relevant to a meaning—the examples they provide consistently conflate context with linguistic instantiation. Pronouns, vocatives, and hashtags are treated as if they themselves are scope, rather than as realisations of an underlying contextual potential. This risks collapsing the analytic distinction between what constrains interpersonal meaning (tenor/context) and what realises it in discourse (language/semantics).

Furthermore, discussions of subgrouping, cross-community references, and subtle “dog-whistling” imply a linguistic enactment of social reach, yet are presented as if they define the system itself. In SFL terms, tenor sets the potential scope, but the authors’ examples demonstrate textual realisation, not the systemic contextual resource. Without a clear separation, the TUNING system risks being misread as a description of discourse rather than a description of social context.