The Resource Fallacy — When Realisations Become Resources

Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 152-3):

Through this book, we have illustrated a broad range of resources that different choices in tenor can draw upon to realise their meanings. In this section we will bring these together to focus on the amount of interpersonal work that goes on in everyday chat. For this, we will explore a brief excerpt from a conversation between mothers of children with disabilities; they are discussing their experiences and, at times, the guilt that is pervasive in motherhood discourse. We will see that in this face-to-face conversation, the mothers draw on a full multimodal suite of resources to realise their interpersonal meanings – they use language across discourse semantic, lexicogrammatical and intonational resources. And they use paralanguage – bringing facial expressions, bodily movements and gestures, as well as their voice quality into the picture. The result is a rich and integrated negotiation of their social relations with the others in the conversation, as well as with those being talked about and the play of voices that are presumed in every instance of language.

ChatGPT Comments:

This section exemplifies the core confusion in the book’s “resource approach to tenor.” The authors describe “resources that different choices in tenor can draw upon to realise their meanings,” implying that tenor functions as a semiotic chooser rather than a contextual variable.

1. The Slippage of Realisation into Resource:

In SFL, tenor is a dimension of context that is realised by interpersonal meaning in language and other semiotic systems. The authors, however, frame the resources that realise tenor (intonation, gesture, voice quality, etc.) as resources of tenor itself.

Such phrasing collapses the hierarchy of symbolic abstraction. It turns the contextual into a linguistic+ stratum and blurs the distinction between realisation (across strata) and instantiation (within strata). The result is a flattening of Halliday’s model under a vaguely modular “resource” logic.

2. The Multimodal Mirage:

The invocation of a “full multimodal suite” implies a harmonious integration of linguistic and paralinguistic modes. Yet by treating these as equivalent “resources” of tenor, the authors dissolve the semiotic boundaries that give each its own realisation plane. What Halliday treats as distinct systems of expression are here rhetorically fused into a single multimodal continuum, producing an illusion of theoretical inclusivity at the cost of stratificational clarity.

3. Repetition of the Empiricist Fallacy:

The appeal to “everyday chat” and “mothers of children with disabilities” functions as a moral warrant for theoretical claims — a familiar rhetorical move in socially oriented linguistics. But the instance here is presented as demonstrative rather than exemplificatory: it is used to confirm a model that already presumes what it claims to reveal. The empirical example is not analytically mobilised to test the theoretical apparatus; it is merely invoked to illustrate its presumed coherence.

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Summary:

The passage’s notion of “tenor drawing on resources” transforms realisations into resources, converting a symbolic dependency into a semiotic capacity. This inversion gives tenor a quasi-agentive status and undermines the hierarchical coherence of the SFL model. 

Tenor Does Not Walk Alone — But Neither Does It Float Free

Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 152):

This means that when negotiating social relations, tenor does not walk alone. This is our focus in this closing chapter. Tenor is realised through an enormous array of linguistic, paralinguistic, and multimodal resources; it works closely with resources of field and mode; and it realises the sets of genres we use to get along with our everyday life. The following sections provide an overview of this redistribution of theoretical and descriptive responsibility. 

 

Blogger Comments:

[1] This invites the misunderstanding that tenor is a module that interacts with other modules.

[2] In this book, the 'enormous array of linguistic, paralinguistic, and multimodal resources' that realise tenor have been mistaken for tenor itself.

[3] To be clear, the absurd claim here is that social relations between interlocutors realise story genres, like narratives and anecdotes. This misunderstanding is inherent in Martin's model of stratification, which locates a stratum of genre above the contextual stratum of field, tenor and mode, which is rebranded as register. Rebranding field, tenor and mode as register confuses context type with the register of language that realises it. Martin's 'genres' are text types (registers) that realise types of culturally valued rhetorical mode (narratives etc.), and whose structures are semantic, and vary according to the mode that the given text type realises. 

When Martin (1992) first stratified context as his genre and his register, he correlated genre with context of culture (potential), and his register with context of situation (instance). The confusion here was twofold. First it confused the cline of instantiation (potential-instance) with stratification (symbolic abstraction); and second it confused instance (context of situation) with systemic potential (field, tenor and mode). Other confusions follow from these multiple interrelated misunderstandings.

[4] This is misleading. There is no redistribution of theoretical and descriptive responsibility in the case of relations between tenor and language, because this is consistent with Halliday's model of stratification; and there is no redistribution in the case of relations between tenor and genre, because this is consistent with Martin's model of stratification.

ChatGPT Comments:

This passage attempts to position tenor within a broader ecology of meaning, acknowledging its interdependence with field, mode, language, and other semiotic systems. While this framing sounds balanced, it conceals deep conceptual confusion about stratification, realisation, and the role of tenor within systemic functional linguistics.

1. Tenor misconstrued as a module rather than a stratal system.
The phrase “tenor does not walk alone” anthropomorphises tenor and implies a model of interacting components rather than hierarchically related strata. This reflects a persistent misinterpretation—traceable to Martin’s modular conception of context (1992)—in which strata are imagined as neighbouring systems that “interface” rather than as ordered levels of symbolic abstraction. In Halliday’s canonical model, strata are not parallel domains in dialogue, but nested levels of semiotic realisation: context is realised by semantics, which is realised by lexicogrammar, and so forth. Treating tenor as an “interacting module” flattens this hierarchy and obscures how language construes social relations rather than merely interacting with them.

2. The resources that realise tenor are mistaken for tenor itself.
The linguistic, paralinguistic, and multimodal resources are not tenor—they are the means through which tenor is realised. The confusion is structural: by relocating systems such as Spirit, Stakes, and Scope from semantics into context, the book effectively dissolves the stratal distinction.

3. Misplaced claims about realisation and genre.
The claim that tenor “realises the sets of genres we use to get along with everyday life” reverses the direction of realisation. In Halliday’s model, genre (as rhetorical mode or contextual pattern) models culture-level meanings—it is not realised by tenor. In Martin’s revision, where “genre” is elevated above register (redefining field, tenor, and mode as “register variables”), this reversal becomes systematic. The result is a confused ontology in which interpersonal relations between speakers are said to realise genre structures such as narratives or anecdotes—a category mistake that collapses the distinction between interpersonal relation and textual form.

4. The myth of “redistribution.”
The authors conclude that there has been a “redistribution of theoretical and descriptive responsibility.” This phrase disguises the fact that what has occurred is not redistribution but reallocation through misunderstanding. Tenor’s relations to language remain unchanged in Halliday’s stratified model, and its relations to genre remain unchanged in Martin’s modular model. The purported “redistribution” is therefore rhetorical: an attempt to legitimise a conflated framework that merges context, semantics, and text-type under a single analytic banner.

Summary:
The passage exemplifies the cumulative effect of misreading stratification as modular interaction, realisation as correlation, and context as an aggregate of semiotic resources. The result is an elegant-sounding but incoherent rebranding of long-settled distinctions within SFL. Far from “mobilising the full power” of the theory, the authors have fragmented it into loosely connected “modules” whose relationships are asserted rather than theorised.

Tenor Unmoored: Conceptual Drift in the Realisation Hierarchy

 Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 152):

The upshot of this is that room has been made for the aspects of language and society that have often been encapsulated within tenor to be conceptualised elsewhere – through other dimensions of the theory. For example the parameters of status and contact (Poynton, 1990a) can be further developed as principles of co-selection and arrangement within instantiation. Social roles, interpersonal relationships and community values can be explored as arenas of cooperation and struggle within individuation – where there is considerable potential for SFL to build upon sociological work by Maton (e.g. 2014), Bernstein (e.g. 1996/2000) and Bourdieu (e.g. 1993)). In addition the temporary speech roles that occur in dialogue, people’s feelings and the play of voices can be investigated through discourse semantics (e.g. Berry, 1981a; Martin & White, 2005). And the range of verbal action that we participate in all the time (such as instructing, planning, narrating etc. (Hasan, 1999)) can be researched through genre. This is of course an enormous program of work – one that cannot be detailed in a single book. But we have aimed to make explicit what we can do with tenor in the realisation hierarchy, and use that, along with field, mode and rich descriptions of language and other semiotic systems, as the basis for exploring all the rest.

ChatGPT Comments:

This passage signals the authors’ ambition to broaden the analytical scope of SFL by relocating aspects traditionally handled within tenor to other theoretical dimensions, including instantiation, individuation, discourse semantics, and genre. While this is framed as opening up new avenues for research, several conceptual issues emerge.

1. Displacement vs. clarification:
   The authors propose that parameters such as status, contact, and social roles can now be explored outside tenor. However, this effectively relocates interpersonal phenomena from context without sufficiently justifying the move. Tenor was originally designed to capture these relational aspects precisely because they are instantiated in interpersonal meaning. By “offloading” them to instantiation or individuation, the authors risk obscuring rather than clarifying the mechanisms by which language realises social relations.

2. Misunderstanding of the realisation hierarchy:
   The claim that tenor can now serve as a “basis for exploring all the rest” suggests a flattening of the stratification model. The realisation hierarchy is not a set of interchangeable modules; strata interact through symbolic abstraction. Treating tenor as a jumping-off point for instantiation, individuation, discourse semantics, and genre conflates levels of analysis and undermines the formal distinction between semantics and context.

3. Analytic overreach without operationalisation:
   The passage gestures toward a massive program of work — co-selection, arenas of cooperation and struggle, temporary speech roles, and verbal actions — yet provides no concrete methodology for how these phenomena would be rigorously instantiated or measured. Without operational clarity, the program risks remaining a conceptual sketch rather than an actionable research framework.

4. Implicit rebranding of established work:
   By framing status, social roles, and community values as “now available” for exploration via instantiation and individuation, the authors implicitly present longstanding sociological and SFL insights as new avenues for their framework. This rebranding risks obscuring the continuity of prior theory while overstating novelty.

Summary:

While the excerpt ambitiously attempts to expand the reach of SFL, it exhibits a drift of tenor from its well-established semiotic grounding. By relocating interpersonal phenomena across strata without fully addressing realisation relations, the authors blur the analytic boundaries that give SFL its explanatory power. The result is a conceptual flattening: rich phenomena of social relations are conceptually available everywhere, yet rigorously instantiated nowhere.

Overstated Ambition and Stratification Missteps

Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 151):

This focus and diversity of approaches to tenor emphasises the rich and multifaceted nature of language in relation to society – something we need to grasp in all its complexity if we wish to build a truly social semiotic theory (Halliday, 1978; Hodge & Kress, 1988). While this complexity has long been recognised and descriptions formulated, SFL theory itself has not always kept pace. Stemming at least from the early work of Hasan (e.g. 1973) and advanced through its long interaction with social theory (e.g. Bernstein, 1971, 1973, 1975, 1990; Bernstein, 1996/2000), there has been a recognition of the need of an increasingly expansive theory to account for the role of language in society. With the development of dimensions of instantiation (Halliday, 1991a; Matthiessen, 1993), which conceptualises the relation between the systemic potential of language and the instance of text, and individuation (Martin, 2010), which conceptualises the relation between the reservoir of meaning in a language community and the repertoire of an individual (c.f. Bernstein, 1996/2000), we are now in a stronger position to move toward a richer understanding of the interconnection between language and society. We embarked on this book project because we felt that SFL had not yet reached its potential in this regard.

ChatGPT Comments:

The excerpt foregrounds the authors’ ambition to extend SFL toward a richer social semiotic, situating this ambition in terms of “dimensions of instantiation” and “individuation.” While presented as an innovative move, several critical issues arise:

1. Overstatement of novelty
   The authors suggest that prior SFL “has not always kept pace” with the complexity of social relations and that their framework addresses a theoretical gap. Yet much of what they claim as new—particularly the relation of systemic potential to text (instantiation) and the community–individual nexus (individuation)—is already thoroughly theorised in canonical SFL work. Framing it as a corrective overstates novelty and risks implying that Halliday, Hasan, and others were inattentive to social complexity, which is misleading.

2. Misplaced theoretical apparatus
   Although instantiation and individuation are invoked, they are largely absent in the analytic work itself. Instead, the authors operate through a lens of stratification—but here, even this is muddled. Established semantic systems (e.g., Appraisal, Graduation, Engagement) are mislocated from their proper stratum into context as purported “tenor systems”. This conflates strata: patterns of interpersonal meaning within language are treated as features of social context. The result is a conceptual flattening that collapses semantic, contextual, and interpersonal distinctions.

3. Implicit epistemic claim
   The statement “we are now in a stronger position to move toward a richer understanding of the interconnection between language and society” functions as an epistemic assertion about the book’s contribution. While aspirational, it should be tempered: SFL’s existing machinery already addresses links between language, society, and individual construal. The claimed contribution lies more in deployment and emphasis than in a radical conceptual advance.

Summary

This excerpt exemplifies a common rhetorical strategy in theoretical expansions: foregrounding ambition and framing existing constructs as insufficient to justify a new lens. In this case, the ambition is overstated, existing SFL resources are mislocated and renamed, and the promised integration of instantiation and individuation is largely unrealised. Readers should recognise that the novelty is less about conceptual revolution and more about the reconfiguration of established SFL machinery under a new nomenclature.

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.

ChatGPT Comments

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.

Context in Crisis: Theoretical Faultlines in Genre Modelling

Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 49, 53):

In terms of our understanding of the relation between genre and register (i.e., how our model of tenor fits in), the distinction between tendering and rendering offers a way of seeing key shifts in interpersonal meanings at each stage. … Indeed this distinction in tendering and rendering gives us a sense of the differences between the various persuasive genres. Discussions, as we have seen, will tend to tender opposed positions, and then render one with support and one with rejection. Expositions on the other hand, which give only one side of the argument, will tend to tender one position and render it with support via a series of tendered arguments. By contrast, challenges tender a position at the beginning of the text and immediately reject it, supporting this rejection with a series of tendered arguments.

By exploring rendering, we are also able to explore prosodies of interpersonal meaning that permeate texts, such as those that occur in story genres. … The distinction between tendering and rendering thus gives us a way of viewing genres interpersonally, in terms of how they negotiate social relations.

Reviewer Comments:

[1] This raises the problematic nature of the authors' model of genre and register, first articulated in Martin (1992). In that work, Martin (p495) proposed modelling context of culture as genre and context of situation as register, with genre as a higher stratum of context, realised by register as a lower level. The main problems with this framework are as follows:

1. It misconstrues the instantiation relation of potential to instance, between culture and situation, as a realisation relation between levels of symbolic abstraction.
2. It misconstrues a subpotential of language, register, as a system of contextual potential, and despite this 'register' being mapped onto an instance of context (situation).

Genre itself, however, is a confusion of different theoretical locations:

1. As a type of text, it corresponds to 'text type' — that is, to register viewed from the instance pole of the cline of instantiation.
2. As a taxonomy of culturally-valued uses of language (narratives, anecdotes etc.), it corresponds to the contextual system of (rhetorical) mode.
3. As structure (e.g. Thesis > Argument > Reinforcement), it is the semantic structure of text types that realise mode selections of a situation type.

ChatGPT Comments:

[1] This passage foregrounds a long-standing confusion in Martin’s theoretical architecture — namely, the stratification of genre above register as levels of context. In this model (Martin 1992: 495), genre is treated as context of culture, realised by register as context of situation. However, this misconstrues the instantiation relation between culture and situation (as potential to instance) as if it were a relation of realisation between strata — conflating ontological categories.

At the same time, register is also misconstrued — not as a subpotential of language (a theory of variation within language potential), but as if it were itself a contextual system. Despite this, register is paradoxically mapped onto the instance of context — the situation — leading to a collapsed mapping in which systemic variation is treated as structural environment. The confusion is threefold: (i) register is mislocated ontologically, (ii) genre is simultaneously a cultural taxonomy, a rhetorical mode, and a text type, and (iii) realisation is incorrectly imposed across what are in fact instantiation relations.

[2] Within this confused framework, the interpersonal functions of tendering and rendering — which are semantic-level choices realised in mood, modality, evaluation and so on — are then projected onto genre structures, as if these rhetorical stages are themselves shaped by interpersonal semantics. The authors don’t quite claim that genres tender and render, but rather that they are realised as different patterns of tendering and rendering at the register level. Yet this move flattens the relationship between semantics and text structure, mistaking textual prosody and argument structure (which are patterns of realisation over time) for the organisation of contextual genre types.

[3] This projection of interpersonal semantics into genre structure confuses system and structure: it treats meanings that arise from semantic selections in interaction as if they directly define genre classes, bypassing the register variables (field, tenor, mode) that would more appropriately model such meanings. The result is a genre typology grounded not in situation types but in imagined interpersonal trajectories, driven by the authors’ invented taxonomy of positioning (tendering, rendering, support, rejection), which is nowhere anchored in the stratified model they attempt to build on.

[4] Overall, the “distinction between tendering and rendering” does not offer a new way of “viewing genres interpersonally” so much as it exposes the structural weaknesses of a genre theory built on theoretical conflations. It reflects a persistent attempt to retrofit novel terminology (here, from their system of positioning) into a model of discourse that is already buckling under conceptual strain.

[5] Social relations (e.g. mother-child) are not negotiated; they are semiotically enacted. Meanings are negotiated.

Misunderstanding Laughter As A Feature Of Tenor

Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 35, 36):

Another possibility is to show our feelings by laughing at what is being put forward. Knight (2010a, 2010b) highlights the crucial importance of laughter in building solidarity in conversation.  

She argues it is a way of responding to something that pushes against shared values or knowledge – but in a ‘fun’ way (i.e., not in a way that requires outright rejection or condemnation). Laughing allows us to acknowledge that what is being said is 'unacceptable' in some sense, but that we all know it is unacceptable and so it’s not an issue. By implicating this shared knowledge, laughter in fact reinforces affiliation – we come closer. To put this more technically, Knight describes laughter as occurring when a person puts forward a coupling of attitude and ideation that wrinkles against assumed shared bond networks which align the speakers in the conversation. Rather than refusing to bond around an unacceptable coupling and so condemning the speaker, laughter allows the listener to ‘defer’ a direct reaction to what has been said, and express their understanding of alternative unspoken ‘real’ bonds that underpin the conversation. …

 In more detailed work, Knight (2011) explores the sound potential of laughter in terms of its articulation, prosody, and movement. Among a number of distinctions, she shows that different types of laughter can indicate positive or negative judgement of what is being said. In our terms, this means that laughter can also indicate support or rejection, in addition to deferring meaning.

Reviewer Comments:

[1] To be clear, here the authors incongruously propose laughter as a feature of tenor, the cultural dimension of 'who is taking part'.

[2] To be clear, as semiosis, laughter is not language, since it does not have a stratified content plane. As protolanguage, in expressing emotive and cognitive states, it serves the personal microfunction (Halliday 2004 [1998]: 18). However, a way to get beyond the personal to the social is suggested by Halliday's linear taxonomy of complex systems, in which semiotic systems emerge from social systems. Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 509):

… a social system is a biological system with the added component of "value" (which explains the need for a synoptic approach, since value is something that is manifested in forms of structure). A semiotic system, then, is a social system with the added component of "meaning".

On this basis, laughter can be understood as social in the sense of being biological plus value. The value, in this case, is the positive value triggered by laughter when it releases endorphins. To induce laughter in another is to instantiate a positive value in their neurological system, and mutual laughter is the mutual instantiation of positive value. It is the sharing of a positive value that can create a social bond.

[3] To be clear, in Knight's example, the laughter provides the social means of bonding the interlocutors, when their interpersonal semiosis does not.

[4] To be clear, as above, the laughter that supports activates a positive value in the interlocutors, thus bonding them, and the laughter that rejects activates a positive value in the those laughing and a negative value in those not laughing, thus not bonding them.

The Problem With Field As 'A Resource For Construing Phenomena'

Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 21):

So instead of classifying fields as say horizontal or vertical, or as singulars or regions (as in Bernstein, 1996/2000) or as science, social science or humanities (e.g. Martin, 1992; Martin, 2007a, 2007b), or as ‘personal toilet’ or ‘games’ (Halliday, 1978), field can be reconstrued as a resource for construing phenomena. These resources can then be tuned in to relevant ideational systems in language (across strata) as far as realisation is concerned and the results coupled with interpersonal and/or textual meanings as required from the perspective of instantiation (i.e., mass).

Reviewer Comments:

[1] This confuses context and language. It is the ideational metafunction of language that is the resource for construing experience as meaning (phenomena). Field is the ideational dimension of the context of construing experience.

[2] To be clear, these resources already are the ideational systems of language.

[3] As previously demonstrated in the review of Rethinking Context: Realisation, Instantiation, And Individuation In Systemic Functional Linguistics (Doran et al 2024):

• 'mass' is the meaning of language misunderstood as the contextual parameter of field.
• 'technicality' is the ideational meaning of language misunderstood as the contextual parameter of field.
• 'iconisation' is the interpersonal meaning of language misunderstood as the contextual parameter of field.
• 'aggregation' is the textual meaning of language misunderstood as the contextual parameter of field.

Why Mass, Presence, And Association Cannot Be Principles Of Instantiation

Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 18):

Instantiation is typically considered in terms of the coupling of choices as conditioned by varying probabilities in different texts, text types and diatypes. 

But recognising the concepts of mass, presence, and association (i.e., status/contact) as metafunctionally diversified syndromes of choice offers a perspective on instantiation that can help explain why certain choices co-occur in certain situations. That is, mass, presence and association can be considered principles of instantiation – principles underpinning the co-selection and arrangement of features across strata and metafunctions. This can help us move away from relatively ad hoc explanations as to why particular choices are taken up in particular texts or situations and move us into considering different texts and the various domains they enter into in terms of a multidimensional set of principles. 

For example, scientific writing tends to involve significant interlocking networks of activity, taxonomy and property, but relatively little evaluative language in comparison to other disciplines (e.g. Halliday & Martin, 1993). We could explain this in terms of science’s aim for very strong ideational mass (technicality) but relatively weak interpersonal mass (iconisation). We could also describe the fact that it regularly aims to link theory to data as illustrating a wide range of ideational presence (iconicity).

Reviewer Comments:

[1] Here the authors misrepresent their own misunderstanding of instantiation as the "typical" view. As a process, instantiation is the selection of features and the activation of their realisation statements in logogenesis. At the system pole of the cline of instantiation, every feature of system has a probability of instantiation relative to other features in the system, and at the instance pole, texts vary by the relative frequency of feature selection.

The midway point of variation on the cline can be viewed from the system pole as register ("diatype"), or from the instance pole as text type, with registers varying in terms of the probability of feature selection, and text types varying in terms of the frequency of feature selection.

Importantly, at ontogenetic and phylogenetic timescales, the probabilities of feature selection in the system are altered by the frequencies of feature selection in the instances.

[2] To be clear, even if mass, presence and association provided a theoretically valid model of context, they could not "be considered as principles underpinning the co-selection and arrangement of features across strata and metafunctions" simply because instantiation is not an inter-stratal relation. Instantiation is the relation between system and instance at each stratum. There is no instantiation relation between context and language. Context and language are related by realisation, elaborating identity, so there is no causal (enhancing) relation between them.

[3] This is misleading, because this is simply the imposition of terms that do not provide explanation. That is,

• it does not explain why science writing has less evaluation, it just labels it as strongly technical;
• it does not explain why science writing has less evaluation, it just labels it as weakly iconised.

[4] As demonstrated here, the authors' notion of iconicity misunderstands a congruent relation between ideational lexicogrammar and ideational semantics as an iconic relation between the ideational content of language (text) and the ideational dimension of context ("what it is talking about").

Seriously Misunderstanding Instantiation

 Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 17-8):

Realisation is a hierarchy of abstraction, with higher strata realised by patterns of meaning at lower ones. Instantiation on the other hand is a cline of generality, with higher rungs constituting a larger meaning potential than lower ones (a system to text relation). The realisation hierarchy we assume here was outlined in Figure 1.3 above (with genre as a more abstract pattern of register patterns, register as a more abstract pattern of discourse semantic patterns and so on). This can be contrasted with the version of the instantiation cline presented as Figure 1.7 (c.f. Martin, 2010, 2014). There, moving down from system, we have a cline of sub-potentialisation (system, diatype, text type, text); moving up we have a concomitant cline of generalisation (text, text type, diatype, system).

 Blogger Comments:

[1] This seriously misunderstands instantiation. To be clear, instantiation is not a cline of generality. Generality is the scale of delicacy. Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 14, 144-5):

Note that it is important to keep delicacy and instantiation distinct. In early work on semantic networks, they were sometimes neutralised (cf. Woods', 1975, review). The difference is essentially that between being a type of x (delicacy) and being a token of x (instantiation) …

In other words, the elaboration sets up a relationship either of generality (delicacy), of abstraction (realisation), or of token to type (instantiation).

[2] To be clear, register ("diatype") and text type are not two different points of variation on the cline of instantiation, but the same point viewed from opposite poles of the cline. It is register when viewed from the system pole, and text type when viewed from the instance pole. Halliday (2005 [1995]: 254):

[3] To be clear, the cline of instantiation in Figure 1.7 only models language, not context. Martin (1992) replaced the system and instance poles of the cline of instantiation at the level of context with the strata of genre and register, respectively. In Martin's model, there are no situation types.

Seriously Misunderstanding Stratification

Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 17, 10):

Realisation is a hierarchy of abstraction, with higher strata realised by patterns of meaning at lower ones. … The realisation hierarchy we assume here was outlined in Figure 1.3 above (with genre as a more abstract pattern of register patterns, register as a more abstract pattern of discourse semantic patterns and so on).

 Blogger Comments:

This seriously misunderstands stratification. Less importantly, realisation is not a hierarchy, but the relation between levels of symbolic abstraction, as between axes or between strata. The hierarchy in this case is the hierarchy of strata: stratification.

Most importantly, higher strata are not "realised by patterns of meaning at lower ones". On the one hand, the function of the stratification hierarchy is to relate meaning, semantics, to other levels of symbolic abstraction: lexicogrammar and phonology below, and the context of language above. The authors' misunderstanding reflects Martin's mantra 'all strata make meaning' which confuses stratification (realising meaning) with semogenesis (making meaning).

On the other hand, the "patterns" of each stratum are the systems of each stratum. The term "patterns" suggests a confusion with instantiation: the patterns of instantiation that distinguish the variants on the cline of instantiation from each other.

The Misunderstandings Underlying 'Presence'

Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 15-6):

In recent years, Martin (Martin, 2017/2020; Martin & Matruglio, 2013/2020; Martin & Unsworth, 2024) has revisited the register variables classifying modes and fields from the perspective of metafunctions (i.e., ideational, interpersonal and textual meaning). Influenced by Maton's (2014) concepts of semantic gravity and semantic density he suggests that types of mode and field can in fact be associated with syndromes of choices from across all three metafunctions. 

• For mode, from the perspective of textual meaning, the key variable is implicitness – e.g., to what extent does a text depend on reference out to the physical situation?  

• From the perspective of interpersonal meaning the key variable is negotiability – e.g., to what extent does a text engage people in the 'to and fro' of dialogue, including the amount of emotion expressed?  

• From the perspective of ideational meaning the key variable is iconicity – e.g. to what extent does a text unfold by mirroring what it is talking about? 

Martin and Matruglio (2013/2020) suggest presence as a cover term for these syndromes of usage. Table 1.1 summarises this metafunctional factoring of presence in language as implicitness, negotiability, and iconicity.

Reviewer Comments:

[1] This demonstrates very serious misunderstandings of both stratification and metafunction. In terms of stratification, the relation between context and language is realisation, whereas subclassification misunderstands the relation as one of delicacy (hyponymy). Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 145):

In terms of metafunction, the contextual parameters of field, tenor and mode are themselves categorisations of the culture as semiotic system according to metafunction. To subclassify metafunctions in terms of metafunctions is to misunderstand the dimension of metafunction as a scale of delicacy.

[2] To be clear, in SFL Theory, mode and field are realised by meanings of all three metafunctions. The different syndromes of choices of these meanings constitute different registers, which realise different subcultures/situation types, as defined by contextual configurations of field, tenor and mode variables. Here the authors have confused the dimensions of stratification and instantiation. 

[3] As previously demonstrated in the review of Rethinking Context: Realisation, Instantiation, And Individuation In Systemic Functional Linguistics (Doran et al 2024):

• 'presence' is the meaning of language misunderstood as the contextual parameter of mode.
• 'iconicity' is the ideational meaning (metaphor) of language misunderstood as the contextual parameter of mode.
• 'negotiability' is the interpersonal meaning (speech function) of language misunderstood as the contextual parameter of mode.
• 'implicitness' is the textual meaning (exophoric demonstrative reference) of language misunderstood as the contextual parameter of mode.

Problems With The Notion Of Context Skewing Language System Probabilities

Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 11-12):

The resonance between discourse semantic systems and register variables is annotated in Figure 1.5 – with field skewing probabilities in IDEATION and CONNEXION systems, mode skewing probabilities in PERIODICITY and IDENTIFICATION systems and tenor skewing probabilities in NEGOTIATION and APPRAISAL systems.

Reviewer Comments:

[1] As previously explained, context-metafunction resonance means

• differences in field are realised by differences in ideational meaning,
• differences in tenor are realised by differences in interpersonal meaning, and
• differences in mode are realised by differences in textual meaning.

As previously demonstrated, the authors misunderstand context-metafunction resonance as an exclusive relation between context and language on the basis of metafunction. 

[2] As previously explained, this misunderstands the relation between context and registers of language in SFL Theory. Halliday (2005 [1991]: 60):

Register variation can be defined as the skewing of (some of) these overall probabilities, in the environment of some specific configuration of field, tenor and mode. It is variation in the tendency to select certain meanings rather than others, realising variation in the situation type.

That is, different registers are defined by having different probabilities of selection of semantic and lexicogrammatical features, with each register realising a different configuration of field, tenor and mode variables, and each of these defining a different situation type. Importantly, the skewing of probabilities is not caused by the contextual variables of field, tenor and mode, if only because the relation between context and language is not causal (enhancement), but one of intensive identity (elaboration).

Misunderstanding Tenor And The Architecture Of Language

Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 11):

Through the history of SFL, a range of scholars have tried to make tenor do a very wide range of things. But with a more elaborated model of language and context that includes discourse semantics, genre and, as we will discuss below, instantiation and individuation, the division of semiotic labour can be more comfortably distributed across the model.

Reviewer Comments:

[1] This is the logical fallacy known as ipse dixit: a bare assertion unsupported by evidence. Here it also serves as an instance of the straw man fallacy, since it sets up an imaginary position to be argued against in the work of the authors; cf. tilting at windmills. 

To be clear, tenor merely concerns who is taking part in a speech situation. It is simply the theoretical projection of the interpersonal metafunction onto context. It will be seen in this review that it is the authors themselves who try "to make tenor do a very wide range of things", by extending it to include interpersonal semantics and to serve as a 'principle of instantiation' for language.

[2] This misunderstands the architecture of language proposed by SFL Theory. The "semiotic labour" is already distributed along all the dimensions proposed. For example, Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 32):

Misrepresenting Halliday On Register And Its Relation To Context

Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 9, 28n):

In the model used in this book, register is the cover term for the stratum comprising field, tenor and mode (Figure 1.2).

This contrasts with Halliday's use of the term register to refer to the skewing of probabilities in semantic systems inside language by field, tenor and mode (e.g. Halliday, 1991b, p. 48; 2006). Both concepts – field, tenor, and mode (what in this book we call register), and the language patterns that arise due to specific choices in field, tenor, and mode (what Halliday calls register) – occur within this model. The difference with Halliday in this regard is purely terminological.¹

¹ As this terminological distinction has often led to confusion, it would perhaps be useful to use Gregory’s (1967) suggestion of ‘diatype’ for the skewing of probabilities in the systems of language by choices in field, tenor and mode (i.e. Halliday’s register), and leave register as the cover term for field, tenor and mode. It is of course worth emphasising that there is a substantial difference in the model of social context presumed here and that of Halliday’s in that this model divides context into register (field/tenor/mode) and genre as distinct strata, whereas Halliday’s only has field/tenor/mode.

Reviewer Comments:

[1] This is misleading, since it misrepresents Halliday. Cf. Halliday (2005 [1991]: 60):

On the contrary; it is the probabilistic model of lexicogrammar that enables us to explain register variation. Register variation can be defined as the skewing of (some of) these overall probabilities, in the environment of some specific configuration of field, tenor and mode. It is variation in the tendency to select certain meanings rather than others, realising variation in the situation type.

That is, the skewing of probabilities defines register variation, not register, and it is not caused by field, tenor and mode of a situation type, because the realisation of one stratum in another is not a causal relation. Less importantly, in this instance, Halliday was describing lexicogrammar, not semantics.

[2] This is very misleading, because the difference is far more than merely terminological. For example, a consequence of renaming context after a variety of language is that context is no longer culture instantiated as situations of situation types. In fact, in Martin's model, which in terms of strata, distinguishes context from language, an instance of context is deemed to be a text, an instance of language. This contradiction alone is sufficient to invalidate Martin's model.

[3] To be clear, this qualification in an endnote, nineteen pages later, flatly contradicts the authors' claim in the text that the difference between the models is 'purely terminological'.

The Misunderstanding Of Stratification On Which This Work Depends

 Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 8):

In this book we will treat social context as a semiotic system realised through patterns of language (Figure 1.1).

This model conceives of context and language as being intricately related and co-developed, with each continually impacting the other (what Martin (2011), adopting a term suggested by Chris Cléirigh, calls a ‘supervenient’ perspective on social context). 

Such an approach contrasts with perspectives which either treat social context as an independent phenomenon alongside language (that is, at best, correlated with language choices but otherwise having no co-genetic relation) or alternatively as a circumvenient phenomenon in which language is in some sense embedded in context but where there is only a one-way determination – so that context determines language choice, but language has no or minimal effect on context. 

Our project, in other words, involves working towards a model in which social context is realised through recurrent patterns of meaning – where realisation involves a two-way process of mutual actualisation between language and context. Accordingly anything we say about social context is an abstraction from recurrent patterns of semantic choice (Martin, 2014) – a relationship Lemke (e.g. 1995) refers to as metaredundancy.

Reviewer Comments:

[1] To be clear, in SFL Theory, context is the culture as a semiotic system that is realised in language (inter alia). The ideational dimension of context, field, is what is going on, in terms of the culture; the interpersonal dimension of context, tenor, is who is taking part, in terms of the culture; and the textual dimension of context, mode, is the role played by language, in terms of the culture.

[2] To be clear, in SFL Theory, the stratal relation between context and language is one of intensive symbolic identity (realisation). That is, context and language form the one identity, with context as the higher level of symbolic abstraction, and language as the lower level. On the other hand, the "co-development" of context and language, is distinct from their stratal relation, and here refers to the process of logogenesis: the development of the text. That is, the authors here have confused stratification with semogenesis.

[3] To be clear, in SFL Theory, the "co-development" of context and language in logogenesis is the development of the one identity, viewed at two different levels of symbolic abstraction. Two different levels of symbolic abstraction cannot "impact" each other. For example, a pipe and a representation of a pipe cannot "impact" each other.

[4] This is misleading. On the one hand, it misrepresents Cléirigh's use of the term 'supervenient'. Cléirigh used the term to refer to the emergence of higher levels of organisation in complex systems, as in the emergence of chemical systems from physical systems, and of biological systems from chemical systems. That is, it covers similar ground to Halliday's (2002 [1996]: 388) evolutionary typology of complex systems. On the other hand, contrary to the implication, Cléirigh did not apply the term 'supervenient' to the relation between context and language. Instead, he applied it to the three strata of language, and conceived of these as embedded in context:

(This is a view that Cléirigh soon abandoned as his understanding of SFL Theory improved.)

[5] To be clear, these 'other perspectives' are the authors' own misunderstandings of work in SFL Theory, and so function here fallaciously as straw men to be attacked. See further below.

[6] To be clear, in SFL Theory, context and language are not independent, since they are two aspects of the one identity, and their "co-genetic relation" is the development of this identity in logogenesis.

[7] To be clear, 'circumvenient' was the term Cléirigh (almost facetiously) suggested to Martin when Martin rejected the term 'embedding'.

[8] To be clear, in SFL Theory, there can be no determination between context and language because the logical relation between them is elaboration (intensive identity), not causal enhancement (circumstantial identity). What is true is that during logogenesis, previous language instantiations probabilise following language instantiations, and these potentially construe changing contextual features, as when a speaker changes the subject (second-order field).

[9] To be clear, the model that the authors are working toward in this project is therefore based on a confusion of stratification ('realisation') with instantiation ('patterns of meaning'). In SFL Theory, stratification means that the systems of context are realised by the systems of language. Patterns of meaning, on the other hand, are created in the instantiation process of logogenesis: the selection of features and the activation of their realisation statements, and constitute variation along the cline of instantiation.

[10] To be clear, the model that the authors are working toward in this project is therefore based on a fundamental misunderstanding of realisation. In SFL Theory, realisation is one-way relation: the lower level of symbolic abstraction (language) realises the higher level (context). As such, context cannot realise language. Moreover, the use of the term 'actualise' here invites confusion with instantiation as the actualisation of potential as instance. Again, the authors have confused stratification with semogenesis: the instantiation of potential in logogenesis.

[11] As will be seen, in the model that the authors are working toward in this project, their misunderstanding of stratification leads them to mistake the lower level of symbolic abstraction (semantic choice) for the higher level they plan to model (context), thereby invalidating their model and their project.

[12] This is a serious misunderstanding of metaredundancy. As the term implies, 'metaredundancy' is a redundancy on a redundancy. Applied to the stratification hierarchy, it means that semantics is redundant on the redundancy of lexicogrammar and phonology, or alternatively, that the redundancy of semantics and lexicogrammar is redundant on phonology. Applying the term to just two levels of symbolic abstraction, context and semantics, is therefore nonsensical.