The Fiction of Purview: When Questions Become Claims

Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 73):

This is in fact the typical realm of yes-no questions, where a proposition is put forward for the listener to support or reject (without the speaker necessarily indicating which way they lean). This occurs later in the conversation, when Kristy’s mother has called Ruth a goose for squashing her hand, and Kristy asks.

This question can be contrasted with the sharing proposition in (31). When Kristy asks do goosies do that? she is asking a genuine question (and so is relinquishing her purview to her mother); but when her mother says you go away from me to kinder, don’t you? she is not in fact asking Kristy as such – she is putting forward a proposition she agrees with, and is indicating that she expects Kristy to agree. This interplay of who has purview over the meanings being tendered allows Kristy’s mother to further steer the conversation in her direction. For example, she can downplay controversial proposals (like Kristy getting dressed) by giving Kristy purview to support or reject them. When Kristy does reject them, her mother can then turn to relatively uncontroversial meanings and present them in a shared way, so as to build solidarity and try again down the track. As this conversation shows, Kristy’s mother is an experienced negotiator, ceding control to Kristy whenever it is needed and coaxing her into agreement when the going is good.

ChatGPT Comments:

1. “This is in fact the typical realm of yes-no questions, where a proposition is put forward for the listener to support or reject (without the speaker necessarily indicating which way they lean).”

This initial claim immediately oversimplifies the logic of yes-no interrogatives. In Halliday’s canonical model, yes-no interrogatives are proposals for information — the commodity at risk is knowledge, not goods-&-services. The speaker’s “leaning” is irrelevant: the move is defined by the role structure (giving/ demanding; goods-&-services/ information), not by subjective attitudes of “leaning.” Their description here muddles speech function with epistemic stance, eroding the clarity of the system.

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2. “This occurs later in the conversation, when Kristy’s mother has called Ruth a goose for squashing her hand, and Kristy asks. (33) Kristy do goosies do that? pose/proposition Mother: No no reject”

Their analysis labels Kristy’s move as “pose/proposition.” But in SFL, it is unambiguously a yes-no interrogative functioning as a demand for information. To call it a “pose/proposition” obscures the speech role exchange: Kristy is not putting forward a proposition for agreement but rather demanding confirmation. The mother’s “No no” is not a “reject” but a supply of information — the expected response in this adjacency pair. Their system here fails to distinguish proposals vs. propositions (goods-&-services vs. information) and demand vs. give.

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3. “This question can be contrasted with the sharing proposition in (31). When Kristy asks do goosies do that? she is asking a genuine question (and so is relinquishing her purview to her mother)…”

Here the notion of “purview” collapses into incoherence. Asking a question is not “relinquishing purview” but enacting a different speech role. The categories of the mood system already capture the difference between declarative “sharing” (giving information) and interrogative “asking” (demanding information). To redescribe this as a transfer of “purview” is a redundancy at best and an obfuscation at worst. Moreover, the contrast they set up between “genuine question” and “sharing proposition” misses Halliday’s simple systemic opposition: interrogative vs. declarative.

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4. “…but when her mother says you go away from me to kinder, don’t you? she is not in fact asking Kristy as such – she is putting forward a proposition she agrees with, and is indicating that she expects Kristy to agree.”

This analysis mischaracterises the tag question. In SFL terms, tag questions are a distinct subtype: a proposition is advanced as a statement (declarative) but the tag enacts a demand for confirmation. The mother is indeed “asking Kristy as such,” albeit in a way that construes alignment. There is no need for the contorted account that she is “not really asking.” The system already models this duality cleanly. Again, the purview language obscures the systemic elegance of how tags function.

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5. “This interplay of who has purview over the meanings being tendered allows Kristy’s mother to further steer the conversation in her direction.”

Here “purview” is doing all the heavy lifting where SFL already has the interpersonal metafunction precisely designed for this purpose. Mood and speech function already provide the categories to describe who controls the exchange of information or goods-&-services. To redescribe “steering the conversation” in terms of “purview” simply replaces a robust, tested systemic description with an improvised metaphor.

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6. “For example, she can downplay controversial proposals (like Kristy getting dressed) by giving Kristy purview to support or reject them. When Kristy does reject them, her mother can then turn to relatively uncontroversial meanings and present them in a shared way, so as to build solidarity and try again down the track.”

This is a classic case of narrativising what is already captured by systemic choices. The mother alternates between commands (demands for goods-&-services) and statements (giving information), using mitigation and solidarity strategies — all describable within the grammar of mood and modality. To redescribe this as “giving Kristy purview” is not an analytic advance but a rhetorical embellishment.

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7. “As this conversation shows, Kristy’s mother is an experienced negotiator, ceding control to Kristy whenever it is needed and coaxing her into agreement when the going is good.”

The final flourish abandons analysis for folk-psychological narrative. The mother is reimagined as a Machiavellian strategist rather than simply a parent using familiar interpersonal resources. This kind of evaluative framing adds nothing to the linguistic analysis, and in fact risks projecting motives not present in the interaction.

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Summary

This passage epitomises the flaws of the “purview” framework:

• It re-describes existing mood structures (declarative, interrogative, tag question, imperative) in terms of a vague metaphor of “purview.”

• It blurs the systemic distinctions between giving/demanding and propositions/proposals.

• It mixes analysis with folk-psychological storytelling, presenting ordinary parental scaffolding as tactical negotiation.

Where Halliday offers a parsimonious and powerful account of speech function, the authors layer an additional terminology that obscures rather than clarifies. 

Sharedness Presupposed: How Purview Erases Negotiation

Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 72):

Alternatively, as we saw above, Kristy’s mother can indicate that she expects the meanings being tendered are shared between them. In this case, both the speaker and the listener have purview over the meanings (+ speaker purview; + listener purview) – a reading reinforced by Kristy’s support.

For proposals, this typically also occurs through commands (A2 moves), along with various interpersonal markers that suggest that the listener also agrees. The most common of these is tagging, perhaps reinforced by the inclusive let’s (which (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014, p.166) describe as a ‘suggestion – i.e., something that is at the same time both a command and an offer’).

ChatGPT Comments:

Text:

Alternatively, as we saw above, Kristy’s mother can indicate that she expects the meanings being tendered are shared between them.

Commentary:

Already we encounter the same slippage: expecting meanings to be shared is presented as equivalent to meanings actually being shared. The text collapses expectation, recognition, and negotiation into a single category. This conflation bypasses the essential point that sharedness is always construed, never given.

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Text:

In this case, both the speaker and the listener have purview over the meanings (+ speaker purview; + listener purview) – a reading reinforced by Kristy’s support.

Commentary:

Notice the sleight of hand: Kristy’s support is retroactively taken as proof that purview was already symmetrical. In other words, the exchange is read backwards. Instead of treating Kristy’s “yeah but –” as a contingent response that negotiates alignment, it is treated as evidence that she already possessed purview. Again, purview is treated as a static possession rather than a dynamic relation.

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Text:

(30) Mother: you go away from me to kinder, don't you? share/proposition

Kristy: yeah but – support

Commentary:

The example undermines the argument. The mother’s move is not a neutral sharing but a leading question that constrains Kristy’s options. Kristy’s “yeah but –” is hardly an uncomplicated “support”: it hedges, resists, or at least complicates the alignment. The coding as “share/proposition” with “support” simply erases Kristy’s resistance.

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Text:

For proposals, this typically also occurs through commands (A2 moves), along with various interpersonal markers that suggest that the listener also agrees.

Commentary:

Here the authors commit a category error. A command does not “suggest” listener agreement; it construes obligation. The only way a command can be taken as “shared purview” is if the subsequent uptake ratifies it. Once again, ratification is being presupposed rather than analysed.

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Text:

The most common of these is tagging, perhaps reinforced by the inclusive let’s (which (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014, p.166) describe as a ‘suggestion – i.e., something that is at the same time both a command and an offer’).

Commentary:

Two problems here:

1. Overgeneralisation: Tags like “shall we?” are not simply markers of “shared purview.” They are resources for testing, softening, or negotiating alignment. Treating them as evidence of a pre-existing shared state is a misreading of the grammar.

2. Misuse of Halliday: Halliday’s point about let’s is that it realises a peculiar interpersonal blend. But this does not entail that it indexes “shared purview.” The authors import Halliday’s description while quietly re-inscribing it into their own framework, which erases the contingencies of negotiation.

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Text:

(31) Let’s go, shall we? share/proposal

Commentary:

Again, a mis-coding. This utterance construes inclusion and softened obligation, but it does not guarantee that the addressee accepts. It is precisely an invitation to negotiate — which means that sharedness is not a given but a potential. The label “share/proposal” pre-empts the very dynamic the example enacts.

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Overall Assessment

This passage repeats the pattern we’ve seen before:

• Purview is treated as possession rather than relation.

• Responses are retroactively re-coded as evidence of pre-existing sharedness.

• Negotiation is erased in favour of static binaries (+speaker/+listener).

• Examples that clearly exhibit tension or resistance are flattened into “support” or “sharing.”

Far from clarifying interpersonal dynamics, the purview framework here imposes an artificial symmetry that ignores the actual contingencies of exchange.

Purview without Clarity: Assertions, Proposals, and the Misframing of Rejection

Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 71-2):

As example (28) illustrates, a speaker can maintain purview with no suggestion that the listener will already share the meanings (i.e. no listener purview). This often occurs when a speaker relatively baldly asserts a proposition or proposal (+ speaker purview; – listener purview).

In this instance, Kristy’s mother is stating a proposition without suggesting that Kristy necessarily has much say in the matter. For proposals, this often takes the form of a command (or an A2 in exchange structure), where the speaker proposes what the listener is to do, without any acknowledgement of whether the listener wants to or not. This occurs when Kristy yells at Ruth after she annoys Kristy (Don’t!), and again when Kristy’s mother chastises her for getting cranky (each of these instances are shaded in grey in (29), along with an assertion of a proposition). In each of these instances, the positions are working to reject something – first Ruth’s action, then Kristy’s reaction and finally the possibility of Kristy getting cranky (a prospective rendering, Zhang 2020c).

ChatGPT Comments:

What makes this section interesting is how much theoretical weight the authors place on very ordinary exchange-structural phenomena, while simultaneously relocating them into their “purview” framework. Let me unpack where the problems are:

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1. Purview as a relabel of exchange structure

• What they are calling “+speaker purview / –listener purview” is simply the canonical asymmetry of moves in negotiation: an A2 command or a bald assertion without explicit concession to alternative voices.

• Hallidayan exchange structure already models this as giving/demanding information/goods-&-services, with recognition of the speaker’s and listener’s relative options.

• To rebrand this as “purview” adds no explanatory power — it only reframes what’s already well-covered in the system network of MOOD + EXCHANGE.

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2. Context vs language

• Once again, they locate “purview” in context, but the examples (commands, assertions, rejections) are linguistic choices that realise context.

• The conflation makes it seem as if context itself is being “assertive” or “rejecting,” whereas in Halliday’s model the interpersonal semantics realise those contextual dynamics.

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3. Dialogic vs structural confusion

• They bring in Zhang’s “prospective rendering” to explain Kristy’s mother’s “Don’t get cranky.” But the phenomenon is perfectly well explained in exchange structure: a rejection of an anticipated action.

• Again, “purview” here is simply a gloss over well-established SFL tools, not an actual extension.

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4. Critical summary

This section illustrates the redundancy and slippage in their model:

• Redundancy: “Purview” is exchange structure and ENGAGEMENT with new labels.

• Mislocation: They situate purview in context, but all their data are linguistic realisations.

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A More Extended Line-By-Line Analysis

“As example (28) illustrates, a speaker can maintain purview with no suggestion that the listener will already share the meanings (i.e. no listener purview).”

→ Already muddled. They are defining “purview” as if it is something the speaker “has” or “maintains,” yet they deny that the listener has any share in meaning. But in SFL, meaning is always intersubjective — “sharing” is not optional but built into the very concept of language as semiotic. They are imposing a quasi-possession model (“having purview”) onto what is in fact a relational negotiation of meaning.

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“This often occurs when a speaker relatively baldly asserts a proposition or proposal (+ speaker purview; – listener purview).”

→ “+/- speaker/listener purview” is a clumsy binary encoding of epistemic stance, but stripped of its proper grounding in the exchange system. In SFL terms, a “bald assertion” is a proposition without modalisation or explicit negotiation of validity. That’s not “purview,” it’s mood choice + modality. The binarisation of “listener purview” is just a way of smuggling in conversational analysis’s “epistemic authority” under a new name, while pretending to innovate.

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Example (28): “Mother: You’ll have a lovely day pet. proposition/assert.”

→ This is a classic declarative functioning as offer of reassurance. It is not “speaker purview” at all, but rather an interpersonal move combining assertion with affective positioning. In fact, the mother is construing Kristy’s future experience as already aligned with her own assessment. Calling this “no listener purview” misses the point: the speech act is inherently oriented toward the listener’s uptake.

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“In this instance, Kristy’s mother is stating a proposition without suggesting that Kristy necessarily has much say in the matter.”

→ Wrong register. The mother isn’t suppressing Kristy’s say; she’s construing Kristy’s future as a taken-for-granted shared value. This is interpersonal positioning, not a denial of listener “purview.” The gloss reads like an outsider’s imposition of power asymmetry, rather than a systemic analysis of the interpersonal choice.

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“For proposals, this often takes the form of a command (or an A2 in exchange structure), where the speaker proposes what the listener is to do, without any acknowledgement of whether the listener wants to or not.”

→ Misrepresentation of SFL exchange structure. A command is not “an A2”; it is a proposal for goods-&-services. A2 is a role in adjacency pairs, but Halliday’s exchange system doesn’t reduce proposals to adjacency roles. Also: all commands presume some form of negotiation (even if suppressed). To say there is “no acknowledgement” of the listener is to erase the very logic of dialogue that makes a command meaningful.

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“This occurs when Kristy yells at Ruth after she annoys Kristy (Don’t!), and again when Kristy’s mother chastises her for getting cranky…”

→ “Don’t!” is not adequately described as “+ speaker purview; – listener purview.” It is simply an imperative clause realising a command. The interpersonal force comes from the imperative, not from an invented “purview setting.” The misdescription leads them to confuse functional categories with affective glosses.

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“(each of these instances are shaded in grey in (29), along with an assertion of a proposition).”

→ Red flag: they collapse proposals and propositions into the same shading, as if their “purview” variable overrides the distinction. This is precisely backwards — mood is the primary systemic resource; “purview” is a secondary interpretive construct (if it exists at all).

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“In each of these instances, the positions are working to reject something – first Ruth’s action, then Kristy’s reaction and finally the possibility of Kristy getting cranky (a prospective rendering, Zhang 2020c).”

→ Here the confusion doubles: they conflate rejection with “purview” while borrowing Zhang’s “prospective rendering.” But rejection is simply polarity: the negative. No new category is needed. Worse, they present Kristy’s mother’s utterance “Don’t get cranky” as a rejection of a possibility, when it is transparently a command. Calling this “prospective rendering” mystifies what is perfectly obvious in terms of mood, polarity, and exchange roles.

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Summary of the analysis:

• The authors smuggle CA’s “epistemic authority” into SFL under the rebrand “purview.”

• They confuse speech function (proposition/proposal), polarity (positive/negative), and exchange roles (giving/demanding) with this invented “purview” dimension.

• They misdescribe declaratives as “no listener purview,” erasing the inherently dialogic nature of propositions.

• They misrepresent imperatives as if the listener’s role were absent, when in fact it is constitutive.

• They over-complicate obvious exchanges (“Don’t!” = imperative command) with pseudo-technical terms (“prospective rendering”).

Net effect: a proliferation of categories that obscure the interpersonal system Halliday already modelled with precision.

Misunderstanding Realisation

Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 61):

… there are a number of ways that propositions can be presented. They can be presented as full statements, unfinished statements, as wh- questions and a range of other forms. This allows a progression of information to be developed through a text to help move toward consensus. … 

Different ways of articulating propositions underpin distinctions in questions and answers, which in turn allows us to negotiate information in different ways. …

Complete propositions are typically realised by discourse semantic statements (grammatically declaratives) or by yes-no questions (grammatically polar interrogatives).

By contrast, in this text the teacher also puts forward a series of propositions that are not complete, but rather leave some information for the students to answer. These types of propositions we will call open propositions. Open propositions are typically realised by elemental questions (grammatically, wh- interrogatives), questions that give alternative choices or by incomplete statements.

 

ChatGPT Comments:

In this passage, the authors attempt to describe different ways in which propositions are presented in texts, distinguishing between complete and "open" propositions. However, the explanation is derailed by a fundamental misapplication of the concept of realisation.

“Complete propositions are typically realised by discourse semantic statements…”

This clause claims that a semantic entity (“complete proposition”) is realised by another semantic entity (“discourse semantic statement”). But in Halliday’s canonical stratified model, realisation is strictly a relation between strata—not within them. It is the relation between a system on one level and a system on the level below. For example:

• Context (field, tenor, mode) is realised by semantics (ideational, interpersonal, textual meanings);

• Semantics is realised by lexicogrammar (e.g. mood, transitivity, theme);

• Lexicogrammar is realised by phonology/graphology.

So, to say that a proposition is “realised by a discourse semantic statement” is incoherent. If both items are situated within the same stratum—semantics—then their relation is not one of realisation but of classification within that stratum. You can say, for instance, that an "open proposition" is a subtype of proposition. But you cannot say that one semantic unit “realises” another.

Furthermore, their conflation continues:

“…typically realised by discourse semantic statements (grammatically declaratives) or by yes-no questions (grammatically polar interrogatives).”

Here, the clause again bundles together semantics and grammar, but fails to maintain the logic of stratification. Since “complete propositions” are semantic units, statements and yes–no questions (as semantic units) cannot be said to realise them. The realisation relation is only valid here between semantics and lexicogrammar—not within semantics itself.

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Clarifying the Proper Model

In Halliday’s systemic-functional stratification, a valid characterisation of realisation would look something like this:

• A proposition (semantic interpersonal structure) is realised grammatically by a declarative or interrogative clause (lexicogrammar: mood structure);

• A proposal (also semantic interpersonal structure) is realised grammatically by an imperative or modulated clause;

• Both are further realised phonologically or graphologically.

If the authors wish to distinguish kinds of propositions within semantics (e.g., “open” vs “complete”), then this is a semantic classification, not a realisation relation. They might say, for instance:

“Open propositions are a subtype of interpersonal meanings that invite a co-construction of information.”

But they must not confuse this with realisation, unless they are crossing a stratal boundary.

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Conclusion

This is a textbook case of a category mistake that arises when the Hallidayan architecture is misapplied. Once the coherent scaffolding of stratification is compromised—especially the integrity of the realisation relation—it becomes difficult to determine what kind of explanation is even being attempted. As it stands, the passage does not distinguish between levels of abstraction and thus undermines the explanatory power of SFL's semiotic model.

Misrepresenting Modality Metaphor And Misunderstanding Negotiation

Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 46):

In addition to one supporting and the other noting what is being tendered, there is a second difference between (27) and (28).

Looking grammatically, in (28) there are two clauses being given – a ranking clause It is possible… and an embedded clause there was an invasion. This means that there are two possibilities for rendering. For example, one may reject that there was an invasion by saying No, there wasn’t; or alternatively, one may reject the possibility that there was an invasion by saying No, it isn’t. This indicates that (in the absence of a modality metaphor; (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014, pp. 686-687)), there are in fact two positions being tendered here, which is shown in the analysis – one by the ranking clause it is possible…, and one by the embedded clause there was an invasion, the latter of which is being rendered by the it is possible.

In (27), the probably does not tender a position separate to that of I’ll be home (i.e., we cannot negotiate probably independent of the whole position without tendering something new – something like It’s not only probably, but definitely). Thus, there is only one position being tendered. This is a distinction in Halliday’s terms between what he calls explicit objective modality (e.g., it is possible) and implicit objective modality (e.g., possibly).

Reviewer Comments:

[1] This is misleading because it is untrue. The authors claim this is “in the absence of a modality metaphor,” but what they describe is in fact a classic example of one. As Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 698) make clear:

The explicitly subjective and explicitly objective forms of modality are all strictly speaking metaphorical, since all of them represent the modality as being the substantive proposition.

That is precisely what we see in (28), where “It is possible” realises the modality not congruently but metaphorically, as a projecting clause.

What the authors call “two positions being tendered” in context are actually the two propositions (semantics) construed via this grammatical metaphor. Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 688) explain:

What happens is that, in order … to claim explicitly that the probability is objective, the speaker construes the proposition as a projection and encodes … the objectivity (it is likely), in a projecting clause.

This is not a contextual issue of “positioning,” but a semantic issue of projection and modality metaphor.

[2] This is misleading because it is untrue. The authors claim that probably in (27) does not “tender a position” separately from I’ll be home, implying that it cannot be negotiated independently. But in SFL, the arguability of a proposition derives from the Mood element, and probably — as a mood Adjunct — is part of that Mood element. It is available for negotiation: an interlocutor can challenge it directly (“Probably?”) without needing to construct a new proposal.

As Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 143, 150) clarify:

… if anything it is the Mood element that embodies the proposition rather than the remainder of the clause.

… the Mood element has a clearly defined semantic function: it carries the burden of the clause as an interactive event.

Once again, the authors collapse distinctions across strata and metafunctions, confusing a semantic projection structure with a contextual positioning move. 

Problems With The Second 'Rendering' System Network

Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 42-3):

Adding these choices into our system network gives us Figure 2.2. In this figure the joint square bracket and brace means and/or. That is, one may choose to render or tender or both. Thus this network says that in tenor, one may tender a position or render a position or both at the same time. If rendering, this may address or note the position (with the various subtypes described for Figure 2.1 above), and any of these renderings may be done externally or internally.

Reviewer Comments:

[1] To be clear, this network misrepresents a system of potential language options as a system of tenor, the interpersonal context that is realised by such language choices.

[2] To be clear, this network has no entry condition or realisation statements.

Misrepresenting Exchange Responses As Tenor

Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 33, 34):

Another resource for rendering involves the use of positive or negative attitude that targets the tendered proposition. This is illustrated in the following sequence from a high school physics class in which a student tenders a description of a physics principle known as Bohr’s first postulate. The teacher renders this move with the positive evaluation Good (what in a pedagogical context Rose (2018) calls an Affirm move).

In classrooms, teachers will often render support for a students’ response simply by replaying it – (3) for example follows the teacher asking: ‘And what did Maxwell say that accelerating charges do? They emit…’.

In conversational texts, someone can render a position by replaying the evaluative attitude, rather than the ideational meanings themselves – as in the text message exchange in (4).

These examples highlight the parallels between polarity in the lexicogrammar (Mood Adjuncts such as yes and no, not and never) and 'polarity' in discourse semantics (realised through positive or negative attitude, e.g., good vs bad; (Martin, 2020)). Both can be used to support or to reject a tendered proposition. …

Tendering and rendering offer a basic choice for negotiating meaning in tenor – as speakers put a position forward or to react to that position. Both tendering and rendering can be enacted in a number of ways to perform a wide range of functions.

Reviewer Comments:

[1] To be clear, this is language (exchange), not context (tenor). The 'tender' by the student is the authors' rebranding of an initiating statement, and the 'render' by the teacher is their rebranding of a responding acknowledgement, a statement realised by an ellipsed clause that's good.

[2] Again, this is language (exchange), not context (tenor). The 'tender' by the student is the authors' rebranding of an initiating statement, and the 'render' by the teacher is their rebranding of a responding acknowledgement, a statement.

[3] Again, this is language (exchange), not context (tenor). The 'tender' by Jessie is the authors' rebranding of an initiating statement, and the 'render' by Alex is their rebranding of a responding acknowledgement, a statement realised by an ellipsed clause that's pretty unexpected.

[4] To be clear, it is the speech function realised by the ellipsed clause that acknowledges or contradicts the initiating proposition. Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 137):

[5] To be clear, this confuses language (negotiating meaning in discourse) with context (tenor: who is taking part in terms of the culture).

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").

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.