Confession as Category Error: The Moral Overcoding of Maternal Expression

Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 140):

Unsurprisingly, given #momguilt was part of the corpus selection criteria, self-targeted upscaled rejection was one of the most common patterns implicated in raising stakes about the extent to which the users felt that they were good mothers. However, this rendering pattern was highly sensitive to other dimensions in the posts, most significantly the use of humour, and could be used in both raising and lowering the interpersonal stakes of the meaning put at risk. A simple example in the corpus is intensification of self-directed rejection regarding the user's self-perceived capacity to act as a good caregiver which they express in terms of affect.

(36) [Name] stopped sleeping well recently & I got super upset with her because of it & after our visit to the ER Monday, had our follow up today to find out she has a double ear infection. & I feel like the worst person alive . #MomGuilt

(37) Legit feel like the worst mom in the world when I have to wake my daughter up to take her to my MIL so I can go to work #momguilt

(38) Summer: when you feel like the worst parent ever cause all your kid wants to do it play with you & you decided to have a career #momguilt

These kinds of admissions and negative self-assessments were part of an ongoing motif in the corpus of confession, whereby mothers admit the various ways in which they have failed to be a 'good mom'. Framing their sharing of everyday observations about the activity of motherhood as a confession raises the stakes – the confessional is after all an inherently consequential genre where for some 'believers' the fate of an immortal soul hangs in the balance.

ChatGPT Comments:

This passage exemplifies the authors’ recurring misrecognition of affective discourse as moral ritual. Their claim that expressions of maternal guilt on social media constitute a “motif of confession” is not an empirical finding but a projection of a theological template onto everyday discourse. The “confessional” is treated as if it were an inherent semiotic genre rather than an analytic imposition—one that carries with it a pre-modern hierarchy of sin, guilt, and absolution.

The women’s posts are not confessions but construals of situated affect: relational calibrations of care, exhaustion, and accountability within an overdetermined social frame. To cast them as “confession” is to re-encode these construals in the very ideology of moral purification that the posts implicitly contest. The social function of #momguilt is not penitence but collective recognition—a distributed negotiation of impossible standards of care. By forcing these utterances into the logic of “raising the stakes” through “confession,” the authors mistake the interpersonal circulation of empathy for the reproduction of moral order.

The irony is sharp: their analysis performs the same disciplinary gesture it claims to describe. What they call “confession” is not a genre of guilt but a social affordance for reclaiming agency in the face of systemic demand. 

Multilogue and Platform Capitalism: Limits of Typological Description

Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 130):

Up until this point we have largely been concerned with how social relations are negotiated in monologue and dialogue. But in contemporary society there are many ways in which we enact these relations without necessarily interacting directly with other people – via broadcast and digital media. Multilogue communication has become an important feature of contemporary social life due to the expansion of "semiotic technologies" (technologies for making meaning) (Zhao, Djonov, & van Leeuwen, 2014) affording one-to-many and many-to-many communication. This kind of communication has engendered 'status-updating' and various kinds of comment genres whereby people share their experiences and opinions with others in real-time on social media. The expanded communicative affordances offered by such digital platforms have augmented the ways in which people can interact, both in terms of increasing the range of connection possible and reducing the extent to which direct interaction is required for tenor to be negotiated (Zappavigna, 2018; Zappavigna & Martin, 2018a). At the same time, social media platforms operate by the essential logic inherent in digital platform economies – namely that of aiming to profit financially from the ways in which people connect with one another. They thus advance a capitalist agenda that has pervaded the last few centuries towards what is perhaps its maximal endgame – i.e., our very social relations are now being mined for profit.

ChatGPT Comments:

This paragraph attempts to bring digital communication into the orbit of SFL’s account of tenor by invoking “multilogue” and “semiotic technologies.” Yet the treatment is conceptually shallow. First, the distinction between dialogue, monologue, and multilogue is offered descriptively rather than systemically. In SFL, negotiation of social relations requires modelling as options within a network; here, however, we are given only a typological list. “Multilogue” is introduced as if naming were theorisation, when in fact the phenomenon remains unmodelled.

Second, the invocation of “semiotic technologies” draws on Zhao et al. without any effort to integrate the notion into the SFL stratified framework. Technologies may be affordances for meaning, but the question for SFL is how those affordances restructure the organisation of tenor as a system. That is left unaddressed. Instead, the analysis slides into an anecdotal catalogue of “status-updating” and “comment genres,” with no attempt to specify what system(s) these instantiate or expand.

Finally, the pivot to platform capitalism—while not incorrect in its sociological diagnosis—remains grafted onto the discussion rather than integrated into the theoretical account. To say that social relations are “mined for profit” is not to explain how tenor is reconfigured under these conditions. The effect is a layering of political critique atop a descriptive typology, rather than a systemic-functional analysis.

In short, the paragraph offers an important problem—the reorganisation of social relations through digital platforms—but fails to develop the categories needed to model it.

Hands-On Tuning: When Stakes, Spirit, and Scope Meet Motherhood

Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 128-30):

Returning to the exchange that we have considered throughout the book, as Kristy's mother is attempting to get her dressed, we have seen that an interpersonal juggling act characterises the interaction. In this chapter we will add the dimension of tuning to our consideration of the interpersonal dynamics of this exchange. In this negotiation the mother moves Kristy toward compliance with her request, at the same time as getting Ruth to stop pushing her sister – avoiding as she does so potential interpersonal meltdowns that might delay her end goal of getting out the door on time. The skill with which she manages this interaction is apparent in the ways she adjusts the levels of risk in her proposals, as she guides her less than optimally compliant children towards departure. Throughout she adjusts the vibe of the negotiation, all the while attending to the needs of the individuals present in the exchange. Not only is it important for everyone to feel like they are heard; but in addition it is important that everyone knows that the instructions, even though often cast indirectly, are to be interpreted as directed to the two children present in the exchange.

If we look at the language in this unfolding phase, we can see its interpersonal dynamics play out as distinct choices in TUNING. Rather than directly commanding Kristy to get dressed, an option likely to put her at loggerheads with her small and obstinate interlocutor, the mother leverages the persuasive power of interpersonal metaphor by adopting an interrogative clause structure. In addition to shifting purview, the indirectness of 'how about' softens the impact of the proposal by casting it as tentative. In terms of TUNING, it lowers the stakes – most likely with the hope of avoiding the explosion of emotion that does unfortunately eventuate. Kristy's blunt refusal (‘no’) raises the stakes of her rejection of the mother's proposal, though as Kristy tries to manoeuvre her way out of going, she strategically lowers the stakes of her rejection. This is realised through the indirectness of interpersonal metaphor ('don't want to go' for 'don't make me go'). Nonetheless, her crying largely overrides this by significantly raising the stakes of her refusal. …

At the same time, the mother’s repetition of reasons for Kristy to get dressed, combined with her use of modality (probably, maybe) and lowering force (a little bit) can be interpreted via graduation (Martin & White, 2005) as lowering the stakes of Kristy leaving. …

Kristy’s mother also lowers the stakes of her initial suggestion for why Kristy doesn’t want to go out through modality metaphor, using I think and I don’t think to indicate the tentativeness of her suggestions …

Kristy and her mother’s use of grammatical metaphor earlier in the conversation contrasts with the more direct kinds of rejecting used later on such as 'don't!' by Kristy to Ruth and ‘don’t get cranky’ by Kristy’s mother in response where stakes are raised through their frankness. In this case, Kristy tries to assert her status over her younger sister by combining both asserting purview and high stakes (also suggested by the exclamation mark, suggesting a loud, sharp voice quality); but her mother trumps her by using the same strategy to protect Ruth. …

At the same time that Kristy and her mother are adjusting stakes, differing levels of ‘friendliness’ are also involved. In terms of tuning, we refer to this as SPIRIT – a scale whereby propositions and proposals are cast as more convivial [warming] or more threatening [warning]. For example, the mother employs vocatives of endearment such as pet and sweetie to warm her proposals (Poynton, 1984, 1990a). Similarly, Kristy’s use of a warming vocative Mummy in 'Mummy... I don't want to go away from you' can be interpreted as the child capitalising on the opportunity afforded by the momentary lowering of stakes that occurs when the mother reflects on the challenging time they are having together ('oh dear oh dear'). We do not know from the transcript what exactly was happening at this time; but one might imagine that while they are talking Kristy’s mother may have given her a hug and both may speak in a higher pitch and smoother voice quality to emphasise this warmth (Ngo et al., 2022; Van Leeuwen, 1999). This moment in the exchange is interrupted by Kristy’s sister Ruth pushing her leg, possibly out of jealousy at all the attention being given to Kristy in this delicate negotiation. The mother’s choice to address the child as 'Ruth' when she attempts to stop this act of minor violence is sterner than her other vocation choices in this exchange. It is a warning, even though it is tempered via the interpersonal metaphor that tends to pervade the mother’s talk ('she doesn't want her leg pushed, Ruth' for 'Don't push her leg, Ruth'). Nonetheless, despite these nuances, Kristy’s crying establishes a prosody of negative spirit combined with raised stakes that colours the entire conversation.

ChatGPT Comments:

Tuning in Practice – Kristy’s Dressing Exchange

1. Tuning as analytic overlay

• The examples are detailed and engaging, showing scope, stakes, and spirit in action.

• However, the analyses largely translate intuitively observable phenomena into Tuning terminology, rather than demonstrating that Tuning captures something independently unmodellable by SFL.

• For instance, softening a proposal with “how about” or “I think” is already describable via modality and Graduation, and marking friendliness through vocatives or prosody is captured by Attitude + Graduation + Engagement. Tuning acts more as a layer of interpretive commentary than as a distinct system.

2. Social interpretation vs linguistic description

• The critique points to the familiar Chapter 5 pattern: linguistic choices are interpreted through the lens of interpersonal effect, e.g., Kristy’s crying or Ruth’s push.

• While intuitively appealing, this approach blurs the analytic boundary between observable language and inferred social impact. For example, raising stakes through exclamation marks or prosody depends heavily on context and affective interpretation, not strictly on systemic-functional categories.

3. Redundancy and circularity

• Almost every example of “lowering stakes” or “warming spirit” overlaps with existing SFL tools: modality, Graduation, vocatives, exclamatives, prosody.

• There’s little in these examples that cannot be analysed using canonical Appraisal + Graduation + Engagement. Tuning does not uncover new semiotic mechanisms; it relabels and frames them for interpretive storytelling.

4. Pedagogical appeal vs analytic necessity

• The examples do succeed in making the concept of Tuning accessible and vivid — readers can see scope, stakes, and spirit “moving” in a live interaction.

• But the chapter risks conflating descriptive clarity with theoretical innovation. The system of Tuning is helpful for teaching or illustrative purposes, but it does not add a new analytic stratum beyond what SFL already provides.

Verdict

The dialogue illustrations convincingly demonstrate the intuitive appeal of Tuning, showing how stakes and spirit fluctuate in real interactions. Yet they also reveal the core weakness of Chapter 5: Tuning functions as a repackaging of existing linguistic resources, with analysis dependent on social interpretation. Its value lies in pedagogical exposition, not in extending the analytic power of SFL. 

Tuning or Rebranding? When Scope, Stakes, and Spirit Claim a System

 Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 128):

Following on from our exploration of POSITIONING and ORIENTING, this chapter explores another significant dimension in relation to how interpersonal meanings are negotiated – which we will refer to as TUNING. Tuning offers additional ways to adjust meanings that are being put forward – to raise or lower the stakes of what is being said, to broaden or narrow the scope of who it relates to and to shift the spirit in which the meanings are being put forward. In this chapter we will introduce three main resources within the TUNING system:

- scope - whereby the ambit of a position is either broadened or narrowed in terms of the personae and communities it may concern (How inclusive or encompassing is the meaning?).

- stakes - whereby positions are calibrated in terms of interpersonal risk (How concerning or significant is the meaning? How tenuous is its standing?)

- spirit - whereby a position is adjusted to be read more or less favourably (What's the vibe of the meaning? What's its tone?).

ChatGPT Comments:

The chapter opens by positioning Tuning as a new dimension following Positioning and Orienting, promising additional ways to adjust interpersonal meanings. At first glance, the framing gives the impression of a theoretically necessary system, but a closer reading raises a number of concerns.

1. Repackaging, not innovation

The three dimensions of Tuning — Scope, Stakes, Spirit — largely repackage already-described SFL resources:

• Scope reflects the breadth of engagement, pronominal reference, and quantification.

• Stakes maps onto Graduation (force/focus) and Engagement (contestability).

• Spirit aligns with Attitude, Graduation, and Engagement, capturing positive or negative affective tone.

By branding these adjustments as a “system,” the authors create the illusion of novelty, when in fact these phenomena are already accommodated within existing appraisal and discourse-semantic frameworks.

2. Metaphor over stratal clarity

The labels themselves are evocative — scope as inclusivity, stakes as risk, spirit as vibe — but they foreground effect rather than linguistic instantiation. This emphasis risks obscuring the distinction between what is linguistically expressed and how it is socially interpreted.

3. Orthogonality and meta-system framing

Tuning is framed as orthogonal to Positioning and Orienting, yet all three concern the negotiation of interpersonal meaning. Tuning may be better understood as a meta-layer: a way of describing modulation across familiar resources rather than a discrete system in its own right.

Verdict

The introduction sets up Tuning as a systematic innovation, but careful reading reveals it to be a conceptual and pedagogical framing of existing SFL mechanisms, with metaphorical labels that appeal rhetorically but risk inflating the theoretical claims.

Predetermined Stance or Probabilistic Meaning?

Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 87):

As (Maton, 2014, p. 158) explains, tightly bound constellations in a community delimit the possible combinations of stances available to people by orienting options as necessarily associated or opposed. This means if someone aligns with one position in a constellation, it will likely be taken to mean they also align with others – regardless of whether they state this explicitly. Maton (2014) illustrates this by mapping the axiological constellation in education that opposes so-called ‘student centred learning environments’ with ‘teacher centred learning environments’.

 

ChatGPT Comments:

Here, the authors present axiological constellations as deterministic: one stance implies alignment with a set of others. The SFL import of this idea is underdeveloped. In canonical SFL, alignment between stances is probabilistic and realised through interpersonal meaning-making (engagement, appraisal, modality) rather than presupposed by an abstract sociological constellation. By taking Maton’s sociological claim at face value, the model risks attributing structural constraints to meaning where, from a Hallidayan perspective, only negotiation and interactional patterns exist. There is an assumption that these constellations exist independently and are merely “mapped” by SFL analysis.

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.

POSITIONING and Orchestration: When Terminology Outpaces Systemic Precision

Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 83):

Social relations are intricate – we negotiate our status and our solidarity all the time and in multiple ways at once. The system of POSITIONING we have established in Chapters 2 and 3 captures the basic set of resources we use to do this negotiation. Throughout, we have tried to capture both the inter of the interpersonal (in terms of how we establish turn-taking and dialogue and how we position others in relation to ourselves) and the personal of the interpersonal (in order to understanding how we express ourselves and share our feelings). By bringing these perspectives together we can better understand the orchestration of interpersonal meaning that unfolds through spoken and written texts.

ChatGPT Comments:

1. Redundancy disguised as innovation

The claim that social relations are intricate and negotiated “all the time and in multiple ways at once” is a truism. What follows is not the establishment of new resources but a re-labelling of already-theorised interpersonal systems (mood, modality, appraisal, turn-taking). The introduction of POSITIONING as a unifying system risks being less a theoretical advance than a terminological umbrella.

2. The system of POSITIONING: systemic or descriptive?

While framed as a system, it remains unclear what the paradigmatic options are, how delicacy is organised, or how choices are instantiated in text. In Hallidayan terms, a system is defined by explicit choices with probabilities of occurrence. Here, POSITIONING functions instead as a broad metaphor for interpersonal negotiation, lacking the systemic rigour it claims.

3. The “inter of the interpersonal” vs. “personal of the interpersonal”

This dichotomy is rhetorically appealing but theoretically imprecise. The “inter” is said to concern dialogue and turn-taking; the “personal” concerns expressing self and feelings. Yet these map loosely onto established categories: dialogue management → exchange structure; expression of affect → appraisal. The binary adds poetic flourish but no additional explanatory power, and risks obscuring the fact that these are not two perspectives on the same metafunctional plane but distinct sets of semantic resources already modelled.

4. Misrepresentation of appraisal’s scope

By assigning the “personal of the interpersonal” to POSITIONING, the authors obscure appraisal’s central role in handling affect, judgement, and appreciation — all of which are already designed to theorise “how we express ourselves and share our feelings.” Instead of extending appraisal theory, they overwrite it with new branding.

5. “Orchestration” as vague unifier

The term “orchestration” promises an integrated view of interpersonal meaning but is never pinned down analytically. In canonical SFL, orchestration across strata is already modelled: systems operate simultaneously, with realisation across strata accounting for their alignment in text. Without a technical definition, “orchestration” becomes a rhetorical gesture toward wholeness, rather than a contribution to systemic modelling.

6. Collapse of contextual and semantic levels

The excerpt slips between “social relations” (contextual tenor), “turn-taking and dialogue” (discourse semantics), and “sharing our feelings” (appraisal systems). By subsuming all of these under POSITIONING, the stratified model of SFL is flattened. Instead of clarifying how tenor is realised by semantics, the analysis conflates strata into a single bundle of interpersonal negotiation.

7. Net effect: theoretical opacity through rhetorical polish

The passage’s surface coherence — balancing inter/personal, status/solidarity, orchestration — masks theoretical imprecision. By introducing POSITIONING as an overarching system, the authors risk generating an all-encompassing but analytically shallow category, one that obscures the finer systemic distinctions on which SFL’s explanatory power depends. 

Layering, Repositioning, and Rendering: When Jargon Outpaces Theory

Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 82-3):

This negotiation is enabled not simply through the different ways in which we can tender and render positions, but also the possibility of layering these meanings. In the previous chapter we explored that people may tender and render meanings at the same time, reacting to something that has happened (or may happen) while putting something else forward to be negotiated. We saw that this was a key resource for extending conversation indefinitely, and in doing so, we offered a view on chat from the perspective of tenor. In addition, we saw that when engaging with meanings through rendering or nuancing meanings through purview, we can do so for the propositions or proposals being discussed (external negotiation), or we can alternatively do so for the speech acts themselves (internal negotiation) – in the latter case commenting on how language itself is being used. This allows for a second plane of discussion that takes the reality of text as a thing in itself, rather than just semiosis about something else. Finally, we saw all of these resources could be repositioned, with one position standing for another. This offers a third avenue through which people may negotiate their social relations along multiple lines.

ChatGPT Comments:

1. Terminological inflation: “layering” without systemic specification

The authors introduce layering as an enabling resource for negotiation but do not specify its systemic status. Is layering a distinct system, a metafunctional overlap, or simply the simultaneity of meanings across strata? Without clarification, the term risks functioning as descriptive rhetoric rather than theoretical category, duplicating what Halliday already models through rankshift, embedding, and metafunctional interplay.

2. The simultaneity of tendering and rendering

The claim that meanings can be tendered and rendered “at the same time” simply restates the well-established principle that interpersonal moves are often co-instantiated (e.g. offering while qualifying, demanding while conceding). Systemic functional linguistics has long accounted for this simultaneity through mood and modality working in tandem with appraisal. By presenting simultaneity as a new discovery, the model obscures rather than extends the canonical framework.

3. “Indefinite extension of conversation” as explanatory overreach

The assertion that layering is a key resource for extending conversation indefinitely is overstated. Conversation can continue due to a wide range of discourse-semantic resources — topic management, cohesive chaining, politeness, repair — not merely because tendering and rendering can be layered. The explanation risks narrowing a complex phenomenon to the rebranded categories the authors have introduced.

4. The tenor framing of “chat”

Positioning this as a “view on chat from the perspective of tenor” misapplies SFL’s stratification: tenor is a contextual variable realised by semantics, not a discourse-semantic system in itself. The analysis thereby collapses levels, treating tenor as if it were directly constituted by conversational strategies, rather than mediated by semantic systems.

5. External vs internal negotiation: duplication of appraisal resources

The external/internal distinction (propositions/proposals vs. speech acts themselves) echoes the canonical contrast between engaging with experiential content and engaging with dialogic positioning (e.g. heteroglossic resources for acknowledging or contesting speech acts). By rebranding this as internal vs external negotiation, the authors obscure existing appraisal theory while introducing redundant terminology.

6. Text as object vs text as semiosis

The claim that internal negotiation opens a “second plane of discussion” in which the reality of text as a thing in itself is taken up conflates reflexivity with stratification. Reflexive commentary on language is already theorised in SFL through projection, modality, and appraisal (particularly metadiscourse and attribution). Invoking a new “plane” suggests ontological novelty where there is in fact an already-mapped systemic pathway.

7. Repositioning and substitution: vague but familiar

Finally, the claim that resources can be repositioned, with one position standing for another is not unpacked theoretically. If this refers to metaphor (e.g. mood metaphor, interpersonal metaphor), it is already central in SFL. If it refers to substitution of one stance for another, then appraisal covers this territory. Without clear mapping, “repositioning” risks being a catch-all label rather than a defined system.

8. General tendency toward rhetorical accumulation

Across the passage, a pattern emerges: new terminology (layering, internal/external negotiation, repositioning) is piled onto the tendering/rendering model, but without showing clear systemic relations or offering criteria for delimiting one resource from another. The effect is rhetorical accumulation rather than theoretical integration. 

Tendering Nuance, Flattening Complexity: Innovation or Illusion in Interpersonal Meaning?

Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 82):

Whenever we talk to each other, we negotiate our social relations. We put forward meanings and we react to those that have been put forward. We present meanings in a way that suggests they may or may not be shared and we engage with them in more or less sympathetic ways. In Chapters 2 and 3 we have presented a model of resources for how we put forward and react to these meanings. We first stepped through the system of rendering to show the different ways we can engage with meanings that have been tendered or implicated in a text. Then in this chapter, we explored how people can put forward meanings in nuanced ways that acknowledge the positions of those around them. Together these resources allow for the intricate negotiation of social relations that all of us engage in everyday.

ChatGPT Comments:

1. Conflation of negotiation with all talk

The opening claim — “Whenever we talk to each other, we negotiate our social relations” — generalises negotiation to all instances of dialogue. While interpersonal meanings are indeed always at stake in interaction, negotiation (in the Hallidayan sense) is a specific semantic process of exchanging roles and values. By universalising negotiation, the authors risk blurring the crucial distinction between the omnipresence of interpersonal meaning and the specific resources by which exchange and alignment are enacted.

2. The “put forward / react” binary

The model is framed around a reductive dyad: putting forward vs reacting. This foregrounds a mechanical push-and-pull exchange structure, reminiscent of speech function theory, but ignores the range of simultaneous interpersonal meanings realised in dialogue: stance, alignment, modality, affect, judgement, graduation, etc. By collapsing all interpersonal work into this binary, the model oversimplifies the semiotic resources available for interpersonal meaning-making.

3. Rendering as engagement with tendered meanings

The authors describe “rendering” as the set of resources for engaging with meanings that have been tendered or implicated in a text. This creates two theoretical difficulties:

• Circularity: “rendering” is defined only in relation to “tendering,” which itself is not clearly theorised beyond “putting forward.”

• Conflation of strata: “implicated meanings” reach into discourse semantics and intertextual inference, yet are folded into a system as context. This risks treating distinct phenomena as one, without specifying the systemic relations that differentiate them.

4. Affective alignment disguised as nuance

The claim that people put forward meanings in nuanced ways that acknowledge the positions of those around them conflates evaluative stance with exchange roles. In SFL, such “acknowledgement” is modelled through appraisal resources (e.g. heteroglossic engagement, attribution, concession) rather than through speech functions. By folding evaluative alignment into a tendering system, the model displaces appraisal from its place in the semantic architecture and risks duplicating it under new terminology.

5. Overstating integration

The authors conclude that together these resources allow for the intricate negotiation of social relations that all of us engage in everyday. This overstates the explanatory scope of the proposed “rendering/tendering” framework. The canonical SFL model already accounts for this through mood, modality, appraisal, and speech function. The new terminology does not so much integrate resources as re-package them, producing an illusion of explanatory novelty without clarifying their interrelations. 

Tendering Confusions: Duplicating Semantics at the Context Plane

Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 80-1):

With this discussion of purview, we have completed the set of options for the system of POSITIONING. Leaving aside repositioning, Figure 3.2 brings together the network of TENDERING established in this chapter. This network says that when tendering, one may tender a proposition or a proposal and that this proposition or proposal may be open or complete, may have speaker purview or not, and may have listener purview or not.

ChatGPT Comments:

In Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 80–1), the authors present Figure 3.2 as a system network for tendering, summarising the options discussed throughout the chapter. The network is described as showing that a proposition or proposal may be open or complete, may have speaker purview or not, and may have listener purview or not. At first glance, this seems like a tidy synthesis of the chapter’s material. However, closer scrutiny reveals a number of theoretical and conceptual issues.

Duplicating semantic categories at the context plane

The first issue is that the network seems to duplicate categories that properly belong to the content plane—specifically, the semantics of SPEECH FUNCTION—at the level of context. Speaker and listener purview are treated as options in tenor, that is, the context plane, yet many of the distinctions the authors draw (e.g., complete vs open propositions, hedged vs asserted modalities) are realised in the semantics and grammar of the content plane. By elevating these distinctions to context, the network conflates the strata: the same semantic distinctions are effectively represented twice, once as grammatical/semantic realisations, and again as contextual “purview” options.

Ambiguity of ‘tendering’ as a system label

The term tendering itself is also problematic. Its scope and status within the network are unclear: is it meant to denote the act of proposing a proposition/proposal generally, or a particular mode of interpersonal negotiation in discourse? The authors do not explicitly distinguish between these readings, leaving the reader to infer whether tendering is an operational category, a functional label, or a meta-concept. This undercuts the explanatory power of the network and makes it difficult to see how it could be applied consistently.

Overextension of the network logic

Finally, by combining all options (open/complete, speaker/listener purview) in a single system network, the authors risk suggesting that these are discrete, combinable choices in every instance. In practice, however, many of these options are mutually constraining: open propositions are typically associated with lower speaker purview, for example. Treating them as fully independent variables, as the network implies, flattens the nuanced interplay of internal and external purview discussed earlier in the chapter.

Conclusion

While the network provides a visually compact summary of the chapter, it does so at the cost of theoretical clarity. It conflates semantic realisations with contextual options, obscures the status of the tendering category, and overstates the independence of different purview options. In short, it presents a tidy system that may look neat on paper but does little to illuminate the complex, stratified nature of interpersonal meaning in context.

Purview Confounded: Duplicating Grammar and Semantics as Context

Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 78):

This opens space for reconsidering examples such as (49) above along the same lines, replayed here as (51). Externally speaking, considered in terms of whether or not mass extinctions were caused by changes in sea level or disruptions in the food chain, the proposition is aired – the may indicates that the author is not tied to whether or not this is the case. A response could render this proposition with something like No, they weren’t – focusing on whether or not this was the cause, rather than any negotiation of whether it could be the cause. On the other hand, the possibility of them being caused this way is asserted (through the use of a declarative without any tagging). One could focus on the could and render the possibility of them being caused by saying something like No, they couldn’t have. Asserting this suggests that rejecting the position along these lines would be more socially risky. But for academic discourse in particular, the play between the two purviews given through NEGOTIATION (the statement) and ENGAGEMENT (through the modality could) allows an author to have their cake and eat it too – to assert something baldly while not tying themselves to its actuality.

ChatGPT Comments:

In this excerpt, Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 78) propose a dual-layered system of purview in which external purview (– speaker; + listener) “airs” a proposition, while internal purview (+ speaker; – listener) simultaneously “asserts” its possibility. The example in (51), concerning mass extinctions, is intended to illustrate how an academic author can assert something baldly without committing to its factual actuality.

From a systemic-functional standpoint, however, this theorising is deeply problematic. The authors relocate what are fundamentally clause-level interpersonal distinctions and engagement up into the realm of context (tenor: purview). Grammar and semantics, language, are treated as independent contextual variables, effectively conflating content and context in a manner that SFL explicitly resists. This move is conceptually confused: the internal/external purview distinction does not describe a separate level of social organisation but merely re-describes the interplay of hedging and assertion already encoded in modality.

Further, the dual purview framing introduces unnecessary complexity without explanatory payoff. By splitting a single clause into “external” and “internal” propositions, the system duplicates semantic distinctions at the level of tenor. The distinction between commitment to actuality and commitment to possibility is culturally and register-specific, and cannot reliably support a generalised system of context. The authors’ discussion of “having their cake and eating it too” highlights this: it is less an insight into social interaction than a re-labelling of standard hedging practices in academic English.

In short, the dual purview model is theoretically confused, duplicative, and inconsistent with SFL’s canonical stratification. External and internal purviews do not constitute a new distinction of context; they are a misapplied reinterpretation of what is already realised grammatically and semantically. The excerpt exemplifies the broader issue with purview: by elevating grammar and semantics into tenor, the authors obscure the very mechanisms they claim to describe.

The Promise of Nuance, the Cost of Clarity

Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 76):

As examples (39)–(43) illustrate the interplay between internal and external purview allows negotiation of different aspects of semiosis to occur at the same time – the proposition or proposal being put forward and the use of language itself. Aside from some examples associated with engagement below, we will not explore in more detail the distinction between internal and external purview here. Needless to say, this distinction opens the way for highly nuanced tendering in conversation.

ChatGPT Comments:

Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 76) close their discussion by claiming that the distinction between internal and external purview “allows negotiation of different aspects of semiosis to occur at the same time – the proposition or proposal being put forward and the use of language itself.” They then suggest this opens the way for “highly nuanced tendering in conversation.”

But as the preceding examples show, the price of this nuance is the erosion of the very categories that make exchange structure coherent. By repeatedly redescribing proposals as propositions, or by multiplying roles under a “purview” scheme, their model creates complexity without explanatory gain.

Halliday’s system already accounts for the simultaneity they want to highlight: speech function specifies what is at stake in the exchange (information vs. goods-&-services), while mood systematises the grammatical resources for negotiating it. This dual articulation is the negotiation of “different aspects of semiosis.” There is no gap here that requires “purview” to fill.

In effect, the authors promise “nuanced tendering” but achieve it by muddling categories that were already designed to capture the delicacy of interaction. What looks like theoretical sophistication is in fact redundancy and confusion. 

Taken together, examples (39)–(43) reveal a consistent pattern. The authors begin with a familiar, well-differentiated set of categories from the exchange system, but in the attempt to introduce “purview” they steadily blur the lines that keep propositions, proposals, roles, and moves distinct. At each step the analysis promises nuance, but delivers redundancy: what is already accounted for in the interplay of speech function and mood is redescribed in terms that add complexity but subtract clarity. By the time they summarise with the language of “highly nuanced tendering,” what is on offer is not delicacy of analysis but a proliferation of overlapping labels. The effect is less a refinement of systemic-functional description than a displacement of it.

Why ‘Airing’ Collapses: Misreading Stance as Speech Function

Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 73-4):

Finally, it is possible to indicate that neither speaker or the listener is expected to know the answer to something – what we will call airing (– speaker purview; – listener purview). This often happens with the lexicalised phrase I don’t know (or perhaps more accurately – dunno). For example, once Kristy’s mother has finally managed to start getting Kristy dressed, Kristy asks her why her dress is only buttoned up on one side, to which her mother attempts to give an answer, before acknowledging that she simply doesn’t know.

In another conversation from Hasan’s data (AJ6B5), a mother is reading a cookbook with her daughter, and airs her exclamation about coconut cream hoppers through I wonder.

Importantly, it is still possible to give a response in these situations; but the position can be aired without indicating that anyone should be tied to it. This occurs in a separate conversation between mothers, when one mother is describing what it’s like when her child is in therapy for their disability. She suggests it might be her little break, but that she is not wedded to this at all.

ChatGPT Comments:

The authors here attempt to expand their taxonomy of “purview” with a final category they label airing, defined as (– speaker purview; – listener purview). This is supposed to cover cases where neither participant is expected to “know the answer,” typically expressed with “I don’t know” or “I wonder.”

This proposal falters at several points:

1. Taxonomy by residuals

• The authors treat “airing” as the logical residual once speaker purview and listener purview have both been stripped away.

• But this is an artefact of their grid-building, not of the semantics of exchange. It’s the familiar problem of “completing the square” — filling in a cell because the table demands it, not because the interactional phenomena actually call for it.

• The examples themselves are heterogeneous: “I don’t know” is not parallel to “I wonder,” nor to “maybe it’s my little break.” These are different resources entirely, pressed into a single category for taxonomic neatness.

2. Misconstrual of “I don’t know”

• In example (34), the mother says “and why they chose that side I don’t know.”

• The authors gloss this as air/proposition.

• But “I don’t know” is not a proposition about the world; it’s a modal assessment of the speaker’s knowledge state. In Halliday’s framework this belongs with modality, not with some new interpersonal role called “airing.”

• Far from being a neutral “release of purview,” it strongly positions the mother as lacking epistemic authority, which itself is a meaning in negotiation (and can be strategic — deflecting, softening, protecting face).

• To fold this into “purview” erases the modality system and creates a parallel interpersonal vocabulary that distorts what the language is doing.

3. Misconstrual of “I wonder”

• In example (35), “I wonder what coconut cream hoppers are!” is glossed as air/proposition.

• But “I wonder” is a mental process clause projecting an interrogative clause. It expresses a subjective stance (the mother’s curiosity), not an absence of speaker/listener purview.

• To call this “airing” is to collapse clause type + projection into a pseudo-category invented for theoretical symmetry.

• The move obscures the important difference between:

  • epistemic disclaimers (I don’t know),

  • affective stances (I wonder), and

  • tentative proposals (maybe it’s my little break).
    Each has its own grammar and interactional value; none is reducible to a missing purview box.

4. Category leakage

• In (36), Renee says “I don’t know if that’s my little break.” This is glossed as air/proposition.

• But this is a hypothetical with modal uncertainty (“I don’t know if …”), not parallel to the prior two cases.

• Here, the “airing” label is stretched to cover any instance where the speaker softens commitment. That is precisely what the system of modality is for.

• The fact that they need to sweep all these different structures under “airing” is a sign that the purview framework can’t actually handle epistemic disclaimers, stance markers, or hedging — all crucial to interpersonal meaning.

5. Theoretical redundancy

• Everything in these examples is already systematically accounted for in SFL:

  • I don’t know → modal assessment of knowledge state.

  • I wonder … → projection of interrogative, expressing inclination/curiosity.

  • I don’t know if … → modalised proposal with epistemic hedging.

• The “airing” category adds no explanatory power; it simply relabels these phenomena in terms of “purview,” a construct that duplicates and distorts the established systems of mood, modality, projection, and appraisal.

• Worse, it collapses these systems into a single superficial box-ticking exercise.

6. Strategic mischaracterisation of dialogue

• The claim that “airing” means “the position can be aired without indicating that anyone should be tied to it” is misleading.

• In practice, these turns very much do tie meanings to the speaker: “I don’t know” positions the speaker as disclaiming knowledge; “I wonder” positions the speaker as inviting shared curiosity; “I don’t know if …” positions the speaker as hedging a claim.

• The stance is not “untied” but highly interpersonal — signalling alignment, deference, or invitation.

• By describing these as “– speaker purview; – listener purview,” the authors erase the interpersonal work that is actually happening.

Summary

The “airing” category exemplifies the residualist logic of this purview framework: filling in empty cells with whatever examples can be conscripted, regardless of whether they belong together. The result is a category collapse: epistemic disclaimers, stance markers, and hedged proposals are all swept under one heading, misrepresented as lacking purview.

From the standpoint of systemic functional linguistics, the work is already done by the existing resources of mood, modality, projection, and appraisal. “Airing” adds nothing — and in fact distorts the analysis by conflating distinct grammatical and semantic phenomena under a pseudo-category demanded by their matrix.

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In other words…

The authors introduce a fourth category of “purview,” which they label airing, defined as (– speaker purview; – listener purview). This is supposed to capture utterances in which neither speaker nor listener is “expected to know” the answer. They exemplify with I don’t know and I wonder, treating these as structural indices of a distinct interpersonal move.

Several problems immediately arise.

1. Confusion of semantics with stance markers.
   The classification rests on idiomatic lexical items (dunno, I wonder) rather than on a principled analysis of speech function. These phrases are pragmatic markers signalling uncertainty or tentativeness. Treating them as evidence of a new kind of move confuses interpersonal meaning (commitment to a proposition) with the lexico-grammatical realisations that hedge such commitment. In systemic terms, “I don’t know” is an adjunct to mood, modulating the speaker’s orientation — not a separate speech function.

2. The incoherence of (– speaker purview; – listener purview).
   The proposed polarity is unstable. If the speaker genuinely disclaims purview and also withholds purview from the listener, then the exchange collapses: no one is positioned to take up the offer or demand. Communication requires some addressee alignment — even if minimal — otherwise the utterance would be unintelligible. In fact, in their own examples the listener is implicitly granted purview: Kristy may not know why the dress opens on one side, but she can still respond to her mother’s speculation or acknowledgment of ignorance. The category thus contradicts itself.

3. Retrofitting to Hasan’s data.
   The authors again misappropriate Hasan’s carefully analysed interactions. When a mother says I wonder what coconut cream hoppers are!, Hasan would treat this as a rhetorical demand for information (a question) or as a stance move inviting affiliation. Doran et al. relabel it “airing” but provide no systemic justification. They treat Hasan’s example as a mere illustration of their taxonomy, ignoring the rich theoretical grounding Hasan provided in the semantics of dialogue.

4. Mischaracterisation of responsibility.
   The authors claim that “airing” indicates “that no one should be tied to it.” But this is not true even in their data. In example (36), Renee says I don’t know if that’s my little break — here the speaker is very much tied to the utterance: it construes her subjective stance toward therapy routines. To say she is not wedded to it is an interpretive gloss, not an interpersonal function. The speaker retains responsibility for the construal, even if signalling tentativeness.

5. Category inflation.
   Rather than recognising that modalisation, hedging, and stance-taking are resources for modulating purview, the authors posit a wholly new category of “airing.” This multiplies terms unnecessarily, producing redundancy where systemic-functional theory already has robust means of accounting for uncertainty and subjectivity (e.g., modality, comment adjuncts, engagement resources in appraisal).

In sum: “Airing” is a mis-specified category built on shaky distinctions. It conflates stance markers with speech function, posits an incoherent (– purview; – purview) polarity, misreads Hasan’s data, and mistakes hedging for abdication of responsibility. The result is an inflated and unnecessary addition to the interpersonal system. Far from clarifying negotiation, it muddles the terrain and obscures the established systemic resources already at hand. 

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.