Ideation: Lexicogrammatical Diversification

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 13, 232):

In terms of diversification IDEATION allows us, for example, to position¹⁵ figures lexicogrammatically through a range of clause types (Halliday and Matthiessen, 1999; Hao, 2015, 2020a,b):

(20) (behavioural clause realising the positioning of a state Figure)

‘It will be kind of fun’, she smiled.

(21) (mental clause realising the positioning of a state Figure)

She thought it would be kind of fun.

(22) (relational clause realising the positioning of a state Figure)

She was sure it would be kind of fun.

 

¹⁵ For Hao (2020) a positioned figure is one that is in some sense attributed to a particular source.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, by 'diversification', the authors mean 'diversification of grammatical systems realising discourse semantic ones' (p12).

[2] To be clear, 'positioned' figure is Hao's rebranding of Halliday & Matthiessen's 'projected' figure. (Hao was Martin's student and has adopted his modus operandi.)

[3] To be clear, this confuses a projecting clause with the logico-semantic relation of projection. The projecting clause does not realise the projection ('positioning') of a figure of being, it realises the figure that projects the figure of being. Note also: Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 302):

Note, finally, that while ‘behavioural’ clauses do not ‘project’ indirect speech or thought, they often appear in fictional narrative introducing direct speech, as a means of attaching a behavioural feature to the verbal process of ‘saying’.

[4] Again, this confuses a projecting clause with the logico-semantic relation of projection. The projecting mental clause does not realise the projection ('positioning') of a figure of being, it realises the sensing figure that projects the figure of being.

[5] To be clear, this confuses an embedded fact clause with a ranking projected clause. Importantly, being embedded, the fact clause is not projected ("positioned") by the Process of the clause in which it is embedded.

And this misunderstanding is then compounded by confusing what is mistaken to be a projecting relational clause with the logico-semantic relation of projection, as in the two previous examples.