Identification: Lexicogrammatical Diversification

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 16):

The key textual systems are IDENTIFICATION and PERIODICITY. IDENTIFICATION comprises resources for composing discourse with respect to introducing and then tracking entities. In terms of diversification it allows us, for example, to track entities through a range of nominal resources.

(50) Andy went and got it yesterday at the store.

(51) He said not to film it.

(52) Our neighbourhood gathers together.

(53) Amy’s husband did Q-and-As with her.

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, IDENTIFICATION is Halliday & Hasan's (1976) lexicogrammatical system of cohesive REFERENCE rebranded as Martin's discourse semantic system. However, as demonstrated in great detail here, it is a mass of confusions. For example, Martin's model

• confuses cohesive REFERENCE with the nominal group system of DETERMINATION
• confuses cohesive REFERENCE with LEXICAL COHESION
• confuses the reference item with the referent
• confuses reference in the sense of cohesion with reference in the sense of ideational denotation.

In fact, Martin's system can be interpreted as largely an 'experientialising' of Halliday & Hasan's textual system, as shown by its focus on entities and nominal groups rather than referents and reference items:

• In (50), Andy is an experiential participant ('entity'), but neither a reference item nor a referent.
• In (51), both He and it are experiential participants ('entities'), and reference items without referents.
• In (52), Our is a reference item without a referent.
• In (53), Amy's husband is an experiential participant, with neither reference item nor referent. The reference item here is her and its referent is (ambiguously) Amy's.