Confusing Functional Syntagmatic Relations With Formal Constituency

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 209):

Working from a functional paradigm we of course have to approach the relation of ‘sign languages’ to one another differently. In essence this means adopting a paradigmatic perspective and formalising their meaning potential as far as possible in system networks specifying the relation of one sign (in Saussure’s sense of the term) to another. 

The crucial question we then need to ask is whether meanings combine with one another. …The paralinguistic systems we describe in this volume do combine ideational, interpersonal and textual meanings but apparently without involving syntagmatic relations (i.e. parts configuring as wholes).

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the Saussurean sign includes both content ('signified') and expression ('signifier'), whereas system networks specify relations within one or the other, e.g. lexicogrammar or phonology. For some of Martin's misunderstandings of Saussure, see:

• Misunderstanding What Saussure Was "Struggling Against"
• Mistaking Saussure's Rejected Model For Saussure's 'Sign' [1]
• Mistaking Saussure's Rejected Model For Saussure's 'Sign' [2]
• Misunderstanding The Saussurean Sign
• The "Non-Privileging" Of Either Level Of Symbolic Abstraction
• Misunderstanding Saussure's Coins Example
• Misunderstanding The Bonding Of Signified And Signifier And The Relation Of Form To Substance
• Seriously Misunderstanding The Sign In Relation To Linguistics And Semiotics

[2] To be clear, this confuses structural relations along the syntagmatic axis (e.g. Pretonic ^ Tonic) with the part-whole relations of the rank scale (e.g. feet (parts) as constituents of a tone group (whole)).

Simultaneous Emotion

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 123-4):

A further consideration in analysing and interpreting facial expressions is the potential for one feature of facial affect to transition very quickly into another in an animated expression. An instance in example (4) expresses both [surprise] and [spirit:up]. 

From a systemic functional perspective, rather than describing this as a blending or merging of emotions it is considered as the co-instantiation of two different emotions with each realised through particular parts of the face (e.g. eyes, eyebrows, mouth) and often in very quick succession. In (4) the raised curved eyebrows realise [surprise] and the upturned lips realise [spirit:up]. 

A facial expression of [surprise], interpreted as a perturbance (Martin, 2017a) typically has the briefest duration and often transitions quickly to the expression of another emotion, one which responds to the specific trigger of the perturbance.

Blogger Comments:

[1] From a systemic functional perspective, this blurs the axial distinction between simultaneous systems ('both', 'co-instantiation', 'and') and syntagmatic order ('transition', 'succession'). Moreover, if two emotions can be realised in the same facial expression, the system network needs to be redrawn to represent simultaneous (conjunct) systems. This the authors have not done.

[2] On the one hand, the claim that a facial expression of surprise typically has the briefest duration is an instance of the logical fallacy known as ipse dixit: a bare assertion unsupported by evidence, and is belied by synonyms for 'surprised' such as 'stupefied' and 'dumbfounded'. On the other hand, surprise is the emotion that is the response to what triggered it as a perturbance.

Syntagmatic Units Of Content And Notional Definitions Of Metafunctions

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 8-9):

Kress and van Leeuwen’s breakthrough depended on their paradigmatic perspective on how images make meaning – formalised as system networks and tables in Kress and van Leeuwen (1990: 49, 61, 86, 108). This relational approach enabled them to bypass the pseudo-problems arising when scholars searched for syntagmatic units in semiotic systems that realise systems in structure very differently from the way language does. As critiqued in Martin (2011b), very little of the work inspired by Kress and van Leeuwen has proceeded along similar lines – unfortunately relying instead on notional definitions of ideational, interpersonal and textual meaning to explore modalities of communication other than language.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, syntagmatic units are units of form, and so are restricted to the strata of lexicogrammar and phonology in language. As Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 604) have argued, language is unique in having a content plane stratified into semantics and lexicogrammar, so other semiotic systems are organised into content and expression planes only. Consequently, the difficulty that scholars faced in finding syntagmatic units on the content plane of other, epilinguistic, semiotic systems was due to the fact that there are no forms to be found there.

[2] For some of the problems with Martin's work in epilinguistic semiotic systems, see

here (Working With Discourse 2007), and
here (Deploying Functional Grammar 2010).

[3] To be clear, in linguistics, 'notional' means

denoting or relating to an approach to grammar which is dependent on the definition of terminology (e.g. ‘a verb is a doing word’) as opposed to identification of structures and processes.

In SFL Theory, the metafunctions are not identified 'from below' by their structures, but 'from above' by their meanings (i.e. 'notionally'). Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 7-8):

The ideational metafunction is concerned with construing experience — it is language as a theory of reality, as a resource for reflecting on the world. The interpersonal metafunction is concerned with enacting interpersonal relations through language… . The textual metafunction … is concerned with organising ideational and interpersonal meaning as discourse — as meaning that is contextualised and shared.