"Two Strata Of Context: Culture And Situation"

Fontaine (2017: 4):

Bartlett (2017: 375) explains context as “a unifying element within the overall architecture of SFL, linking language as system and instance (langue and parole) to the material conditions of those who use it”. However, its definition and place within the theory is interpreted somewhat differently by different scholars (see for example Martin (1992), Butt et al. (2000), Matthiessen (2015), Wegener (2011), Bartlett (2017) and contributions by various authors in Fontaine et al., (2013), especially Bartlett (2013) and Bowcher (2013), to name only a few. At a more abstract level there is general agreement concerning some key points, including for example that context is accounted for by stratification and instantiation; that “[i]n exploring contextual and linguistic patterns in systemic functional linguistics, we try to interpret them in terms of dimensions” (Matthiessen, 2015:32) and that there are at least two strata of context, culture and situation. A full review of these positions is beyond the scope of this paper but see Bartlett (2017) for an overview of context.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is misleading, because it seriously misunderstands the SFL notion of 'context'. Context is neither a "unifying element" nor a link to "the material conditions of those who use it". On the one hand, context is but one level of symbolic abstraction (stratum) in the overall architecture of SFL Theory. On the other hand, and more importantly, context is semiotic — metaphenomenonal — the culture as semiotic system, not material — phenomenal — the perceptual field of speaker and addressee.

[2] To be clear, the model of context in Martin (1992) is inconsistent with both SFL Theory and itself, as demonstrated in meticulous detail here. For example, Martin equates context-as-potential (culture) with varieties of language (genre), and context-as-instance (situation) with varieties of language (register) and mistakes the instantiation relation between them as symbolic abstraction (stratification), such that context is constituted by varieties of language (genre) realised by varieties of language (register). In Hjelmslevian terms, Martin mistakes varieties of a denotative semiotic for the content plane of a connotative semiotic.

[3] To be clear, theoretical consistency is not a matter of scholars agreeing, but their work "agreeing" with theory. The unreliability of interpersonal agreement is humorously captured by the following B Kliban cartoon:

[4] To be clear, here Fontaine misunderstands the relation between culture (potential) and situation (instance) as realisation (stratified symbolic abstraction) instead of instantiation.