"On What Basis Is There A Lexical Tie Between Two Items" In Lexical Cohesion

Fontaine (2017: 6-7):

There are several research topics in SFL that do come close to a lexicological perspective. The first will be obvious to those familiar with the work. Cohesion in English (Halliday and Hasan, 1976) is the greatest contribution so far in terms of developing an approach to lexicology in SFL. This seminal work was ahead of its time when first published and remains an important source in any work related to cohesion. While it moved the field forward and was in many respects “ahead of its time” (Sanders and Maat, 2006:592), it does not address issues of concern to lexicologists. For example, on what basis is there a lexical tie between two items, i.e. what is the nature of the relationship? In some cases, lexical cohesion relies on an assumption that “a shared lexico-semantic relationship holds” (ibid.:591). This suggests that, for lexicologists, a more detailed account of lexical representation is needed for the SFL account of lexical relations to be more robust and usable in other approaches.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, Halliday & Hasan (1976) is not a contribution to developing an approach to lexicology in SFL Theory, since the theoretical assumptions that define lexicology as a field are inconsistent with the theoretical assumptions of SFL Theory.

[2] This is misleading, because the types of relations between lexical items in a cohesive tie are explicitly stated in Halliday & Hasan (1976: 288) as reiteration (repetition, synonym, superordinate, general word) or collocation:

Moreover, the model has since been made more explicit in terms of axis and logical and experiential relations. Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 644):

[3] On the contrary, what this suggests is that the cognitive linguists, Sanders and Maat, have a very superficial acquaintance with the work they regard as "ahead of its time". Moreover, as previously explained, the notion of 'lexical representation' in a mental lexicon is inconsistent with both SFL Theory and 'the known facts of human biology and brain science' (Edelman 1989).