Fontaine's Achievement In This Paper

Fontaine (2017: 15):

In closing, I follow Thompson (2015:26) when he says “everything we know about language suggests that structural configurations always take on a semiotic life of their own”. This also applies to lexis. In SFL, one of the main approaches to working with variation is through context (especially context of situation or register). I have tried to reconcile these different perspectives by drawing on context to enable the representation of the semiotic life of words.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, structural configurations constitute the syntagmatic dimension of grammar. The syntagmatic dimension of lexis is collocation (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 64, 644).

[2] To be clear, in SFL Theory, context of situation and register are not the same thing — as Fontaine's own Fig. 2 and Fig. 3, adapted from Halliday, both illustrate. A context of situation is an instance of context (the culture as a semiotic system), whereas register is a sub-potential of language. That is, situation and register differ in terms of both stratification and instantiation. Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 384):

[3] As the examination of this paper has demonstrated, Fontaine has suggested applying the cline of instantiation to lexical items, oblivious of the fact that, in SFL Theory, the cline of instantiation already applies to lexical items, as it does to all strata. In doing so, Fontaine has equated 'lexical item as potential' with 'most local context', despite the fact that SFL Theory (i) locates lexical items within a stratum of language, lexicogrammar, and (ii) identifies context with the culture — not language — as a semiotic system. The theoretical relevance of the term 'most local' to context, or lexis, has not been discussed anywhere in the paper.