Fontaine (2017: 2):
Given the focus within systemic functional linguistics (SFL) on language as socially oriented semiotic, it can sometimes seem that the study of context and the study of lexis are worlds apart but they are not. We tend to think, metaphorically, that the word is a small unit and language is a much bigger unit but perhaps this is not actually the case. As Mel’ćuk (1981:57) says, ‘not only every language but every lexeme of a language is an entire world in itself ’. The world of the word is vast and complex and it is generally accepted that it is represented as part of a large complex network. The ‘knowing about’ a context and the ‘knowing about’ a word is contained and maintained within an individual’s networked cognitive system. In this sense, there is perhaps not as much difference between knowing about a context and knowing about a word as we might have thought. This is an especially provocative thought if we consider how the concepts of meaning potential and instantiation apply to both.
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[1] Trivially, SFL construes language as a social semiotic system — as opposed to, say, a somatic semiotic system — not as a socially oriented (aligned) semiotic system.
[2] To be clear, in SFL Theory, context and lexis differ by two levels of symbolic abstraction, strata, and whereas the study of context is the study of the culture as a semiotic system, the study of lexis is the study (of one aspect) of language as a semiotic system.
[3] To be clear, metaphorically or otherwise, language is indeed much bigger than a single word. This can be demonstrated by comparing what can be said using all of language with what can be said using just one word.
But note that the relative sizes of a language and a word are entirely irrelevant to the claim that it is meant to support: that the study of context (culture) and the study of lexis (lexicogrammar) are not "worlds apart".
[4] To be clear, the notion of 'word representation' derives from the notion of a 'mental lexicon' in Formal linguistics, and the "general acceptance" that words are represented as parts of a 'large complex network' is limited to practitioners of semantic network theory, which assumes a mental lexicon. Such notions are not just inconsistent with SFL Theory, they are biologically implausible. Edelman (1989: 152, 228):
Mental representations that are supposedly syntactically organised (in a "language of thought") and then mapped onto a vaguely specified semantic model or onto an overly constrained objectivist one are incompatible with the facts of evolution. The properties proposed by these cognitive models are incompatible with the properties of brains, bodies, and the world. …
The acceptance of this view or versions of it is widespread in psychology, linguistics, computer science, and artificial intelligence. It is one of the most remarkable misunderstandings in the history of science. Indeed, not only is it not in accord with the known facts of human biology and brain science, but it constitutes a major category error as well.
For the interested reader, Edelman (1989: 234) outlines eight fundamental problems that invalidate the idea of mental representations.
[5] To be clear, the notion of 'knowing about language' — as opposed to 'language' — derives from Chomskyan Formal Linguistics. To explain, Chomsky's theorising of language is Cartesian in its orientation; see, e.g., his Cartesian Linguistics (1966). Cartesian dualism makes a fundamental distinction between two mutually exclusive substances: res cogitans ('thinking thing') and res extensa ('extended thing'), the former being that of an immaterial mind. Chomsky's theory of language is concerned with the immaterial mind (res cogitans), which is why he couches the theory in terms of knowledge of language rather than in terms of language itself.
But, again, note that differences between the relative sizes of a language and a word are entirely irrelevant to the claim that it is meant to support: that knowing about a context (culture) and knowing about a word (lexicogrammar) are not as different as "we may have thought". It is clear that, at this point, Fontaine mistakes context for language.
[6] To be clear, this not a provocative thought, given the number of misunderstandings and irrelevancies identified above. Moreover, considering how instantiation applies to both context and lexis is merely using SFL theory as it stands. Contrary to the implication, it is not a new thought, let alone a theoretical innovation.