"The Theoretical Ideas Presented Here"

Fontaine (2017: 15):

The view of lexis as most local context, where the lexeme (or lemma) is seen as a resource, or meaning potential, allows us to reconcile SFL with corpus-based approaches to lexico-grammar. As Hunston and Francis have suggested, it may be worth exploring what it would look like if “each bundle of system choices should end, not in a lexical item per se but in a ‘unit of meaning’” (2000:28). The problem is, of course, determining where such a choice point should be within the system network and whether or not this would ultimately require a stratal distinction. The implementation of the theoretical ideas presented here is a work in progress and a concrete proposal is not yet ready for publication.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, unknown to Fontaine, her "new" theoretical idea, that the lexical item can be viewed as potential ("lexeme/lemma") as well as instance, is already part of SFL Theory. It therefore adds nothing to the reconciliation of SFL Theory with corpus-based approaches to lexicogrammar that was not already present.

[2] To be clear, Fontaine has nowhere explained why she equates the lexical item as potential with 'most local context', nor explained what she means by 'most local' in this regard. In SFL Theory, 'context' refers to the culture as semiotic system, not to language as a semiotic system wherein lexis is located.

[3] As previously demonstrated here, Hunston and Francis misunderstand the SFL model of lexis as most delicate grammar. Each bundle of system choices does not end in a lexical item; each bundle is realised by a lexical item. The features and the lexical item are modelled as different levels of symbolic abstraction, with lexical item as Token of feature bundle as Value. Moreover, in the absence of metaphor, wording and meaning are in agreement (congruent), so that the meaning realised by a lexical item is in agreement with the bundle of features at the level of wording (lexicogrammar).

[4] To be clear, these are not problems in SFL Theory, because (i) lexical items are not choice points in a system network, and (ii) lexical items are located on the stratum of lexicogammar.

"Even Though SFL Has An Integrated Lexico-grammar It Does Not Mean That There Is No Word Meaning"

Fontaine (2017: 14):

Even though SFL has an integrated lexico-grammar, it does not mean that there is no word meaning. As I have shown here, word meaning operates only in context and by introducing meaning potential at the lexical level, i.e. a mental lexicon, we open up the model to developments in lexicology both in terms of contributing and benefitting from research. 

This conceptualisation brings with it assumptions that must be tested but it does create an opportunity for building bridges with other theoretical approaches since it may be reasonable to talk about lexical meaning potential and how ‘a meaning’ is activated and how we can allow a more formal account of lexis into SFL theory. 

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, in SFL Theory, wording (lexicogrammar) realises meaning (semantics), and so lexical items (lexicogrammar) realise meaning (semantics).

[2] This is misleading. On the one hand, Fontaine has not demonstrated in this paper that "word meaning operates only in context"; that is, no argument has been presented on the matter. On the other hand, the contextualisation of language, including word meaning, is modelled in SFL Theory by the stratification hierarchy. Here Fontaine is taking credit for Halliday's model.

[3] This is misleading. Fontaine has not introduced "meaning potential at the lexical level". In SFL Theory, the instantiation relation applies to all strata, including the lexical items of lexicogrammar. Again, Fontaine is taking credit for Halliday's model.

[4] To be clear, the SFL notion of lexical item as potential is not equivalent to the cognitive linguistics notion of a mental lexicon. Moreover, as previously explained, the notion of lexical representations in a mental lexicon is inconsistent with SFL Theory and 'the known facts of human biology and brain science' (Edelman 1989: 228).

[5] To be clear, it is not possible to "build bridges" between theoretical approaches that differ in their fundamental assumptions, and mode of inquiry, without creating theoretical inconsistencies.

[6] To be clear, in SFL Theory, the activation of meaning is the process of instantiation: the selection of features and the activation of realisation statements during logogenesis (the unfolding of text).

[7] To be clear, on the one hand, the formalism of SFL Theory is the system network, and this is the means of accounting for lexis, since each lexical item is the synthetic realisation of a bundle of the most delicate features of lexicogrammatical systems. On the other hand, a formal account of lexis, rather than a functional account, is inconsistent with the theoretical assumptions and mode of inquiry of Systemic Functional Theory.

"The Relationship Between Lexis And Grammar Cannot Be Denied"

Fontaine (2017: 14):

In this paper, I set out to examine the relationship between context and lexicology. The way SFL talks about context is surprisingly similar to the way lexicologists talk about lexis. To date, very little attention has been given to developing an approach to lexical representation in SFL. This seems to be related to the top-down approach to lexico-grammar and to the view of lexis as most delicate grammar. The relationship between lexis and grammar cannot be denied, however some work from the bottom-up may contribute significantly to improving the overall account of the lexico-grammar.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, in SFL Theory, context is the culture modelled as a semiotic system, whereas lexicology is a subfield of linguistics. Fontaine has not examined the relationship between culture and that subfield of linguistics in this paper; but see [2].

[2] To be clear, here Fontaine is referring to the distinction of potential and instance in SFL Theory and the lexical analysis of Hanks (2013). By singling out context in the SFL model, Fontaine again confirms that she does not understand that instantiation applies to all the strata of language, as well as context, despite the fact that Fig. 2 and Fig. 3 both represent this dimension of the theory explicitly.

[3] To be clear, the reason why there has been no attention to lexical representation in SFL Theory is that 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: 228). In SFL Theory, it is the lexical items that are the representations, since they are realisations of bundles of the most delicate lexicogrammatical features.

[4] To be clear, it is not the case that "the relationship and grammar cannot be denied", but that, in a theory that models language in terms of lexis and grammar — rather than, say, lexicon and syntax — the relation between the two is established by the assumptions and mode of inquiry of the theory.

[5] To be clear, the view of lexis 'from below' identifies words with their forms, whereas the view 'from above' identifies words with the their functions. This is why a genuinely functional approach, like Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory, takes the view 'from above'.

"This Proposal Would Have To Be Examined And Evaluated"

Fontaine (2017: 13-4):

Such an approach might open up the theory of SFL to more lexicological concerns and potentially address both diachronic perspectives as well as the fluidity, flexibility and indeterminacy that we find in language. This proposal is only tentative and it would have to be examined and evaluated to see whether the modelling of lexis in terms of context as suggested here may offer opportunities to account for shifting lexico-semantics. For example, according to García Velasco (2016: 940-941) “[usage] patterns may be modified or updated on the basis of new uses of the lexeme in different contexts. Meaning construction and sense modification is thus understood as the joint and cooperative activity of language users in verbal interaction”. Context of culture and context of situation play an important role in this. 

The individual lexemes of the language constitute a semiotic repertoire that is available to the speaker and this must allow for innovative, meaning creating uses, or exploitations in Hanks’ (2013) terminology.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, Fontaine's proposal is to apply the cline of instantiation to lexis, using the terms 'lexeme' for potential and 'lexical item' for instance. Unknown to Fontaine, this is already part of the architecture of SFL Theory, since instantiation applies to all strata, including the lexicogrammatical systems whose most delicate features are synthetically realised by lexical items.

[2] To be clear, as previously demonstrated, Fontaine is not "modelling lexis in terms of context". The claim seems to rest on the misunderstanding that instantiation applies only to context, which suggests a misunderstanding of the theoretical dimensions depicted in Fig. 2 and Fig. 3.

[3] To be clear, since Fontaine's proposal is already part of SFL Theory, it does not offer anything that the theory does not already offer.

[4] To be clear, this is already modelled by SFL Theory in terms of instantiation, where changes in instance frequencies have the effect of changing system probabilities.

"Lexical Meaning Is Seen As Primarily Collocational"

Fontaine (2017: 12):

At this point, I would like to refer to a lexicological approach to lexical analysis as described by Hanks (2013), which has two main advantages in my view. The first is that it makes clear the distinction between the lexeme as meaning potential and the lexical item as instance. The second is that lexical meaning is seen as primarily collocational and in this sense seems very much in line with what Halliday was proposing in his 1961 paper.

In the remainder of this section, Hanks’ (2013) approach to pattern analysis is adapted within SFL, drawing on the discussion of context given above and illustrated with a brief example to demonstrate how this might work.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, in SFL Theory, the distinction between potential and instance applies to all strata, and so, to lexical items and the lexicogrammatical features that they realise. Fontaine is clearly unaware of this.

[2] To be clear, in SFL Theory, collocation is concerned with relations on the syntagmatic axis (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 59), whereas the theoretical priority of SFL Theory is the paradigmatic axis (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 49).

[3] To be clear, even in his first theory, Scale and Category Grammar which, following Firth, gave equal weight to system and structure, Halliday (2002 [1961]: 60) identified both the paradigmatic and syntagmatic dimensions of lexis, lexical sets and collocation, as theoretically necessary:

What are needed are theoretical categories for the formal description of lexis. It seems that two fundamental categories are needed, which we may call collocation and set.

Fontaine's Argument Against Lexis As Most Delicate Grammar

Fontaine (2017: 9-10):

As mentioned above, Martin points out the backgrounding of lexis in SFL, suggesting that this is related to an account of lexis as most delicate grammar. This view of lexis brings with it some degree of risk since it could result in treating lexis as taxonomically organised and this could lead to prioritising homophonous lexical relations rather than semantic ones. The reason for this is that if we take as a starting point Halliday's (1972/2013:8) view that “the output of any path through the network of systems is a structure”, the ‘most’ delicate system will lead directly to a lexical item (cf criticisms by Hunston and Francis, 2000 and Groom, 2005). This is a view of lexical representation which would be very difficult to accept for most lexicologists as it would predict that a lexeme with polysemes would need to be available at the terminal point of a variety of systems.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This misunderstands Martin's claim. To be clear, Martin claims that what has been backgrounded is Halliday's distinction between grammatical words and lexical items and a syntagmatic perspective on lexical items. Martin (2016:45):

Firth's interest in collocation (‘the company words keep’) has been developed in corpus linguistic research – chiefly by Sinclair and his colleagues (e.g. 1966; 1991) but less so in SFL where Halliday's early acknowledgement of the distinction between words and lexical items and the need for a syntagmatic perspective on expectancy relations among lexical items has tended to be backgrounded in relation to an interest in lexis as delicate grammar (the ‘grammarian's dream’, pursued by Hasan, and others).

See here for the misunderstandings in Martin's claim.

[2] To be clear, in SFL Theory, paradigmatically, relations between lexical items can be represented as hyponymic and meronymic taxonomies. It is just such relations that are exploited in lexical cohesion.

[3] This is misleading, because it is untrue. To classify lexical items in terms of how they are realised in phonology ("homophonous') is to take the view 'from below', which is the direct opposite of SFL Theory, which takes the view 'from above' (the meaning being realised in wording).

[4] This is a non-sequitur. The specification of grammatical structures and lexical items by lexicogrammatical systems does not entail classifying lexical items according to how they are realised in phonology.

[5] See here for the misunderstandings of Hunston and Francis (2000). (Fontaine does not outline the criticisms of Groom (2005).)

[6] To be clear, as [3] demonstrates, this is a view that is not consistent with SFL Theory, and as [4] demonstrates, this is a view that is not validated by Fontaine's argument. Moreover, the acceptability judgements of lexicologists are irrelevant to SFL Theory, unless they uncover inconsistency in the architecture of SFL Theory, or inabilities of the theory to account for data.

[7] This is misleading, because it is untrue. On the one hand, Fontaine again takes the view 'from below', identifying lexemes as expressions of many meanings ("polysemes"), instead of the SFL view 'from above', where a lexeme is identified as the meaning that is expressed. On the other hand, the conclusion does not follow from the argument presented, as [3] and [4] demonstrate.

"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).

"The Disambiguation Of Word Senses"

Fontaine (2017: 6):

Lexicology concerns the study of words and their semantics, morphology, development and lexical representation, including word formation processes and the various types of relations among words. Context will be significant to lexical studies in different ways depending on the area of interest. For example, research into word histories requires a historical context, a diachronic perspective, often referred to as phylogenesis, and work related to the disambiguation of word senses involves context of situation and collocation. Areas that do not tend to overlap with SFL include lexical representation (i.e. what is its semantic nature and how is it represented) which covers morphology, semantics and lexical relations.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, lexicology is a field within linguistics, defined by specific theoretical assumptions, rather than a theory of language. Moreover, there are different theoretical approaches to lexicology. As will be seen, the theoretical assumptions that distinguish lexicology as a field of study are inconsistent with the theoretical assumptions of SFL Theory.

[2] As previously explained, the notion of lexical representation assumes a mental lexicon, and is inconsistent with both SFL Theory and 'the known facts of human biology and brain science' (Edelman 1989: 228).

[3] To be clear, in terms of SFL Theory, this confuses context, the culture as semiotic system, with phylogenesis, the evolution of the system in the species.

[4] To be clear, the notion of 'disambiguating word senses' takes a 'bottom-up' perspective on language, which is the direct opposite of the 'top-down' perspective taken by SFL Theory. That is, it begins with the word as form, and asks what meaning it expresses in a particular instantiation, whereas SFL begins with the meaning, and asks how the meaning is expressed.

"The Need To Develop Lexical Representation Within SFL"

Fontaine (2017: 4):

In this section, I will first briefly outline the view of context taken in this paper and in the process draw on the key aspects for discussing the need to develop lexical representation within SFL.

Context is a specialised term in SFL, a theoretical metaphor, like the term 'choice', among others. Hasan (2013:298) argues that “[t]hese theoretical metaphors enable the analyst to enter into an explicit discourse on how language as a semiotic system becomes a powerful resource for the exchange of meanings in social contexts”. By expanding context, as a theoretical metaphor, we can enable some important developments in terms of an SFL approach to lexicology or what we might simply call lexical representation.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, as already explained here, the notion of 'lexical representation' — the representation of words in a mental lexicon — is inconsistent with both SFL Theory and 'the known facts of human biology and brain science' (Edelman 1989: 152, 228, 234).

[2] To be clear, in order to expand the SFL notion of 'context' in a theoretically consistent way, it is first necessary to understand the SFL notion of 'context'. As already demonstrated, this is not the case here.

"The SFL Conceptualisation Of Context"

Fontaine (2017: 4):

The other part of the meaning of ‘putting lexicology into context’ concerns how lexicology can be viewed in relation to context, without restricting the notion of context to co-text or collocation. Normally SFL linguists interested in context and lexicologists generally are almost worlds apart. As suggested above, these are two perspectives that in many ways seem too distant to be merged. Certainly we do find research on context that relates to lexis and lexical analysis but this is not usually framed in lexicological terms which would be accessible to lexicologists. Similarly, it is true that lexicologists are increasingly interested in context (moving beyond co-text) but they do not generally adopt the SFL conceptualisation of context.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This misunderstands the 'SFL conceptualisation of context', which does not include either co-text or collocation. To be clear, in SFL Theory, the term 'context' refers to the culture modelled as a semiotic system. On the other hand, the terms 'co-text' and 'collocation' refer to language, not context. The term 'co-text' refers to (a complementary portion of) an instance of language, whereas 'collocation' refers to the syntagmatic dimension of lexis, analogous to structure in the grammar.

[2] Interest in context and interest in lexicology are not two different perspectives on the same phenomenon, but interests in two different phenomena: culture and words, respectively.

[3] To be clear, as already demonstrated, Fontaine, also, does not adopt the 'SFL conceptualisation of context'.

"The Question Of Whether It Makes Sense To Talk About Lexical Meaning In SFL"

Fontaine (2017: 2-3):

In this paper, I will propose some ways in which lexis can be explored by examining the dimension of instantiation and considering how the SFL approach to context can be applied to lexis. The main aim of the paper is to develop a new approach to the study of lexis within SFL. Drawing substantially from Halliday (1991) and Hanks (2013), I will use the SFL approach to context to argue for the need for an analogous approach to lexicology.

The paper will be organised as follows. The next section will situate lexicology in relation to SFL and outline the view of context adopted for the purposes of this paper, moving towards questions related to lexis and lexical representation in particular. Section 3 examines the current status of lexicology within the SFL framework and it argues for the need for a flexible lexicon (García Velasco, 2016). Section 4 considers the relationship between the meaning potential (Hanks, 2013) of a lexeme and the meaning of a word in use. Finally, section 5 closes the paper by addressing the question of whether it makes sense to talk about lexical meaning in SFL. I suggest that the framework for representing context could be applied by analogy to lexical representation. In this view, lexis is seen, not as most delicate grammar, but as most local context.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, this is not a new approach, because the "SFL approach to context" — that is: modelling it as a cline of instantiation — already applies to lexis in SFL Theory. Because instantiation applies to all systems on all strata, it already applies to the lexicogrammatical systems that specify lexical items.

[2] To be clear, in SFL Theory, lexical meaning is the semantic correlate of lexical items — each of which is specified by a bundle of the most delicate features of lexicogrammatical systems.

[3] To be clear, the instantiation dimension of lexis has no bearing on the notion of lexis as most delicate grammar, because instantiation is the relation between a system and its instance, whereas delicacy is the ordering principle of a system and its instance.

[4] To be clear, the instantiation dimension of lexis has no bearing on either context or "locality". On the one hand, in SFL Theory, lexis is located within language, on the stratum of lexicogrammar, whereas context is located outside language — it is the culture as semiotic system — at two levels of symbolic abstraction above lexicogrammar.

On the other hand, even if the notion of "most local context" made sense*, the instantiation relation between potential and instance has no bearing on "locality".

* One reason why most local context does not make sense in everyday registers is because it misconstrues a Classifier (local), which does not accept degrees of comparison or intensity, for an Epithet, which does; see Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 377). On the other hand, the theoretical notion of a 'most local domain' derives from Chomsky (1995) The Minimalist Program.

"The Interface Of Context And Lexicology"

Fontaine (2017: 2):

The two dimensions mentioned above, delicacy and instantiation, provide complementary rather than contradictory approaches. Work on lexis within SFL is scarce as will be discussed below and as with most challenging areas, there is merit in tackling a problem from more than one angle. The realm of word study is the domain of lexicology and so it seems sensible to ask whether there is any common ground to be found between this more bottom up approach to the lexico-grammar and SFL’s more top down approach. The point of departure and the nature of the concerns are very different. Lexicologists tend to start with the word as the unit of study and work outwards, where outwards can mean into the mind or lexicon (typically psycholinguistics and to some extent cognitive linguistics) or into (co-)text and beyond (typically corpus linguistics). 

Lexicology covers all areas of interest related to what we think of as the word from lexical semantics to etymology and morphology, including the general area of phraseology. When it comes to phraseology, connections to context offer a potential area of common interest to the two perspectives on the lexico-grammar. What they share to some extent is an interest in lexico-grammar and in data that focusses on “the occurrence of patterns which lie somewhere between abstract structures and individual lexical items or combinations of these” (Butler, 2013:206). The interface of context and lexicology spans the range of lexical studies from the more cognitive perspective to the more social perspective.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, since delicacy and instantiation are ordering principles of dimensions of SFL Theory, they cannot be contradictory approaches — just as the ordering principles realisation and metafunction are not contradictory approaches.

[2] To be clear, such approaches are fundamentally inconsistent with the approach of SFL Theory.  Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 2, 603):

But at the same time our own approach, both in theory and in method, is in contradistinction to that of cognitive science: we treat "information" as meaning rather than as knowledge and interpret language as a semiotic system, and more specifically as a social semiotic, rather than as a system of the human mind. …

Others have also been critical of the established academic view of mind; and some recent book titles suggest the kinds of alternatives that have been offered: "embodied mind", "social mind", "discursive mind". These suggest that the concept of 'mind' should be brought into close relation with other phenomena — biological, social, or semiotic. … But once this has been done, the mind itself tends to disappear, it is no longer necessary as a construct sui generis. Instead of experience being construed by the mind, in the form of knowledge, we can say that experience is construed by the grammar; to 'know' something is to have transformed some portion of experience into meaning. To adopt this perspective is to theorise "cognitive processes" in terms of semiotic, social and biological systems; and thus to see them as a natural concomitant of the processes of evolution.

This does not mean that these other approaches are invalid, but that the uncritical importation of such theorising into SFL Theory creates theoretical inconsistencies of a fundamental kind.

[3] To be clear, from the perspective of SFL Theory, paradigmatically, phraseology is concerned with an intermediate degree of delicacy: the theoretical space between grammatical systems and lexical sets; syntagmatically, this is the theoretical space between grammatical structure and lexical collocation. (The Butler quote merely presents his less precise understanding of the syntagmatic aspect of Halliday's insight.)

[4]  To be clear, for the most part, the use of the word 'context' in this paper, bears little resemblance to it's theoretical meaning in SFL: the culture as semiotic system-&-process. In terms of SFL Theory, the way that SFL and lexicology could be said to "connect to context" is that they share the field category 'linguistics'. However, this is not Fontaine's understanding, as demonstrated by her wordings "connections to context" and "the interface of context and lexicology".

The Theoretical Plausibility Of Modelling Lexis As Most Local Context

Fontaine (2017: 1):

In this paper, I use the SFL approach to context to establish the first steps towards an analogous approach to lexicology. The conclusion offered here is that it is theoretically plausible to draw on the dimension of instantiation, in a complementary way to delicacy, in order to model lexis as most local context, where the lexeme (or lemma) is modelled as meaning potential.

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, to model lexis as "most local" context is not theoretically plausible, if only because, in SFL Theory, lexis is a dimension of language (lexicogrammar) whereas context is not language at all, but the culture as a semiotic system. The claim here is that most delicate grammar (lexis) can be modelled as most local culture — on the basis of instantiation: the relation between potential and instance.