The Stratal Organisation Of Context In Martin (1992)

Matthiessen (1995: 46, 46n):

Work on the 'stratal' organisation of context is one of the current research areas in systemic linguistics, as can be seen in the recent collections and reviews of systemic research (e.g., Berry, 1984; Benson & Greaves, 1985; Halliday &Fawcett, 1987; Martin, 1992: Ch. 7).¹⁰

¹⁰ The organisation of 'context' is not necessarily a stratal one in the same way as the overall organisation of the linguistic system is. In particular, Martin (e.g., 1985, 1992) has built a model using Hjelmslev's (1943) notion of konnotationssprog, 'connotative language'. A konnotationssprog has language as its expression plane.

Blogger Comments:

This is misleading. Both Halliday and Martin use Hjelmslev's notion of a connotative semiotic in modelling context. The difference is that Martin misunderstands it. For Hjelmslev, a connotative semiotic is one that has a denotative semiotic (e.g. language) as its expression plane. On the one hand, Martin mistakes its content plane for the entire connotative semiotic, and on the other hand, locates varieties of a denotative semiotic — register and genre in the sense of 'text type' — on the content plane of the connotative semiotic instead of its expression plane. See the clarifying critiques of Martin (1992) at English Text: System And Structure.