Selves, interactive representations and context
A systemic functional linguistic account of process in language and world
In this paper, I re-examine the notion of ‘clause-as-representation’ in Michael Halliday’s systemic functional
theory of language. I argue that ‘representation’ is a mode of linguistic action that cannot be understood in terms of the
experiential metafunction alone. Instead, a theoretical account of representation must be undertaken in relation to all the
metafunctions. Rejecting encodingist accounts of representation, I develop the argument that representations are interactively
constituted and emergent in languaging activity. The paper develops these arguments in relation to a process ontological account
of the relations between language and the world-side phenomena that language represents. Language does not encode actualities. The
future-oriented, anticipatory character of languaging is fundamentally modal in character. A co-articulated
self-utterance-situation matrix never attains full actuality. The virtual potentialities of languaging always have the potential
for further individuation.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction: Clause as representation
- 2.Metafunctional constraints and utterances as operations on situations: Towards an interactive theory of representation
- 2.1Experiential semantics
- 2.2Interpersonal semantics
- 2.3Textual semantics
- 2.4Logical semantics
- 2.5Metafunctional constraints on interactively constituted representation
- 3.Anticipatory representation as emergent interactive process: Intentionally directed utterance activity as a simplex principle working for selves-in-interaction
- 4.A brief excursus on substance versus process ontological accounts of the world
- 5.Field of discourse as network topology of functional individuals and their locations: A process ontology of the world compatible with functional linguistics
- 6.Representational interactivity in Action I: Example 16
- 7.Representational interactivity in Action II: Example 17
- 8.Translucent selves gaming the reflexivity of the interactive system: Hillary Clinton misspeaks about landing in Tuzla
- 9.Functional individuals, situatedness and Seibt’s General Process Ontology
- 10.Conclusion
- Acknowledgements
- Note
-
References
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