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Abstract
Register is, for Halliday, “the necessary mediating concept that enables us to establish
the continuity between a text and its sociosemiotic environment” (Halliday
1977[2002]: 58). Halliday and Hasan have both argued that register must be seen as a
function of all the three vectors of the context of situation: field, tenor and mode.
Hasan has further argued (e.g. Hasan 1985/89) that register consistency is reflected in
text structure, while intra-register variation comes from “the opportunistically
selected meanings” determined by the “here-and-now-ness of that particular
interaction” (Hasan 1985/89: 114). When context is modelled via a system network
(Hasan 1999, 2004, 2009a), one can argue that “the primary options of the contextual
system networks realize the structure of the text while the more delicate ones realize
its texture” (Hasan 2004: 25). But with a range of resources available for the creation
of texture (Halliday and Hasan 1976; Hasan nd., 1984, 1985/89, forthcoming) what
might the take up of different texture-creating relations across different instances of a
register mean for claims about register consistency and variation? The data for this
exploration comes from the analysis of aspects of the “cohesive harmony” (Hasan
1984) patterns in two contrasting instances of news. The paper argues the potential of
Hasan’s cohesive harmony schema is not only in the measurement of coherence in
quantitative terms, but for what can be revealed about the principles of continuity on
which an instance of text is based. These principles must also be related to register,
and specifically to intra-register variation (Hasan 1985/89, 2004). Is it possible also to
claim that the degree of potential variation in the modes of texture production is also a
means by which registers vary? In other words, are some registers more or less
constrained than others, with respect to the principles by which the text gets from its
point of departure to its resting point?
Text-in-context: texture and structure in registers of news
annabelle.lukin@mq.edu.au
Department of Linguistics
Macquarie University
Language is not realized in the abstract: it is realized as the activity of people
in situations, as linguistic events which are manifested in a particular dialect
and register (Halliday et al. 1964[2007]: 18)
Introduction: context and register in Halliday’s systemic functional linguistics
To understand Halliday’s conception of language, one must fully understand the place
of register in his systemic functional account of language. Attention to Halliday’s
discussions of the term register will leave any reader with the view I am putting here:
that register is central, perhaps the most central, concept, in Halliday’s systemic
functional theory of language. The quote above is one example of what I mean: in this
quote from a (1964) paper, Halliday argues that register is fundamental to the process
of language-made-manifest. Language is realized in “the activity of people in
situations”. The process of actualising language is a process of language shaping, and
being shaped by, the people using it, the activities for which it is being used, and the
mode/s through which language contact takes place. The combination of these factors
at work unify into a text, a text which reflects and expresses the forces under which it
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came into being. Thus, the notion of register explains the process and pressures under
which language manifests. To know a language in any practical sense is to be able to
operate through language in some set of socially and culturally constrained situations.
For a theory committed to the view that language is only viable in a social situation,
as Halliday’s theory is, register must be “the necessary mediating concept that enables
us to establish the continuity between a text and its sociosemiotic environment”
(Halliday 1977 [2002]: 58, emphasis added).
Halliday describes register variation as a function of settings in the field of discourse,
the mode of discourse and the tenor of discourse (Halliday et al. 1964[2007]: 19).
These terms are peculiar to systemic functional linguistics, although they came out of
a preoccupation with the notion of context as a necessary part of a description of
language in process. Malinowski’s concept of context of situation was brought into
linguistics by Firth, who proposed his own schema for explaining the elements of a
situation, as did Hymes (see Halliday 1985/86). For Halliday, register is the linguistic
expression of settings in context; it is a descriptive term for settings in language. It is
“the critical intermediate concept…which enables us to model contextual variation in
language” (Halliday 1995[2005]: 248, emphasis added). As “the critical intermediate
concept”, register looks in two directions: towards an instance of language use, the
individual text under description, and towards the semiotic potential of the language
system. The relation between an instance of language (realized as text) and the system
of language is part of resolving the ‘langue’ and ‘parole’ distinction of Saussure,
since, as Halliday argues, “there is only one phenomenon here, not two: langue and
parole are simply different observation positions” (Halliday 1995[2005]: 248). Hasan
has noted that in SFL, the conception of context – as field, tenor and mode - has been
used “as a device for placing grids on language use, thereby introducing system into
parole” (Hasan in press: 14).
Halliday’s conception of the text-register-context relation is not uncontested. Martin
(1992) presents arguments for his genre model; van Dijk (2008) argues the systemic
conception of context is “misguided” and “needs to be abandoned” (2008: 28). Yet as
Hasan has argued, the descriptive architecture necessary to fully examine the validity
and robustness of Halliday’s model is itself a work in progress. For instance, while
field, tenor and mode are considered central to Halliday’s conception of the relations
of text to context, these terms have been largely treated by systemic linguists as if
self-evident (Hasan 2009a). There have been some attempts to systematize their
operationalization, including Butt (2003), Hasan (1995, 1999, 2004, 2009a), Martin
(1992), Matthiessen (1993), Matthiessen et al (2008), and Bowcher (2007). These
descriptions are preliminary attempts to systemize the ‘realizable’ at the stratum of
context. That is, by describing “contextualisation system” (Hasan, 2009a), these
theorists are attempting to describe that which is outside of language but which is
overwhelming realized in language. If, as is widely accepted by systemic linguists,
text is the realization of a context of situation, then such descriptions of
contextualisation systems constitute an exploration of this fundamental linguistic
relation, described by Halliday as “probably the most difficult single concept in
linguistics” (Halliday 1992[2003]: 210).
My object in this paper is to add to the literature within this particular part of the
systemic tradition by exploring two news texts, and what can be said of them with
respect to their registerial properties, and therefore, what they might be said to be
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doing as context-realizing structures. The paper is meant as an exploration of the
robustness of Halliday’s claims concerning text-in-context relations, with a particular
concern for the role of texture in the experience of text-in-context. At the same time,
the paper extends a long tradition in linguistic studies of news discourse (the literature
is too vast, but see Lukin in press a, Matthiessen, in press, for some reviews of this
work). Like much of this scholarship, my research has also been concerned with news
as a symbolic commodity, the business of which is the purveying of forms of
consciousness (e.g. Bernstein 1990; Boyd-Barrett 1998; Hall et al. 1978; Herman and
Chomsky 1998). If news has this power to shape minds, to be a mechanism for the
distribution of ways of seeing, then the processes of text formation which enable news
must be significant to how it functions. In other words, if news distributes forms of
consciousness in particular ways, the mechanics of this process must in some way be
linked to the discursive shape or shapes news takes. Its discourse shape(s) must be
relevant to understanding what vistas are provided to consumers in their interactions
with news. So, what about the experience of ‘textness’ needs to be understood to
explicate the function of news as symbolic control? In this paper, I want to explore
these ideas in the context of the reporting of a very controversial and consequential
set of events from March, 2003, namely, the “Coalition” invasion of Iraq (e.g. Stiglitz
and Bilmes 2008; Otterman et al. 2010). For space reasons, a single television news
report from Australia’s public broadcaster, the ABC, is analysed with respect to the
principles by which, in the unfolding of the text, situational coherence is achieved.
The examination of such principles draws in many aspects of linguistic choice, and
demonstrates the playing out of Saussure’s syntagmatic and paradigmatic axes. It also
helps understand how certain ways of framing news content can be regularized (as
discussed e.g. in the work of Entman 1994).
The structure of this paper will be as follows. First, I consider briefly the key concepts
in a Hallidayan model for relating text to context of situation, and to society. Then, I
consider the notion of text in the systemic model (e.g. Hasan 1985/89, forthcoming),
and discuss relevant claims about structure and texture as two vectors of continuity in
a text. In the discussion of texture, I illustrate the principles using a news text drawn
from an online newspaper (The Sydney Morning Herald online), reporting the case of
Scooby, a “tiny, deaf, aging” Charles Spaniel stuck in a cave. This text is intended to
be contrastive with the main text I will analyse, the ABC TV news report from March
20th, 2003.
The systemic description of text (register) in context
Figure 1 presents the most efficient summary of the first principles in a systemic
exploration of the text-in-context configuration, bringing four key concepts (text,
context, language, society) together via two key relations (realization, instantiation).
The concepts linked on the horizontal vectors are related by the principle of
instantiation. Thus, in Halliday’s theory, a text is an instance of the language system;
and a context of situation is the instantiation of some kind of social/cultural practice,
i.e. society is the sum of what people do when they are interacting. Simultaneously,
along the vertical vectors, a relation of realization pertains. As has been insistent in
Halliday’s work, the realization relation is bidirectional. Thus, a text both creates and
is created by its context of situation; language is both created by and creates, along
with other semiotic systems, society, i.e. our ways of doing and being.
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Figure 1 Text in context, language in society (Hasan 2009b, adapted from
Halliday 1999)
Hasan argues that “text and context are so intimately related that neither concept can
be enunciated without the other” (Hasan 1985/89: 52). Turning now specifically to the
notion of text, Hasan argues that its central attribute is that of unity, and that the unity
of text is of two kinds: unity of structure and unity of texture. Both of these
dimensions are systematically related to the contextual configuration, i.e. to the
particular settings in field, tenor and mode of which a particular text is the realization.
Text, including its structure and texture, is the expression of the contextual variables
field, tenor and mode (Halliday 1977[2002], 1985/89; Hasan 1985/89, 1995, 1999,
2009a; Matthiessen 1993). Thus:
Both [texture and structure] can be traced back to the role of meaning in realizing
the elements of textual structure, which occur not by force of some immanent
‘rule’; nor are they imposed by an authority external to the practising members of
community; they occur only by way of language performing some specific
function in the relevant activity, and so constitute a record of social practice.
(Hasan 2004: 23-4 )
In relation to the description of text structure, Hasan proposes the notion of GSP,
which requires an analyst to specify with respect to the text’s structure: 1. What
elements must occur; 2. What elements can occur; 3. Where they must occur; 4.
Where they can occur; and 5. How often they can occur. Such a description generates
a generic structure potential, which, if the description is robust, should encapsulate all
possible structures for that register. Hasan has argued “there exists a wide range of
genres [registers - AL], varying in the extent to which the global structure of their
message form appears to have a definite shape” (Hasan 1985/89: 54). Texture is also
fundamental to the construction of text. Since everything in discourse is “beholden” to
the contextual configuration (Halliday and Hasan 1985/89; Hasan 2004), the means
by which a text gets from its point of departure to its resting point must also be both
activated by, and active in the construal of, the context of its operation (Hasan 2009a,
etc). Thus, “the facts of texture construe the very detailed aspects of the situation in
which the text came to life”; situation type is “the motivating force of texture” (Hasan
1985/89: 115).
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metafunction
rank
clause
[class]
phrase
[prepositional]
[verbal]
group
ideational
logical
experiential
TRANSITIVITY
complexes
(clause-
phrasegroup-
[nominal]
[adverbial]
MINOR TRANSITIVITY
INTERDEPENDENCY
(parataxis/
hypotaxis)
&
TENSE
LOGICALSEMANTIC
RELATION
(expansion/
projection)
MODIFICATION
MODIFICATION
word
word)
DERIVATION
inform
ation
unit
info.
unit
complex
complexes
ACCENTUATION
EVENT TYPE ASPECT
(nonfinite)
THING TYPE
CLASSIFICATION
(DENOTATION)
simplexes
Figure 2 Halliday’s function/rank matrix (Halliday 2009; see Halliday 1971 for earlier version)
*Lexical cohesion is not included in Halliday’s diagram. I have added it here.
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interpersonal
textual
MOOD
MODALITY
POLARITY
THEME
CULMINATION
VOICE
MINOR MOOD
(adjunct type)
FINITENESS
CONJUNCTION
VOICE
DEICTICITY
PERSON
ATTITUDE
DETERMINATION
COMMENT
(adjunct type)
CONJUNCTION
(CONNOTATION)
KEY
INFORMATION
(cohesive)
COHESIVE
RELATIONS
REFERENCE
SUBSTITUTION/ELL
IPSIS
CONJUNCTION
*Lexical cohesion
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The work of texture in text in context
As Hasan has argued, text has the property of coherence. While cohesion is “the
foundation on which the edifice of coherence is built”, it is a necessary but not
sufficient condition for the achievement of coherence (Hasan 1985/89: 94). It is for
this reason Hasan developed the method of analysis she called cohesive harmony.
Cohesive harmony is “the manifestation of the topical continuity of a text” (Hasan
n.d.: 71). Cohesive harmony analysis brings together grammatical and lexical
selections and relations across Halliday’s metafunctional spectra. Figure 2 is
Halliday’s function/rank matrix, a representation of the grammatical systems of
English in relation to their location with respect to metafunction and rank. Systems
relevant to cohesive harmony analysis appear in bold and italics.
Coherence is a semiotic phenomenon. As Hasan has argued:
A situationally chaotic scene of some accident, or a fight, for example, can be
rendered coherently in a text. And to this extent, situational coherence is not a
prior requirement for the existence of coherence in a text which describes these
situations. Coherence is not a picture of reality; it is a representation – just like
other semantic phenomena in language. The coherence arises from the imposition
of a grid upon sensory precepts; the categories of cohesion are the
lexicogrammatical indication of the details of such a grid (Hasan 1984: 210).
That a text requires texture presupposes that coherence, based on continuities of some
kind, is possible even with respect to complex events constantly in flux. Somehow,
even in the most chaotic of situations, the textual function can work its magic,
“creating a parallel universe” (Halliday 2001[2003]: 276), and in so doing enabling
some user/s to bring coherence to such chaos. Hasan’s cohesive harmony framework
is one method to bring out the basis for the creation of texture in a given instance of a
register, keeping in mind that “the attribute of texture is itself controlled by
‘compatibility’ of meanings” (Hasan n.d.:1).
Table 1 Resources a speaker of English has in the system for indicating the
semantic bonds between parts of his/her utterance (Hasan 1984, from Halliday
and Hasan 1977)
I REFERENCE
1. pronominal
2. definite article
3. demonstrative
4. comparative
II SUBSTITUION & ELLIPSIS
1. nominal
2. verbal
3. clausal
II LEXICAL
1. reiteration
a) repetition
b) synonymy
c) super-ordinate
d) general word
2. collocation
IV CONJUNCTION
1. cohesive conjunctive
a) additive
b) adversative
c) temporal
d) causal
2. continuative
There are two principles of continuity in the creation of texture: chain formation and
chain interaction (Hasan n.d. 1984, 1985/89, in press). With respect to chain
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formation, Hasan has proposed three types of semantic relations: co-reference, coclassification, and co-extension. Co-reference is a cohesion relation of “situational
identity” (Hasan n.d., 1984). In co-reference, the cohering element refers to the self
same thing as the element with which the tie is formed. Co-referentiality is typically
realised through the devices of reference: i.e. pronominals, the definite article, and by
demonstratives (see Table 1). Under some circumstances, it is possible to express this
relation by lexical cohesion alone, e.g. through repetition (Hasan 1984: 187). But
repetition, even of a proper noun, does not of necessity express a relation of coreference. So, for instance, a lexical item like Iraq has more than one meaning. It can
be a geographic entity or a geopolitical one, and only co-text can resolve which of
these meanings is being construed in a given text moment. Thus, relations of coreference are always text bound. Co-reference underpins the formation of identity
chains (hereafter “IC”). Appendix 1.1 sets out a text for illustrative purposes. It is
from an online newspaper article, titled “Scooby in a scrape: rescue op to save him
from cave”, a report about a “tiny, deaf and ageing…Cavalier King Charles spaniel”
stuck in a cave in the Hunter Valley of NSW. (Note: the text has been divided into the
unit of message (36 in total), following Hasan 1996).
Table 2 is an instance of an IC, from the text. The numbers indicate the message in
which the lexical item is found. This IC is the first chain in the series. The text begins
its unfolding with the lexical item “Scooby”. This IC also has the feature that it is
text-exhaustive, i.e. its domain is the whole text. One might use the metaphor of a
“backbone” to describe its contribution to the texture of this text. The chain is built
largely through pronominalisation; in addition, repetition of a proper noun (Scooby),
and the use of the definite article (the dog) contribute, albeit minimally, to the
tracking of the article’s central protagonist. Appendix 1.2 presents the full set of
identity chains in the Scooby text, eight in total. Hasan (1984: 204) has argued “The
identity chain (IC) is a requirement for the construction of the text because the
entities, events, circumstances that one is talking about need to be made specific if
there is to be repeated mention of the same”. The absence of identity chains would
mean the text “ha[s] no means for building specificity” (Hasan 1984: 206). Appendix
1.2 shows all the ICs for the Scooby text, of which there are eight in total, six of
which have only two or three tokens.
Table 2 Identity chain in online newspaper article, “Scooby in a scrape: rescue
up to save him from cave”
message
#
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
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Token
Scooby
him
a dog
Scooby
spaniel
his
He
he
he
he
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message
#
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
Token
Token
Scooby
message
#
19
20
21
22
23
he
^HE
the dog
he
24
25
26
27
his
he
him
him
he
he
message
#
28
29
30
31
32
Token
him
he
Scooby
him
He; his
33
34
35
36
him
he
his
him
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In Hasan’s cohesive harmony framework, identity chains are in a contrast with
similarity chains (hereafter SC). Underpinning similarity chains are the relations of
co-classification and co-extension. Co-classification is the relation formed by two
tokens of the same class of thing. Co-classification is typically realized by
substitution/ellipsis, as well as comparative reference. A relation of coextension is
formed when a lexical item echoes another by being part of the same “semantic field”.
Relations of repetition, synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy, meronymy are relevant
here. Table 3 is an example of an SC from the Scooby text. The chain consists of
processes of movement in space, processes in which, for the most part, Scooby is
Medium/Actor (Halliday and Matthiessen 2004). The relations between these items is
based on lexical cohesion, with the principle being that of co-extension. That is, the
tokens are part of the same semantic field.
Table 3: ‘Similarity chain’ in Scooby text
message #
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
Token
chase
ran up
come back
walk out
message #
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
Token
message #
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
travelled
walk out
Token
standing up
moving around
laid down
Coherence, as noted, does not emerge simply through the continuity which underpins
chain formation. Coherence is not only about invoking similar kinds of things. As
Hasan has argued, ‘When speakers are engaged in the process of creating coherent
text, they stay with the same and similar things long enough to show how similar the
states of affairs are in which these same and similar things are implicated’ (Hasan,
1985/89: 94). Coherence requires both ‘warp’ and ‘weft’. Thus, the next step in the
analysis is to look at what functional relations obtain between the cohesive chains, in
other words, how the chains interact. Since coherence is coherence with respect to
some view of the world, Hasan draws on the relations of Halliday’s experiential
grammar to consider how chains interact. Continuity requires at least two tokens in a
chain to display similar experiential relations with at least two tokens of another
chain. Tokens in a chain which interact through similar experiential relations with
another chain are considered central tokens because of their contribution to the
creation of continuity across two axes. Table 4 shows the relations between the
identity chain relating to “Scooby” (Table 2), and the similarity chain featuring
processes relating to movement in space (Table 3). Of the eight tokens in the
similarity chain, seven are central tokens, by virtue of the fact they are in a relation of
Process to Medium (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2004) with part of the “Scooby” chain.
Table 4: An example of chain interaction in “Scooby” text.
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
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Medium
He
he
he
he
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Process
chase
ran up
come back
walk out
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
Medium
Process
-
travelled
he
walk out
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
Medium
Process
he
he
standing up
moving around
he
laid down
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Table 4 shows a further principle of texture, according to Hasan, which is that texture
is a lexicogrammatical phenomenon, i.e. it is construed in the interaction of
grammatical and lexical cohesion. A text requires both identity chains, based on coreferentiality, and similarity chains, based on co-classification and co-extension.
Thus, “in a normal non-minimal text, the presence of both types of chains is
necessary” (Hasan 1984: 206; also n.d.: 70). Hasan notes that the requirements of
both chain formation and chain interaction show that coherence is a function of both
Saussure’s syntagmatic and paradigmatic axes. Identity and similarity chains
constitute the expression of paradigmatic relations. Each of these paradigms
“represents a relatively self-contained center of unity” (1984: 218) and “when through
chain interaction these centers of unity are brought together, this yields cohesive
syntagms” (1984: 218).
For illustrative purposes I have separated ICs and SCs. In the context of practical
analysis, the presence of a cohesive tie is the principle on which one would assign a
token to a cohesive chain in a text. Tokens in a text cohere with other tokens through
both relations of identity and relations of similarity. In a standard cohesive harmony
analysis, ICs 2-4 (which construe the rescue team) would be considered to form one
single chain. A chain formed by relations of both identity and similarity Hasan calls a
bifurcated chain (n.d.: 70). Appendix 1.3 is shows central tokens, i.e. those tokens
where at least two in a chain interact with at least two of another chain (the nature of
the chain interaction has not been shown, as this would significantly affect the
readability of the diagram). As noted earlier, the shows the text’s preoccupation with
a single instance of one and the same dog. Central to the text is the self-same instance
of one particular dog. When the interactions of this chain are considered, we see that
28/36 messages have Scooby as nuclear participant of a clause. In Halliday’s
description of transitivity roles, Scooby is Actor (so he could walk out again), Goal
(A crew of six rescuers are today trying to coax a tiny, deaf and ageing dog…) and
Carrier (he may be a little bit dehydrated and confused). The text moves around a
semiotic space consisting of angles on Scooby; the text’s movements consist in
different transitivity configurations around Scooby. Actions by and to Scooby,
Scooby’s state of being and mind, and location, are construed through lexical
relations. But the text stays with the same individual instance of the category ‘dog’.
This kind of news report can be distinguished from those which take an individual
instance (human, animal) as the departure point, but the text moves from the vignette
to a preoccupation with a wider phenomenal realm.
Analysing context of situation
What do these linguistic patterns realize? What kind of context do they both create
and express? The short answer is “news”, but the term describes the phenomenon at a
high order of generality. Figure 3 displays Hasan’s network for the contextual
parameter of field. It is intended as a beginning description in the process of
elaborating the dimensions of context realizable in language. The network has four
systems: MATERIAL ACTION, VERBAL ACTION, SPHERE OF ACTION, and ITERATION.
With respect to the first system, the “Scooby” text has the feature [non-present:
absent]. The contextual features which the “Scooby” text realizes are annotated by the
use of the symbol . With respect to verbal action, the text has the feature
[constitutive: conceptual]. These are features that go together. The absence of
exophoric reference in the Scooby text is some basis for the claim that the context of
situation of this text has these features. From [conceptual], Hasan hypothesizes three
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simultaneously systems. For space reasons, I will refer only the third of these, for
which the first decision is the choice of [informing] versus [narrating]. The particulars
of this news text, as they are revealed in the texture analysis, suggest the following
selection: [narrating:recounting:personal:other]. Chain formation and interaction are
the basis for making these claims. The individualism of the identity chain illustrated
above is a sign of a text that is [personal: other]. The process chain builds a field of
related action, action consistent with a notion of “recounting” of events as one
dimension of this social action.
Figure 3 Field network, combining Hasan 1999, with additions from Hasan
2009a; annotated with respect to Scooby (★) and Iraq war text (✪)
Coherence in a complex text: reporting “the war against Iraq”
I now want to consider a TV news text, from ABC TV’s reporting of the invasion of
Iraq, in March 2003 (see appendix 2.1 for transcript of text in messages; the transcript
takes in the bulletin preview and overview (messages 1-16) and the first report of the
bulletin (messages 1-33; note the restart of numbering which appears in some chain
presentations below)). Examining the texture of such a texts, i.e. examining “the
minutiae of utterances” (Hasan, et al, in prep), provides a window into the mechanics
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of language doing its work as “symbolic control”. The text I will examine is the first
news report broadcast on the evening of the date taken to be the beginning of the
“Iraq war” (Lukin in press a). At the time, the ABC had a considerable investment of
its public resources into the reporting of “the war”, with fifteen foreign
correspondents involved in reporting the invasion from Iraq, around the Middle East,
Europe, and most importantly, Washington, where five of its correspondents were
located. The data from this period of reporting an event of such huge consequence
provides a basis for further examinations of state and media relations (e.g. Robinson
et al. 2009; Herman and Chomsky 1988 [2002]; Lukin 2012; see also NYT journalist
Dvid Barstow’s investigation of the ‘military-media-industrial complex:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/04/20/washington/20080419_RUMSFELD.
html?ref=davidbarstow).
The text has two modalities in play, language and moving image. While the Scooby
text has a photograph of the “rescue operation”, and may fit some scholars definitions
of a multimodal text, the verbal text in no way depends on the visual for the
achievement of the status of “text”. The television text, by contrast, somehow
integrates various presentation modes, such as the “voice over” (where the journalist
appears outside of the material location presented in the visual mode), “vox pop” (in
which some speaker is made relevant to the news item through the selection of
commentary interwoven with the text) and “stake out” (where the journalist speaks
“on location”) (Hartley 1982). The term “vox pop” is hardly appropriate in the
context of the text analyzed here, as Hasan has pointed out (personal communication).
The TV news text is different in another important respect. The Scooby story was all
over in one news report. The value of the social activity was such that completion
could be achieved in one text instance – in other words, with respect to the parameter
PERFORMANCE OF ACTION, in Hasan’s field network (see Figure 1), the text displays
the feature [bounded]. By contrast, the value of the social activity of reporting the
invasion of Iraq at this time put it in a different class, in which, with respect to the
parameter PERFORMANCE OF ACTION, the text displays the feature [continuing:
sequenced].
Table 5 Dominant cohesive chain in "Iraq" text (asterisk indicates exophoric
item)
message #
Token
message #
Token
message #
1
11
attack
2
war against
Iraq
attack
disarm
3
free
13
attack
7
4
*this
campaign
14
campaign
disarm
operate
8
9
12
5
15
6
16
7
Page 11
war
9/02/16
1
message #
Token
message #
5
15
conflict
25
6
16
conflict
26
war
17
*this
campaign
27
this
18
28
this
19
29
campaign
20
30
21
31
10
shots
war
11
Token
blasts
*it
campaign
war
fire
explosions
Token
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8
9
air raid
go off
explosions
rock
2
3
13
strike
4
14
10
attack
strikes
12
22
operations
disarm
free
defence
32
23
strike
24
bombing
33
The text constitutes the first report of the first bulletin covering the invasion of Iraq.
The text, as such, bears the weight of being the first “toe in the river” in the reporting
of these events on what was then the primetime ABC news bulletin. Table 5 shows
the dominant cohesive chain of the text; tokens in this chain turn up in 27 out of a
total of 49 messages. By contrast with the “Scooby” text, the dominant chain is a
bifurcated chain, a chain in which there is a mix of relations of co-reference and coextension. Thus, the text’s development is not through the filling out of a set of events
or circumstances pertaining to one individuated entity. This means the main chain of
the text involves both grammatical and lexical cohesion, and that to the degree that
the text has continuity, it does so through a mix of tracking the identical instance of
something, as well as bringing into the picture other things that relate to that entity
through relations of lexical cohesion, such as synonymy/antonymy (“strike” –
“attack” – “defend”), hyponymy (“shots” – “strikes”), and meronymy (“war” – “air
raid”).
Appendix 2.2 presents the ICs for the “Iraq” text. The presentation of ICs for this text
is not without its difficulties, and indeed ambiguities. The lexical item “Iraq” for
instance is distributed across two ICs in order to account for the distinction between
“Iraq” in Tonight the war against Iraq begins with Baghdad under attack and “Iraq”
in Within 90 minutes of the deadline passing [[for Saddam Hussein to leave Iraq]],
American bombers attacked military targets around Baghdad. In the latter, the
meaning is the physical territory of Iraq, while in the former, the notion is something
more abstract, like a geopolitical entity, i.e. the “state” of Iraq. The meaning of “Iraq”
in “the war against Iraq” is this abstract idea, by contrast to the meaning of “Iraq” in
“the war in Iraq”, where the item refers to a geographically bounded entity; this leaves
as an open question the meaning of “Iraq” in “the Iraq war”. The term obscures the
initiators of “the war”.
In addition, the text has exophoric reference (e.g. IC8, IC9). The exophora in this
environment is not to a “material situational setting”, since the news producer and
news consumer do not share any such kind of setting. IC8, for instance, is a miminal
chain of two exophoric items, while IC9 the meaning of “we” has to be inferred, and
there are at least two possibilities. Exophoric presupposition, argues Hasan, “results in
the specific meanings remaining implicit to all decoders except those who ‘hold the
key’ to all significant elements of the contextual configuration” (nd.: 11). The
exophora derives from the fact that the language functions in an environment in which
another modality is also operating (and thus this text is analysed, with respect to the
system of MATERIAL ACTION Hasan’s field network, as [non-present: virtual], by
contrast with the “Scooby” text, where MATERIAL ACTION is [non-present: absent].
Despite the parallel modality, the exophora is not disambiguated for viewers. The
effect is to create an “as-if” sense of proximity to the events, but at the expense of an
experiential representation of the events. This is some evidence to claim that the
orientation of the text, with respect to Hasan’s distinction of [relation-oriented] versus
[reflection-oriented] is towards the former.
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Table 6 Some identity chains (ICs) from "Iraq" text; KEY: Underline means the
token enters into clausal configuration; strikethrough means token is relevant
but not central, or central only through continuity at group but not clause rank
(see below).
message
#
1
IC1
the war against Iraq
message
#
9
IC10
7
1
the 2nd Gulf War
the war
7
11
10
this war
2
26
27
28
13
the war
this
this
10
24
a series of
explosions
the first blasts
?explosions
message
#
10
13
1
IC11
This initial strike
?the opening
shots of the war
?a limited series
of missile strikes
?it
?the bombing
There is other evidence to suggest that the driving force of the text is not experiential.
Consider chains IC1, IC10, and IC11. As noted, these chains would be combined in
the process of a full cohesion and cohesive harmony analysis. When separated,
however, the problems of texture-making in an environment such as this are put on
display. These chains are involved in the work of the text making sense of events both
“on the ground” – the visible or observable actions and their effects (strikes,
explosions) – and with the integrating principle that unifies these actions (the war
against Iraq). IC1 contains the token which initiate the chain concerned with the
events to hand; it is predicated on the war against Iraq being a viable shorthand mode
of reference to construe the recently transpired events. The term was so much in the
zeitgeist that it may not seem worthy of questioning. Yet “war” is not given in the
concrete events that can be witnessed. It is a explanatory principle, that organizes and
legitimates them. A contrasting construal of these events can be seen in the writing of
the British foreign correspondent, Robert Fisk, who wrote of these same events
without calling them “the war against Iraq” or any near versions of this, such as “the
Iraq war”: his global abstraction for referring to the events was “this violence” (article
published
by
The
Independent,
republished
on
the
web
here:
http://truthout.lege.net/docs_03/032503D.shtml).
As Halliday notes, lexis is “the product of the intersection of a large number of
classificatory dimensions’ (Halliday 1966: 149). Lukin (in press a) explores the
consequences rhetorically and ideologically of the choice of “war” to explain the
events under focus. The analysis presented here shows that the notion that the visible
events constitute “war” is the one aspect of the “existential fabric” (Butt 1988) of the
text about which there is specificity and definiteness. Once “the war against Iraq” is
invoked, it can be pronominalised, and reduced to simply “the war”. By contrast, the
representation of the actualised events lacks definiteness and specificity. IC 10
contains tokens construing the consequences of action by “Coalition” forces: “a series
of explosions” is presumably the self-same explosions of “the first blasts”; but later in
the text we find reference simply to “explosions”. This links to the other references
through lexical, but not grammatical cohesion. Why does this matter? As Hasan notes,
while pronominals and the deictic the are implicit, they are definite in their meaning.
Lexical items, by contrast are explicit and indefinite (nd.: 59). Does “explosions”
refer to those mentioned earlier in the text? In the absence of grammatical cohesion,
one cannot be entirely sure. This problem holds with IC 11: lexically, the items
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“strike” “shots” and “bombing” are close synonyms, presumably referring to the
unidirectional action by “Coalition” forces. Yet the journalist uses these terms in both
singular and plural form. Thus “the opening shots of the war” seems to refer to the
self-same event as “this initial strike”; “this initial strike” would similarly seem to be
the same event as “a limited series of missile strikes”. At the very least, one must
conclude that the news report is not concerned with a close and detailed account of
these events, since it seems to disregard the significance of whether the visible events
constitute one or many things. Thus, the texture becomes ambigious, at the point at
which the observable phenomena are being construed. What is significant is that the
actualized violence which initiated the invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq
was not reported in any detailed sense. This news report was the first of twelve
reports in the bulletin, and none of the following eleven revisited the issue of what the
Coalition forces had actually done to or in Iraq on that day. The extent to which the
visible events are “covered” in the text analysed here is the full extent of the reporting
by ABC TV of those events. Thus, the text does not invite the reader to hold his or her
attention to the specifics of the Coalition’s attack on Baghdad on this particular day.
This textural looseness has implications then for the second dimension of texture, that
of chain interaction. The tokens in the chains displayed in Table 6 are underlined
where they constitute central tokens interacting as groups entailed in clause
configurations. Those which are displayed with a strikethrough are tokens which
either do not enter into chain interaction, or do so only by virtue of group internal
interaction. In addition, as can be seen from the list of ICs, there is no chains in the
text pertaining to Coalition forces or troops; the text has acts of war, without their
perpetrators. As I have shown elsewhere (Lukin in press b), in a text in which there
are both chains construing acts of war/violence, and chains concerned with the agents
of same, these chains do not interact in course of the text: the belligerents and their
acts of war do not interact for the purposes of the construal of “compatible meanings”.
These claims are the basis for my analysis of the field (annotated onto Figure 3 using
the symbol ) of this text as [constitutive: conceptual: informing: commenting].
Conclusions
The discussion of the significance of the cohesive harmony patterns in the ABC TV
news text is somewhat truncated, but I believe I have illustrated the potential of
Hasan’s framework as a means for exploring more delicate features of the context
work done by texts. The testing and development of cohesive harmony should be of
interest to those concerned with the problem of text making, i.e. how it happens, and
what the critical vectors of variation are, and the contribution of texture to the
realization of features of context. In respect of the “Iraq war” text, the analysis shows
a textual looseness, which has consequences for the kind of vista of these events
which the ABC was making available to its viewers. It may be argued that this
looseness is a consequence of the fact that the language is working alongside another
modality; but Lukin, 2003, reports a similar pattern in the analysis of literary
criticism. In particular, the analysis from this text show a text trajectory in which
specificity, definiteness and continuity on experiential grounds is not prioritized. But
the text’s status as news is in no way at risk; the register is such that quite different
modes of texture building are both viable and that, as Hasan has postulated (Hasan
2004) what these differences construe are more delicate features of context. The
register can accommodate two very different texts; different when viewed at this level
of delicacy. The analysis presented here is further evidence (see e.g. Lukin in press b)
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for the claim that a central property of news is the experience of shifts along the kind
of cline of (de)contextualisation described in Cloran. The analysis is also suggestive
of the tendency claimed by Halliday (2010: 5) to be a tendency in 21st century
patterns of language use, where
both interpersonal and textual meanings take on a new prominence, though for
different reasons: the textual in integrating the various semiotic strands, with the
interesting consequence that it becomes less explicit in the text, rather like the
subtitles in a foreign language movie; the interpersonal on the other hand
becoming more explicit as the exchange of meanings becomes increasingly
individualized and personalized.
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Appendices
Appendix 1.1. Text 1 “Scooby in a scrape”
Scooby in a scrape: rescue op to save him from cave
GEORGINA ROBINSON, September 10, 2009
http://www.smh.com.au/national/scooby-in-a-scrape-rescue-op-to-save-him-fromcave-20090910-fi1x.html
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
Scooby in a scrape
Rescue op
to save him from cave
A crew of six rescuers are today trying to coax a tiny, deaf and ageing dog out of a cave in
the NSW Hunter Valley.
Scooby, an eight-year-old Cavalier King Charles spaniel, has been trapped since Sunday
under a group of large boulders on his owner's 20-hectare property at Sweetmans Creek.
‘‘He chased something up
or ran up a small cavity under a set of boulders
and he just didn’t come back out,’’ RSPCA Inspector Matt French said.
‘‘There’s no reason [[he can’t walk out]]
but we’re just a little concerned,
given his age,
he may be a little bit dehydrated and confused.’’
RSPCA officers have been working since Tuesday
to free Scooby.
A specialist NSW Fire Brigades rescue unit from Sydney travelled there yesterday,
managing to send down a small camera
and open up a passage for the dog
so he could walk out again.
‘‘We got very, very close to him
but we lost the light late yesterday afternoon,’’ Inspector French said.
‘‘We got food and water to him though.
‘‘He seems fine,
he’s bright and alert,
he’s standing up
and ^HE’S moving around.
‘‘When we were in there
trying to widen the tunnel
we could hear [[him snoring]]
so he obviously laid down for a sleep.’’ Inspector French said
Scooby licked the camera
when it reached him.
He could even indulge in his favourite hobby from the darkened nook.
‘‘There’s a few flies [[that hang around him]]
and he’s trying to eat the flies,
which is one of his favourite pastimes,’’ he said.
‘‘Hopefully we’ll get him out in the next couple of hours.’’
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Appendix 1.2: Identity chains in Scooby text
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
IC1
Scooby
him
a tiny, deaf
and ageing
dog
Scooby, an
eight-yearold Cavalier
King Charles
spaniel; his
He
he
he
he
IC2
IC3
IC5
we
RSPCA
officers
(RSPCA
officers)
A specialist
NSW Fire
Brigade Unit
rescue unit
16
18
19
20
he
him
he
he
he
^HE
there
a small
camera
(rescue unit)
we
we
a
passage
Inspector
French
we
we
(we)
28
29
him
he
30
31
Scooby
him
32
33
34
35
36
He; his
him
he
his
him
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IC8
RSPCA
Inspector
Matt
French
Scooby
the dog
IC7
Sweetman’s
Creek
his
he
17
IC6
rescuers
15
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
IC4
we
the
tunnel
Inspector
French
a small
camera
it
he
we
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Appendix 1.3: Chain interaction in Scooby text.
1
2
3
4
Scooby
scrape
save
coax
cave
cave
5
him
a tiny,
deaf and
ageing
dog
Scooby
trapped
large
boulders
6
He
^CAVITY
chased
7
^HE
cavity
ran up
8
he
9
10
11
12
he
[of cave]
come
back
walk out
today
NSW Hunter
Valley
since
Sunday
Sweetman’s
Creek
we
be
he
13
14
rescuers
Scooby
15
16
17
the dog
18
he
be
work
RSPCA
officers
free
(RSPCA
officers)
send down
(rescue
unit)
(rescue
unit)
open up
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passage
[of cave]
since
Tuesda
y
walk out
concerned
dehydrated
confused
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19
him
got close
to
we
20
21
him
got
food/water
we
22
he
23
he
24
he
25
^HE
26
27
see
ms
be
fine
bright
alert
standing
up
moving
around
widen
tunnel
we
(we)
be
28
29
him
he
30
Scooby
licked
He;
his
indulge
31
32
33
34
35
he
his
36
him
we
hear
snoring
laid down
favourite
hobby
favourite
pastimes
get <> out
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[of cave]
we
hours
flies
(flies)
eat
(eating)
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Appendix 2.1: Text 2 ABC TV 7pm news, broadcast March 20th, 2003.
Bulletin preview/overview
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
Tonight the war against Iraq begins with Baghdad under attack
President bush promises to disarm Saddam
and free the Iraqi people
“this will not be a campaign of half measures,
and we will accept no outcome but victory”
welcome to a special edition of ABC news.
The second gulf war has begun.
Just before dawn, Baghdad time, the air raid sirens went off
as a series of explosions rocked the city.
This initial strike was limited.
The main attack is expected within 12 to 24 hours.
Here’s [[how the day developed]]:
Within 90 minutes of the deadline passing [[for Saddam Hussein to leave Iraq]], American
bombers attacked military targets around Baghdad.
14
President George W. Bush promised a broad and concerted campaign [[to disarm Iraq. ]]
15
Prime Minister John Howard said Australian FA-18 Hornets were already operating over Iraq.
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And in a televised speech Saddam Hussein accused the United States of crimes against
humanity.
First report of the bulletin, following directly from preview/overview above.
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The opening shots of the war came as a surprise.
Unlike the massive air attack of 1991, the US launched a limited series of missile strikes
apparently targeting Saddam Hussein and other Iraqi leaders.
US president George W. Bush warned against assumptions of an easy triumph,
and ^US PRESIDENT GWB vowed there would be no result but a Coalition victory.
The ABC's Lisa Millar begins our coverage from Washington.
The first blasts were heard just before dawn in the south east of Baghdad.
Cruise missiles were launched from ships in the Persian Gulf,
and precision guided bombs dropped on a small number of specific targets.
It was not the massive air campaign [[which was expected to launch this war]].
As anti-aircraft fire and explosions were heard across Iraq's capital,
the White House gave short notice of the American president's plans [[to speak to the nation]].
My fellow citizens, at this hour, American and Coalition forces are in the early stages of military
operations [[to disarm Iraq, to free its people, and to defend the world from grave danger]].
His speech came two hours after the end of the 48 hour deadline [[he'd given Saddam Hussein]]
[[to leave the country]].
Now that conflict has come,
the only way [[to limit its duration]] is [[to apply decisive force]].
And I assure you, this will not be a campaign of half measures,
and we will accept no outcome, but victory.
President Bush spent four hours with his top advisors this evening,
who convinced him there was no time [[to waste]].
Officials say they believed they had Iraqi leaders in their sights,
and Saddam Hussein may have been among them.
They had to strike.
They aren't saying how successful the bombing was.
In New York, Iraq's ambassador to the United Nations said he would continue to urge security
council members to help his country.
I have just to tell them, the international community, that the war has started,
this is against the charter
and this is the violation of international law.
President Bush says the military campaign is now supported by 35 nations around the world,
although only three, the US, the UK and Australia are providing troops.
And << the US plan to use the full might of its military
<<while they would make every effort [[to spare Iraqi civilians]],>>
Lisa Millar, ABC news, Washington.
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9/02/16
PLEASE DO NOT CITE OR QUOTE WITHOUT PERMISSION
Appendix 2.2 Identity Chains in "Iraq War" text. Notes: tokens with asterisk are exophoric; items preceded by a question mark have been
assigned provisionally to an identity chain, but there is ambiguity in the relations.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
IC1
IC2
the war
against
Iraq
Iraq
IC3
IC4
IC5
IC6
Bush
Saddam
IC7
IC8
IC9
IC10
IC12
Baghdad
the Iraqi
people
*this
*we
the 2nd
Gulf War
8
9
the city
a series of
explosions
10
?This initial
strike
11
12
13
Iraq
14
15
16
1
IC11
Baghdad
Iraq
Saddam
Hussein
Bush
Iraq
Saddam
Hussein
the United
States
the war
2
the US
3
4
5
6
7
8
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the opening
shots of the
war
a limited
series of
missile
strikes
US President
George W
Bush
(Bush)
Baghdad
Saddam
Hussein
the first blasts
Iraqi
leaders
IC13
IC14
IC15
IC16
IC17
IC18
PLEASE DO NOT CITE OR QUOTE WITHOUT PERMISSION
9
10
11
this war
It*
Iraq's
capital
12
13
the American
president
my
Iraq
its
14
explosions
the
country
his
he
the White
House
its
people
the nation
my fellow citizens
military
operations
the world
Saddam
Hussein
15
16
conflict
its
17
18
19
I
we
President
Bush
his
him
20
21
22
*this
you
*we
advisors
Saddam
Hussein
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24
25
26
27
28
29
who
they
their
Iraqi
leaders
them
they
they
?the
bombing
Iraq
country
Iraq's
ambassador
he
his
I
the war
this
this
President
Bush
?the military
campaign
30
31
32
33
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Iraqi
civilians
the US
the US
its
they
the world
PLEASE DO NOT CITE OR QUOTE WITHOUT PERMISSION
Appendix 2.3 Schematic representation (not all tokens can be shown) of chain interaction in "Iraq War" text; bold arrows indicate
interaction between units within the clause; dotted arrows indicate relations internal to the nominal group
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