Abstract
Tom Bartlett’s book has seven chapters and provides a number of analytical techniques taken from systemic functional linguistics (SFL) and positioning theory. Chapter 1 provides an overview of SFL and the social psychological theory of positioning. Positioning is combined and restrained via the speaker’s status (cultural capital), right language (code) and the audience (market place). This is what Bartlett calls Positioning Star of David (p. 12) and is necessary for ‘discourse analysis’.
The next four chapters are dedicated to unfolding three metafunctions of language (experiential, interpersonal and textual) through a number of political and non-political speeches. Chapter 2 discusses the ‘field’ of discourse and the distinction between ‘immediate’ and ‘displaced’ fields (p. 17). In Chapter 3, Bartlett deals with transitivity analysis. Different process types such as material, mental, verbal, behavioural, relational and existential are explained and some ‘probes’ to identify them are introduced. The probes focus on the relationship between process and participants in order to find the position and power of the participant in discourse. Bartlett’s test or rephrase of different process types seems to be an effective way to deal with the complex nature of transitivity analysis and can be a good starting point for SFL learners. However, some probes, such as the one for mental process, seem to be rather complicated considering that transitivity analysis is highly debatable and complex by itself. It is important to note that Bartlett’s transitivity analysis of texts is to construe various positions of participants together with changes in the storyline. However, Bartlett leaves this unstated until the last few pages of Chapter 3. It could have been stated earlier as the reader has already been overwhelmed by transitivity and might not grasp the bottom line of the chapter about how this all leads to different positions.
Chapters 4 and 5 discuss interpersonal and textual meanings and how they construe the tenor and mode of discourse. Chapter 4 mainly discusses interpersonal meaning manifested in modals, modalities, attribution and appraisal. Regarding appraisal, Bartlett only refers to attitude categorising into affect, judgement and appreciation, which is mainly Martin’s (2000) work, but he does not draw on engagement resources when he discusses negotiation of truth and alternative viewpoints (p. 103) or when he proposes ‘interpersonal themes’ such as vocatives, modal adjuncts and comment adjuncts (p. 144). Bartlett spells out ‘there is no room to deal with engagement as a semantic category here’ (p. 103), but I think it is reasonable to discuss it if appraisal is noted along with numerous related concepts mentioned earlier.
In Chapter 5, Bartlett discusses textual meaning where interpersonal meaning (Chapter 4) and experiential meaning (mainly Chapter 2) work together to make cohesive and coherent texts. He provides numerous examples and texts to differentiate between each type of theme clearly, which makes it less likely that the reader will become confused. These worked texts, usually provided at the end of each chapter together with some discussion points, make the book ‘a practical guide’ for SFL learners rather than solely a theoretical monograph.
Chapter 6 analyses rhetorical units as ‘stretches of text with the same degree of displacement’ (p. 157). Importantly, Bartlett makes a good distinction between ‘phase’ and ‘rhetorical unit’. For him, rhetorical units are sections of text which are textual and indicative of mode, while phases change when there is a significant change in field, tenor or mode. It is also the first time that ‘phase’ is noted, but although Michael Gregory is mentioned (p. 157), no specific reference is given to where Gregory discussed ‘phase’. Students might benefit from more appropriate referencing to build up their knowledge of Gregory’s work in originating the concept of ‘phase’. Lack of referencing was also evident earlier in the book (p. 18), where Hasan is mentioned but the particular work where her example on immediate and displaced fields is given is not specified.
The final chapter focuses on Bartlett’s own contribution about how voice and positioning are necessary in analysing power in language. The concept of voice relates to different patterning of social relations in language and mainly encompasses interpersonal meaning. However, Bartlett adds experiential and textual meanings to the concept of voice and shows how these three types of meaning in SFL are useful for the analysis of discourse and voice. Also, when he likens voice to code (p. 177), I was reminded of Bernstein’s (1971) model of the social context of language as codes. This, along with Halliday’s model of language as text in context, has influenced the interpretation of genre in the Sydney School as well.
While Bartlett has tried to make connections between linguistic concepts and sociological concepts, I think the book is ambitious in its coverage of linguistic ideas, but much less so with sociological concepts. This is reasonable given that the focus of this book is on ‘language’, and overall the book is a worthwhile step in making connections between linguistics and sociology. Bartlett has presented a good piece of research on various positions and voices that participants can take in a text or ‘discourse’. This interdisciplinary research is favoured more these days within the SFL community as they are working with sociologists and taking up their ideas, for example legitimation code theory (Maton, 2014).