Thursday 30 October 2014

Grammatical Reactances Of Figures: Directionality Of Process

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 134-5):
Many mental processes are typically bidirectional, appearing in two opposite configurations (I like it / it pleases me; cf. detest/revolt; fear/frighten; remember/remind, notice/strike). It is thus possible to construe conscious processing either as the Phenomenon impinging on the Senser’s consciousness (the music pleases him) or as the Senser’s consciousness having the Phenomenon as its domain (he likes the music). neither material nor relational* clauses display this dual directionality.

*Blogger Comment:

Identifying relational processes are bidirectional in their coding, decoding vs encoding, and these are proportional to the bidirectionality of mental processes, emanating vs impinging, respectively:


Medium
Process
Range
emanating:
Senser
Process: mental
Phenomenon
decoding:
Identified
Process: identifying
Identifier



Agent
Process
Medium
impinging:
Phenomenon
Process: mental
Senser
encoding:
Identifier
Process: identifying
Identified