On matter and meaning
the two realms of human experience
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/lhs.2005.1.1.59Keywords:
Semiotic System, Lexicogrammar, Grammatics, Metafunction, MeaningAbstract
There are two phenomenal realms that we as human beings inhabit: a world of matter, and a world of meaning. Both matter and meaning are involved in all the regions of our experience. Meaning relies on matter to make it accessible to a receiver; and matter relies on meaning to organize it. Processes that take place in human consciousness may be conceptualized as processes of meaning. Language is the leading edge of meaning, even if not all types of human semiotic are necessarily realized by language. A language is more than just a semiotic system, a system of meanings; it is also a system that makes meanings, a semogenic system; and the source of this semogenic power is grammar. The powerhouse of a language is its lexicogrammar, the unified stratum of syntax and vocabulary; so thinking about meaning means thinking grammatically. Expressed in functional terms, the grammar both construes and enacts: it enacts the social process, our relationships one with another; and it construes the human experience. Language can be seen as the prototype of a semiotic system; hence a theory which is designed to represent the multidimensional ‘architecture’ of language should be ‘thick’ enough, and rich enough, to offer insight into other semiotic systems. As well as providing a metaphor for language, linguistics also stands as metaphor for the whole of meaning as theorizing – for the ability of the semiotic realm to construe itself into successive planes of virtual reality, in the (so far) unremitting human effort to understand.
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Matthiessen, C. M. I. M. (1998) Construing processes of consciousness: from the commonsense model to the uncommonsense model of cognitive science. In J. R. Martin and R. Veel (eds) Reading Science: Critical and Functional Perspectives on Discourses of Science. London and New York: Routledge.
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Matthiessen, C. M. I. M. (2003) Systemic Functional Theory: the ‘architecture’ of grammar. Macquarie University: Department of Linguistics.
Matthiessen, C. M. I. M. (2004) Frequency profiles of some basic grammatical systems: an interim report. In G. Thompson and S. Hunston (eds) (2005) System and Corpus: exploring connections. London: Equinox.
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McLuhan, M. (1962) The Gutenberg Galaxy: the making of typographic man. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.s
Toronto, M. (1967) The Medium is the Massage. New York: Bantam Books.
Needham, J. (1958) The translation of old Chinese scientific and technical texts. In A. H. Smith (ed.) Aspects of Translation. London: Secker & Warburg.
Needham, J. (1978–1995) The Shorter Science and Civilization in China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
O’Toole, M. (1994) The Language of Displayed Art. London: Leicester University Press.
Reddy, M. (1979) The conduit metaphor: a case of frame conflict in our language about language. In A. Ortony (ed.) Metaphor and Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rose, S. (2003) The Making of Memory: from molecules to mind. London: Vintage Books.
Shannon, C. E. and Weaver, W. (1949) The Mathematical Theory of Communication. Urbana IL: University of Illinois Press.
Thibault, P. J. (1991) Social Semiotics as Praxis: text, social meaning making and Nabokov’s ‘Ada’. Minneapolis MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Thibault, P. J. (2004) Brain, Mind and the Signifying Body: an ecosocial semiotic theory. London and New York: Continuum.
Thompson, G. and Hunston, S. (eds) (2005) System and Corpus: exploring connections. London: Equinox.
Tong, A. K. K. (1999) The language in Chinese mathematical texts before AD 1300: a case for logical abstraction. Interchange 30(4): 433–58.
von Baeyer, H. C. (2003) Information: the new language of science. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
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Wilson, E. 0. (1998) Consilience: the unity of knowledge. London: Little, Brown.
Bernstein, B. (2000) Pedagogy, Symbolic Control and Identity: theory, research, critique. Revised edition. Lanham MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Butt, D. G. (1984) The relationship between theme and lexicogrammar in the poetry of Wallace Stevens. PhD thesis, Macquarie University.
Butt, D. G. (1988) Ideational meaning and the existential fabric of a poem’. In R. P. Fawcett and D. J. Young (eds) New Developments in Systemic Linguistics Vol. 2: theory and application. London and New York: Pinter.
Butt, D. G., Lukin, A. and Matthiessen, C. M. I. M. (2003) Grammar – the First Covert Operation of War. Macquarie University: Centre for Language in Social Life, Department of Linguistics.
Childe, V. G. (1942) What Happened in History. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.
Crombie, A. (1994) Styles of Scientific Thinking in the European Tradition. London: Duckworth.
Elvin, M. (1973) The Pattern of the Chinese Past. London: Eyre Methuen.
Fairclough, N. (2000) New Labour, New Language? London: Routledge.
Greenfield, S. (2000) Brain Story (video recording) London: BBC Worldwide.
Halliday, M. A. K. [1975] (2004) Learning How to Mean. London: Edward Arnold. [Reprinted 2004 in Collected Works of M. A. K. Halliday Vol. 4. London: Continuum.]
Halliday, M. A. K. (1981) The origin and early development of Chinese phonological theory. In R. E. Asher and E. J. A. Henderson (eds) Towards a History of Phonetics 123–39. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Halliday, M. A. K. [1987] (2003) Language and the order of nature. In N. Fabb et al. (eds) The Linguistics of Writing: arguments between language and literature. Manchester: Manchester University Press. [Reprinted 2003 in Collected Works of M. A. K. Halliday Vol. 3. London: Continuum.]
Halliday, M. A. K. [1990] (2003) New ways of meaning: the challenge to applied linguistics. Journal of Applied Linguistics (Greek Applied Linguistics Association) 6. [Reprinted 2003 in Collected Works of M. A. K. Halliday Vol. 3. London: Continuum.]
Halliday, M. A. K. (1993) Analysis of scientific texts in English and Chinese. In M. A. K. Halliday and J. R. Martin, Writing Science: literacy and discursive power 124–32. London: Falmer.
Halliday, M. A. K. [1997] (2003) Linguistics as metaphor. In A. Simon-Vandenbergen, K. Davidse and D. Noël (eds) Reconnecting Language: morphology and syntax in functional perspectives. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. [Reprinted 2003 in Collected Works of M. A. K. Halliday Vol. 3. London: Continuum.]
Halliday, M. A. K. [1998] (2004) Things and relations: regrammaticizing experience as technical knowledge. In J. R. Martin and R. Veel (eds) Reading Science: critical and functional perspectives on discourses of science. London and New York: Routledge. [Reprinted 2004 in Collected Works of M. A. K. Halliday Vol. 5. London: Continuum.]
Halliday, M. A. K. and James, Z. L. (1993) A quantitative study of polarity and primary tense in the English finite clause. In J. M. Sinclair, M. Hoey and G. Fox (eds) Techniques of Description: spoken and written discourse 32–66. London and New York: Routledge.
Halliday, M. A. K. and Matthiessen, C. M. I. M. (1999) Construing Experience through Meaning: a language-based approach to cognition. London: Continuum.
Hasan, R. [1985] (1989) Linguistics, Language and Verbal Art. Geelong, Vic.: Deakin University Press. [Reprinted London: Oxford University Press].
Hasan, R. (1992a) Rationality in everyday talk: from process to system. In J. Svartvik (ed.) Corpus Linguistics: proceedings of Nobel symposium 82. Stockholm 4–8 August 1991. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Hasan, R. (1992b) Meaning in sociolinguistic theory. In K. Bolton and H. Kwok (eds) Sociolinguistics Today: international perspectives. London: Routledge.
Hasan, R. (2003) Globalization, literacy and ideology. World Englishes 22(4): 433–48.
Hasan, R. (2004) Literacy pedagogy and social change: directions from Bernstein’s sociology. Paper prepared for Third International Basil Bernstein Symposium, Cambridge, 15–18 July 2004.
Hill, C. (1969) The Century of Revolution 1603–1714. London: Sphere Books.
Hill, C. (1975) The World Turned Upside Down: radical ideas during the English revolution. London: Penguin Books.
Hobsbawm, E. (1997) On History. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
Kress, G. R. and van Leeuwen, T. (1996) Reading Images: the grammar of visual design. London: Routledge.
Lamb, S. M. (1999) Pathways of the Brain: the neurocognitive basis of language. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Lamb, S. M. (2004) Language and Reality. Edited Jonathan Webster. London and New York: Continuum.
Logan, R. K. (2000) The Sixth Language: learning a living in the internet age. Toronto and New York: Stoddart.
Martin, J. R. (1993) Life as a noun: arresting the universe in science and humanities. In M. A. K. Halliday and J. R. Martin, Writing Science: literacy and discursive power 221–67. London: Falmer.
Martin, J. R. (1999) Grace: the logogenesis of freedom. Discourse Studies 1(1): 31–58.
Martin, J. R. and Rose, D. (2003) Working with Discourse: meaning beyond the clause. London and New York: Continuum.
Martin, J. R. and Wodak, R. (eds) (2003) Re/reading the Past: critical and functional perspectives on time and value. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Matthiessen, C. M. I. M. (1993) The object of study in cognitive science in relation to its construal and enactment in language. Cultural Dynamics 6(1–2).
Matthiessen, C. M. I. M. (1998) Construing processes of consciousness: from the commonsense model to the uncommonsense model of cognitive science. In J. R. Martin and R. Veel (eds) Reading Science: Critical and Functional Perspectives on Discourses of Science. London and New York: Routledge.
Matthiessen, C. M. I. M. (1999) The system of TRANSITIVITY: an exploratory study of text-based profiles. Functions of Language 6(1): 1–52
Matthiessen, C. M. I. M. (2003) Systemic Functional Theory: the ‘architecture’ of grammar. Macquarie University: Department of Linguistics.
Matthiessen, C. M. I. M. (2004) Frequency profiles of some basic grammatical systems: an interim report. In G. Thompson and S. Hunston (eds) (2005) System and Corpus: exploring connections. London: Equinox.
McDonald, E. (forthcoming) Through a glass darkly. Linguistics and the Human Sciences 1(3).
McLuhan, M. (1962) The Gutenberg Galaxy: the making of typographic man. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.s
Toronto, M. (1967) The Medium is the Massage. New York: Bantam Books.
Needham, J. (1958) The translation of old Chinese scientific and technical texts. In A. H. Smith (ed.) Aspects of Translation. London: Secker & Warburg.
Needham, J. (1978–1995) The Shorter Science and Civilization in China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
O’Toole, M. (1994) The Language of Displayed Art. London: Leicester University Press.
Reddy, M. (1979) The conduit metaphor: a case of frame conflict in our language about language. In A. Ortony (ed.) Metaphor and Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rose, S. (2003) The Making of Memory: from molecules to mind. London: Vintage Books.
Shannon, C. E. and Weaver, W. (1949) The Mathematical Theory of Communication. Urbana IL: University of Illinois Press.
Thibault, P. J. (1991) Social Semiotics as Praxis: text, social meaning making and Nabokov’s ‘Ada’. Minneapolis MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Thibault, P. J. (2004) Brain, Mind and the Signifying Body: an ecosocial semiotic theory. London and New York: Continuum.
Thompson, G. and Hunston, S. (eds) (2005) System and Corpus: exploring connections. London: Equinox.
Tong, A. K. K. (1999) The language in Chinese mathematical texts before AD 1300: a case for logical abstraction. Interchange 30(4): 433–58.
von Baeyer, H. C. (2003) Information: the new language of science. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
Williams, G. C. (1995) A package of information. In J. Brockman (ed.) The Third Culture Chapter 1. New York: Touchstone Books.
Wilson, E. 0. (1998) Consilience: the unity of knowledge. London: Little, Brown.
Published
2005-04-01
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Halliday, M. (2005). On matter and meaning: the two realms of human experience. Linguistics and the Human Sciences, 1(1), 59-82. https://doi.org/10.1558/lhs.2005.1.1.59
