If Post 3 argued that construal is first-order world-making, then Post 4 asks:
Where do the systems, categories, and potentials that shape construal themselves reside?
The answer: in the metasemiotic domain.
1. Construal vs. Metasemiosis
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Construal: the first-order act of world-making — an event in which phenomena, participants, relations, and topology emerge.
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Metasemiosis: the second-order domain in which the potentials for construal are organized, systematized, and made available.
Where construal answers the question “What world emerges here?”, metasemiosis answers “What worlds are possible, and by what principles?”
2. The System-Instance Cline
Relational ontology offers a clean distinction:
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System: a structured potential, a theory of possible instances.
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Instance (or construal): a specific actualization of that system, a realized world.
Metasemiosis is where:
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Token–Value relations are formulated as potential assignments.
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The grammar of the language exists as a relational schema, not as rules applied mechanically.
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Distinctions between processes, participants, and circumstances are negotiable, not pre-determined.
3. Categories as Metasemiotic Constructs
All categories (nominal, verbal, relational, etc.) are metasemiotic:
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They exist as theories of possible construals,
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They are instantiated only when a construal cuts into the potential.
Consider “defining X as Y” (Thibault’s example).
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The category of assigned relational clause exists in metasemiosis.
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When we construe a clause, we instantiate that system, producing a specific world in which X is a Token and Y is the Value.
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The metasemiotic domain allows us to reason about other possible instantiations, alternative readings, and systemic variation.
4. Metasemiotic Synergy
The metasemiotic domain is not detached from construal; it is in functional synergy:
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Construal actualises potential, revealing aspects of the system in use.
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Systems evolve based on observed construals, feedback, and collective adaptation.
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The observer (analyst, speaker, or community) participates in metasemiosis by theorising possibilities and refining categories.
This is why “defines” can be both:
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a semiotic-relational assignment (Token–Value), and
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a communicative action (Author → Reader).
The dual aspect lives in the synergy between construal and metasemiosis.
5. From Metasemiotic to Ecological
Metasemiosis is inherently relational and ecological:
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Systems are embedded in and shaped by the world of action, not floating abstractions.
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Grammars, categories, and distinctions exist to organise meaningful action within human ecologies.
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The metasemiotic domain makes visible the constraints, affordances, and potentials that guide how we can cut, construe, and act in the world.
Thus, metasemiosis is both:
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Analytical: providing us a framework to describe possible construals,
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Ontological: existing as structured potential in the relational field of language and meaning.
6. Why Metasemiotic Analysis Matters
Without metasemiosis:
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We mistake the surface of language for the limit of possibility.
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We interpret construals as fixed, rather than contingent and relational.
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We cannot account for systemic innovation, semantic evolution, or the richness of alternative readings.
With metasemiosis:
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We see the grammar of language as a living set of potentials.
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We can trace how construals instantiate, recombine, and transform those potentials.
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We situate language within a wider relational ecology, where meaning, action, and world-making are inseparable.
Toward Post 5
In the next post, we will:
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Connect metasemiotic systems directly to contextualised construals,
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Show how second-order meaning emerges from the interplay of instance and potential,
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Begin to articulate how relational ontology reframes SFL’s view of context, register, and choice.
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