Applying a Relational Ontology to SFL: 1 The Stratified Semiotic Universe: Canonical Ground and Ontological Commitments

To apply a relational ontology to SFL, we must begin with the architecture of SFL exactly as Halliday built it—no reinterpretation, no revision. Only once the strata, relations, and metafunctional commitments are fixed can we introduce an ontological reframing.

This post therefore has two tasks:

1. To restate the canonical SFL architecture in its cleanest form.

2. To introduce the relational ontology only at the level of metaphysical interpretation, never structural revision.

Everything that follows in the series rests on the clarity established here.

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1. The Canonical Architecture of SFL

Halliday’s model is a stratified semiotic architecture.

The strata are:

• Context → the culture as a semiotic system

• Semantics → the meaning potential of language

• Lexicogrammar → the wording potential

• Phonology/Graphology → the expression potential

These strata are related by realisation.

Realisation means:

A meaning at a higher stratum is realised as a meaning at the next lower stratum.

It is neither instantiation nor derivation nor translation.

It is the relation by which semantics realises the contextual meaning-potential, and lexicogrammar realises the semantic meaning-potential.

Nothing in this architecture is optional.

Nothing crosses strata except realisation.

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2. Context as a Semiotic System

Halliday’s formulation is unambiguous:

• Context = the semiotic potential of culture.

• Situation = an instance of that contextual potential.

This means:

• Context is not the physical or social environment.

• Context is not the situation.

• Context is not a bag of features of events.

• Context is not a sociological domain.

Context is a semiotic system.

The situation is the instance of that system.

This is the first crucial cut.

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3. Instantiation: The Token–Type Relation Within Each Stratum

Instantiation is the relation by which:

• Texts instantiate the semantic potential of language,
  not context.

• Situations instantiate the contextual potential of culture,
  not language.

Instantiation is never cross-stratal.

It is the relation between:

• Potential (type)
  and

• Instance (token)

inside a single stratum.

For context:

culture ↔ situation

For language:

semantic potential ↔ text

This distinction is non-negotiable.

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4. Realisation: The Cross-Stratal Relation

Realisation is the relation between strata.

• Semantics realises context.

• Lexicogrammar realises semantics.

• Phonology realises lexicogrammar.

Realisation is not instantiation.

Realisation is not actualisation.

Realisation is a relation of semiotic dependency: the value of a higher-stratal meaning is specified by its realisation at the lower stratum.

This is the second crucial cut.

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5. Where the Relational Ontology Enters (Without Altering Anything)

Up to this point nothing metaphysical has been claimed.

We now introduce the relational ontology—not to revise the architecture but to explain its metaphysics with greater precision.

The ontology contributes four key insights:

(a) System = structured potential as theory of the instance

A system is not a warehouse of options.

It is not temporally prior.

It is a perspectival construal: a theoretical organisation of what the instance affords.

(b) Instance = perspectival actualisation

The instance is not the product of a system.

It is not drawn from a store of features.

It is a perspectival actualisation: an event that can be seen as an instance of a potential.

(c) Construal is constitutive

There is no unconstrued situation.

Context is a construal of the cultural meaning potential; semantics is a construal of contextual meaning; and so on.

(d) Phenomenon / Metaphenomenon / Theory

• Phenomenon = first-order construed meaning (instance)

• Metaphenomenon = second-order construed meaning (analysed instance)

• System = theory of possible instances

This creates a coherent ontology of strata, instantiation, and realisation.

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6. What This Post Secures

With the canonical structure on one side and the relational ontology on the other, we now have:

1. A precise, uncontaminated SFL architecture

2. A metaphysical interpretation that:

   • preserves every canonical distinction

   • eliminates representational drift

   • blocks non-canonical cross-stratal instantiation

   • reframes system/instance as perspectival

   • grounds context as semiotic potential

   • maintains register as linguistic (not contextual)

This is the ground on which every subsequent post will build.

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7. Next Post

Post 2 will recut instantiation, showing how the relational ontology repairs long-standing misunderstandings in both the system/instance relation and the cline of instantiation—while remaining completely faithful to Halliday’s architecture.