Relational Systems: A New Foundation for Linguistics: 3 Field Systems as Context

Rebuilding context ↔ semantics relations as field-level constraints and flows

Up to now, we’ve reframed:

1. Construal as the relational cut, the perspectival differentiation that brings a horizon into being.

2. Semantics as horizon metabolism, the physiological dynamics that sustain meaning as a living system.

We now take the next necessary step:

If semantics is a metabolism, what environment does it live in?

Halliday’s answer was context, organised metafunctionally into Field, Tenor, Mode.

Under a relational ontology, we can now build a more formal account:

Context is not a container.

Context is a system of forces — a field — that constrains and regulates the metabolic viability of horizons.

This post reconstructs Field, Tenor, and Mode as field dynamics, giving them explicit energetic and ecological status.

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1. Why Context Cannot Be a “Situation” Anymore

Traditional SFL often describes context as:

• the “situation type”

• the “social context”

• the extra-linguistic frame

Yet nothing about this has ever been formally specified.

Context risks being an amorphous surround, not a systemic component.

The problem in representational linguistics:

context is external.

The problem in functional linguistics:

context is representationally linked to language, but still external.

The relational alternative:

Context is internal to semiosis — it is the field of forces in which horizons metabolise.

We no longer treat context as “environment of language”.

Instead:

language is a metabolic organ within a larger field ecology.

This shift enables us to formalise context without idealising it.

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2. Field Dynamics: Context as Constraint and Flow

In relational terms, a field is not a category; it is:

• a structured distribution of forces

• that constrains possible horizon forms

• regulates their metabolic pathways

• and shapes the viability of interpretations

This definition unifies all of the Hallidayan contextual apparatus.

Field = constraints on experiential metabolism

Tenor = constraints on interpersonal metabolism

Mode = constraints on textual metabolism

Each metafunction emerges as the expression of field-specific energetic conditions.

There is no external context.

There are only fields of force.

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3. Field Reinterpreted: Constraints on What Can Be Differentiated

Traditionally:

Field = “what’s going on”.

Relationally:

Field = the set of constraints that delimit viable experiential horizons.

A field selects:

• what can be construed

• which processes are metabolically supported

• what phenomena can survive horizon-formation

• what systemic networks are ecologically viable

Thus:

Field is not content.

Field is constraint.

It is the metabolic environment that determines what kinds of experiential differentiation can live here.

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4. Tenor Reinterpreted: Constraints on Energetic Tension

Traditionally:

Tenor = “who’s taking part” and “how they relate”.

Relationally:

Tenor = the distribution of interpersonal forces that regulate:

• commitment

• alignment

• antagonism

• solidarity

• obligation

• authority

• vulnerability

Tenor is the energetic topology that determines:

how much interpersonal tension a horizon can sustain before it collapses or mutates.

Different tenor fields → different viable interpersonal meanings.

Tenor ceases to be a sociological category;

it becomes a force distribution.

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5. Mode Reinterpreted: Constraints on Sequential Cohesion

Traditionally:

Mode = “role of language” or “channel”.

Relationally:

Mode = field dynamics of temporal and spatial cohesion.

Mode regulates:

• how horizons persist across time

• what sorts of textual flows are viable

• how cohesive ties metabolise

• how information waves propagate

• what temporal grain the field permits

Mode is the field constraint governing the stability of horizon-sequences.

This formalises Mode without reference to psychology or media theory.

It becomes the temporal ecology of semiosis.

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6. Context ↔ Semantics: A New Formal Relation

In classical SFL:

• context is realised in semantics

• semantics is realised in lexicogrammar

This is representational; it implies mapping.

In a relational ontology:

Context sets the field conditions;

Semantics is the metabolic activity within those conditions;

Lexicogrammar is the organ that materialises it.

That is:

• Context constrains

• Semantics metabolises

• Grammar materialises

The relation is not symbolic, not representational, not descriptive.

It is ecological.

This gives SFL a dynamical, formal backbone it has always gestured toward but never fully realised.

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7. Why This Matters

Recasting context as field systems:

1. Eliminates the externality problem

Context is no longer outside language; it is the wider semiotic field.

2. Makes context formal

Field = constraint

Not category, not label, not situational description.

3. Integrates the metafunctions ecologically

Each metafunction corresponds to a regulatory field dynamic.

4. Grounds register

Register becomes ecological adaptation (Post 5).

5. Sets up a formal ecology

Necessary for the final post on relational formalism.

This reconstructs context in a way that keeps Halliday’s architecture intact while resolving its long-standing ambiguities.