Cuts and Currents: 5 Realisation vs Process

Whitehead tempts us to perceive the world as ceaseless flow: events begetting events, becoming as ontological fact. Language, too, seems to ripple with this same irresistible dynamism. Yet to understand systemic functional linguistics rigorously, we must hold a careful distinction: realisation is not process; it is stratificational. The seductive river of becoming cannot replace the vertical scaffolding of strata.

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1. Realisation: the stratificational axis

In relational semiotics:

• Realisation is the asymmetrical relation between strata: higher strata are construed by, and realised in, lower strata.

• Context (field, tenor, mode) is realised by semantics.

• Semantics is realised by lexicogrammar.

• Lexicogrammar is realised by phonology/graphology.

Key principles:

1. Directional: higher → lower

2. Relational: lower actualises higher

3. Non-temporal: relations exist within the cut of any instance, not across time

Realisation is structural discipline, not temporal unfolding. It ensures that meaning is coherently mapped across strata, stabilising the instance against the seductive chaos of process.

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2. Whiteheadian process and its limits

Whitehead’s ontology emphasises:

• Primacy of actual occasions (events)

• Ontological becoming as fundamental

• Temporal succession as constitutive

Applied to language, this approach highlights dynamism:

• The unfolding of logogenesis

• The emergence of patterned interactions

• The visceral perception of shifting meaning

But here is the limit: process philosophy does not preserve stratification. Whitehead has no vertical hierarchy analogous to context → semantics → lexicogrammar. Without stratification:

• Directional asymmetry vanishes

• Interstratal dependencies dissolve

• Metafunctional organisation cannot be accounted for

Process alone enriches the sensation of language but cannot discipline its structure.

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3. The dialectical insight

Here lies the double-edged insight:

1. Enrichment: Whiteheadian process sharpens our experience of logogenesis. The text feels alive, emergent, dynamic — the river of meaning flows.

2. Limitation: Without stratification, dynamism becomes chaotic. Relations between context, semantics, and lexicogrammar lose coherence; relational cuts flatten into temporal sequence.

Relational ontology frames process:

• Instantiation remains perspectival, not ontological.

• Realisation preserves directional, stratificational asymmetry.

• Logogenesis retains temporal unfolding without collapsing into being.

Thus, Whitehead informs our experience of language; Halliday preserves its architecture.

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4. A Synthesis

We can now articulate a principle:

Process enriches the lived experience of language; relational stratification preserves its formal coherence.

Dynamic unfolding (Whitehead) is felt; perspectival cuts (Halliday) are known. One illuminates sensation; the other enforces discipline. Together, they produce insight without conflation.

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5. Preparing for the Finale

Having explored:

• Event vs instance

• Eternal objects vs systemic potential

• Realisation vs process

…we are poised for the final mythic interlude. Liora will step outside the currents and lattices, reflect upon the cuts themselves, and demonstrate how relational semiotics reframes process: logogenesis may feel Whiteheadian, but instantiation remains perspectival.

The reader will witness the full interplay of enrichment and restraint, experience and discipline, possibility and actualisation — the heart of this series.