Dialogue I: “All Strata Make Meaning”

The scene is a quiet seminar room late in the afternoon. Books are stacked in tidy, slightly anxious piles. Professor Quillibrace sits at the table with a notebook. Miss Elowen Stray stands by the window, half-listening. Mr Blottisham paces, energised.

Mr Blottisham (briskly):

I really don’t see why people keep making such a fuss about this. Semantics, discourse semantics, lexicogrammar, phonology — they all make meaning. That’s the whole point of SFL, surely.

Professor Quillibrace (without looking up):

They certainly all participate in semogenesis.

Blottisham (turning sharply):

Exactly.

Quillibrace:

But that is not yet stratification.

(A pause. Blottisham frowns, as if something pedantic has just been said.)

Blottisham:

You’re drawing distinctions without a difference. Meaning is meaning. Why complicate it?

Miss Stray (tentatively):

Professor — when you say stratification, you mean… different kinds of meaning?

Quillibrace (gently):

Not different kinds of meaning. Different kinds of symbolic abstraction.

Blottisham (impatient):

Abstraction, meaning — these are academic niceties. What matters is that all these levels contribute to meaning-making.

Quillibrace:

They contribute, yes. But they do not do the same kind of work.

Blottisham (laughing shortly):

Work is work. Phonology makes meaning audible. Grammar makes it structured. Semantics makes it interpretable. It’s all part of the same system.

Quillibrace (looking up now):

Mr Blottisham — what kind of relation do you think holds between these strata?

Blottisham:

Interaction, obviously. They work together.

Miss Stray (hesitantly):

But isn’t realisation… directional?

Blottisham (waving a hand):

That’s just a technicality. Everything realises meaning.

Quillibrace (calmly):

Realises what, Mr Blottisham?

(Another pause. Longer this time.)

Blottisham:

Meaning.

Quillibrace:

Then nothing is realised.

Miss Stray (quietly):

Because if everything realises the same thing, the relation explains nothing.

Quillibrace (smiling faintly):

Exactly so.

Blottisham (defensive):

You’re over-theorising. Halliday himself says all strata make meaning.

Quillibrace:

He says all strata participate in meaning-making. He does not say they are all strata of meaning.

Miss Stray:

So semogenesis is about how meaning unfolds — but stratification is about how symbolic abstraction is organised?

Quillibrace:

Very well put.

Blottisham (irritated):

This feels like scholastic hair-splitting. Analysts work perfectly well without worrying about these distinctions.

Quillibrace:

They work — but they do not always know what is doing the work.

(Silence. Miss Stray looks from one to the other.)

Miss Stray:

If we treat strata as interacting modules, rather than levels of abstraction… then calling something a new stratum doesn’t require showing what kind of abstraction it adds.

Quillibrace (nodding):

It only requires giving it a name.

Blottisham (with renewed confidence):

Exactly. And that’s how theory moves forward.

Quillibrace (mildly):

Or sideways.

The light in the room has shifted. Miss Stray remains thoughtful. Mr Blottisham resumes pacing, satisfied. Professor Quillibrace closes his notebook.