Slide 11: Theoretical Tool: Domains Of Experience

Here we see the four domains of experience as construed by the semantic system of figures [Figure 4-1 in Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 131)].  As Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 128) put it:

The system of figures construes experience as falling into four broadly conceived domains of goings-on: doing (including happening), sensing, saying and being (including having).

Of these four domains, figures of sensing (‘conscious processing’) and saying (‘symbolic processing’) are distinguished from figures of doing (‘impacting’) and being (‘relational ordering’) to the extent that they ‘have the special power of setting up other figures as second-order semiotic reality’ (Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 128).

Since it is figures of sensing and saying that are said to bring semiotic reality into existence, we will posit that these two domains of experience can be used to model the socio-semiotic dimension of human potential, leaving the two domains of doing and being to model the social dimension.