Slide 24: Sociogenic Processes: The Three Social Histories Related

This involves relating the instantiation of social potential to the development of social potential in the individual.  Here we see Halliday & Matthiessen’s (1999: 18) three related histories of semogenic processes — phylogenesis, ontogenesis and logogenesis —adapted to what might be called ‘sociogenic processes’.

On this model, the unfolding instantiation of social potential in the situation provides material for the development of social potential in the biological individual, which provides material for the evolution of social potential in the species.

And, contrariwise, the evolution of social potential in the species provides the environment for the development of social potential in the biological individual, which provides the environment for the unfolding instantiation of social potential in the situation.

So, to be more specific: the various instances of social potential, doing and being, that a biological individual participates in provide material for the development of social potential that is specific to that individual: an individuated social potential.  It follows, then, that for every biological individual, there is an individuated cline of social instantiation …