In recent papers (e.g., 2020a, b, 2021, 2022a, b) Bateman explores his vision for multimodality as an empirical discipline. In doing so he draws on sociological studies of knowledge structure, including work by Bernstein (2000) and Maton (2011, 2014, 2016, Maton & Chen 2016, Maton & Howard 2016, Maton et al. 2016). As part of this projection he warns against falling foul of "various flavours and variations of Saussure's well-known proposal of language (or any other system) as a 'master template' for semiotics as such" (Bateman 2022: 47) and what he calls 'linguistic imperialism' (Bateman 2022b: 63). In addition he notes that 'predatory' interdisciplinarity "will be rejected from the start" (Bateman 2021: 308).Read in tandem with Kress's many declarations of a new age of meaning making called 'Multimodality' (e.g., Kress 2003Kress, 2010Kress, 2015)), superseding language and the discipline of linguistics, serious questions have to be raised about work on multimodality informed by a theory of language such as Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) -work evolving into something we might call Systemic Functional Semiotics (SFS) via publications such as Kress & van Leeuwen's Reading Images (1990 and Accordingly in this paper I will draw on the sociological studies referred to above to explore the nature of SFL and SFS as knowledge structures, compare them with the model of empirical multimodality envisioned by Bateman and make some suggestions about how his ambitions for the field might be most effectively accommodated. I write as an SFL linguist (discourse analyst in particular), who has been drawn into work on multimodality by research students and colleagues over the past two and a half decades. As such, given the misgivings about the contribution of linguistics noted above, I should perhaps request readers' indulgence -as I suggest that an SFL/SFS perspective need not be read as the foul and predatory one that some of the more logophobic multimodalists apparently fear.In discussions of this kind it is important to distinguish multimodality as a field of research and multimodality as its object of study. Multimodalists (like psychologists) unfortunately tend to use the same term for both phenomena (cf., language and linguistics for linguists). Where confusion might arise I will refer to the field of research as Multimodal Studies below.By way of framing the discussion let's begin with Bernstein's (1996: 23) distinction between singulars and regions. For Bernstein a singular is "a discourse which has appropriated a space to give itself a unique name", for example, "physics, chemistry, sociology, psychology" and which "created the field of the production of knowledge". These he contrasts with regions, "a recontextualising of singulars", for example, "medicine, architecture, engineering, information science", noting that "any regionalisation of knowledge implies a recontextualising principle: which singulars are to be selected, what knowledge within the singular is to be introduced and related." Importantly he goes on to comment that "regions are the interface between the field of the production of knowledge and any field of practice." Had Bernstein's vision extended into the 21st century, he might well have added multimodality as an emerging region to his list, with media and communications as its field of practice.Seen in these terms SFL is a canonical singular (Martin 2014(Martin, 2016) ) and contrasts with its regionalisation in the Sydney School's well-known genre-based literacy programs (Rose & Martin 2012) -which tend to draw on a range of relevant singulars (including for example Bernstein and Maton's sociology of knowledge, neo/Vygotskyan social psychology and strands of Critical Discourse Analysis). One possible reading of Bateman's vision would entail, via design and/or evolution, the transformation of Multimodal Studies into a singularwith its own distinctive knowledge structure deploying an empirical methodology grounding theory and description.Bernstein's perspective is further elaborated in the distinction he draws between horizontal and vertical discourse (an opposition between what he earlier on referred to as common and uncommon sense). A horizontal discourse involves "a set of strategies which are local, segmentally organised, context specific and dependent, for maximising encounters with persons and habitats....This form has a group of well-known features: it is likely to be oral, local, context dependent and specific, tacit, multi-layered and contradictory across but not within contexts" (Bernstein 2000: 157). A vertical discourse on the other hand "takes the form of a coherent, explicit and systematically principled structure, hierarchically organised as in the sciences, or it takes the form of a series of specialised languages with specialised modes of interrogation and specialised criteria for the production and circulation of texts as in the social sciences and humanities" (Bernstein 2000: 157).In addition two forms of vertical discourse are distinguished -hierarchical knowledge structures vs horizontal ones. A hierarchical knowledge structure is "a coherent, explicit and systematically principled structure, hierarchically organised" which "attempts to create very general propositions and theories, which integrate knowledge at lower levels, and in this way shows underlying uniformities across an expanding range of apparently different phenomena" (Bernstein 1999: 161-162) -e.g., physics, chemistry or biology. A horizontal knowledge structure on the other hand is defined as "a series of specialised languages with specialised modes of interrogation and criteria for the construction and circulation of texts" (Bernstein 1999: 162) -e.g., linguistic theories which position themselves as functional, arguably West Coast Functionalism, Lexical Functional Grammar, Functional Grammar, Discourse Functional Grammar, Role and Reference Grammar or Systemic Functional Linguistics. Bernstein uses a triangle to symbolise hierarchical knowledge structures, since they attempt to create ever more general propositions which account for an expanding range of phenomena (e.g., Newtonian physics, superseded by Einstein's relativity, superseded by string theory and so on). Horizontal knowledge structures on the other hand are visualised by succession of 'Ls' since what counts as development is the introduction of a new perspective, typically by junior speakers who challenge the power and legitimacy of more senior ones (e.g., marxist history, feminist history, post-colonial history and so on). A synoptic overview of these distinctions is offered in Figure 1.Figure 1: Discourse and knowledge structure (after Bernstein 1999Bernstein, 2000) ) As exemplified above, in Bernstein's terms SFL is a canonical member of a horizontal knowledge structure comprising many different theories. Bateman's vision for Multimodal Studies is perhaps a more ambitious one, leaning towards the design and evolution of a hierarchical knowledge structure. This is a trajectory that linguistic theories have embraced, without success, since the modern discipline was founded by Saussure (1916). Wignell (2007a, b) examines the history of social science, focusing on the emergence of economics, political economy and sociology as "a hybrid of the language of the physical sciences and the language of the humanities" (Wignell 2007a: 202) -suggesting that the stronger the boundaries around one of these disciplines, the more it will evolve the characteristics of a hierarchical knowledge structure. In his 2004 conference presentation of Wignell (2007a) he in fact refers to social science knowledge structures as 'warring triangles', since they in general aspire to be recognised as hierarchical knowledge structures (viz linguists' claims for their discipline as the 'science of language'). What happens in practice however is that one or another linguistic theory gains institutional rather than intellectual control of the discipline, for a specific period of time, in a specific place (e.g., Chomskyan linguistics' supremacist control of American linguistics and its intellectual dominions in the 1960s, waning not long thereafter). Seen in these terms, Bateman's vision involves strengthening boundaries around what counts as empirical Multimodal Studies, thereby fostering its development as a hierarchical knowledge structure -occluding more 'weakly bounded' competing triangles as it does so and enjoying globalised longevity. Bernstein (2000: 132-134) probes more deeply into the characteristics of hierarchical and horizontal knowledge structures in his recognition of internal and external languages of description (which he labels L 1 and L 2 respectively). L 1 "refers to the syntax whereby a conceptual language is created" or how constituent concepts of a theory are interrelated; and L 2 "refers to the syntax whereby the internal language can describe something other than itself " (2000: or how a concepts are to structures with a internal 1 ) have concepts that are interrelated; in hierarchical knowledge structures this the of a external 2 ) whereby concepts are to in these focusing on how knowledge structures the term to on how internal ever more general propositions for a range of or the addition of new languages of description he the term L 1 L 2 L L to on how knowledge structures about a set of or via of a set of that are to of these is as Figure including a of canonical knowledge structures a knowledge structure Seen in these terms Bateman's ambitions for Multimodal Studies strengthening internal and external of description so that the field can via what refers to as on As as as is Bateman draws to Maton & discussion and of languages of description and external ones and L 2 respectively). languages are to be more general and specific than external In for example, languages what are referred to as and general such as or as such as or These a linguist the description of the of a language with into a more specific description of the to What as L 1, L and L 2 is itself a over time, as L and are to L 1 or L 1 concepts are to L language (or perhaps to L 2 external more on this we the evolution of SFS from SFL itself a of different languages of as in the and & et al. we will the model by Martin and his colleagues and his colleagues, and his colleagues, which is the one that has most Bateman (e.g., (e.g.,, (e.g.,, Saussure it language as a of (e.g., it takes the of and as it this over structure (e.g., This language in external which in of in structure. internal has to the of of of and of has the as in in to the of the the or meaning and of or structure and the of and discourse A synoptic overview of these Martin is in Figure an to both and are with and for 2 an perspective, for some languages is need to distinguish and is structure of more than one make for this at the of the in Figure this I will which on the form vs As in Martin et al. the of SFL at Saussure and in language as form not This that is not as a of language in its own it is a region in Bernstein's terms with such as recognition or on and deploying a set of internal and external very different to by linguistics in This is not to the of and to one another students are in but to the very different knowledge structures in the description of form as to structure and As as the description of is SFL does not its description to what called or of of or In to SFL is by of and (e.g., distinction between and in can be to this the perspective of make a distinction between and of group can be by the same a distinction can be by the in the relevant is or are are not very Accordingly the same is different structures, as in and SFL in other are not a of they structures on of in to the at This for example in to an SFS description of that an information can be set by the structure without making the that in fact this are extended from Kress & van in Figure of the is it is an the is selected, the and are in the by to the and to the This claims about it ones as a structure by a in that this is perhaps a reading of Kress Leeuwen's account of information structure in but is that SFS need not foul of their This to the of need to be set to the for structures in a given for example to and to ones. 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