Meaning potential thus involves a web of different networks of metafunctional consistencies: different construals, different values, different foci of attention. Meaning-makers variously align (consistently or inconsistently
[1]) with different networks of consistency within the overall web of variant consistencies. Those who share a specific network of consistency potentially form a community of ‘like-minded’ individuals with a ‘common interest’: a community formed around a way of construing experience, a community formed around a way of valuing a construal, a community formed around a way of grading the relative importance of construals and values.
[2] Since each individual can align (consistently or inconsistently) with multiple networks, each can belong to multiple communities, “us”, and disassociate from multiple communities, “you” or “them”.
Footnotes:
[1] There is, of course, the question of consistency between what is said (semiotic behaviour) and what is done (non-semiotic behaviour).
[2] If each variant consistency is located along three dimensions: the ideational, interpersonal and textual, individuals that align with specific consistencies can be located at different points in the metafunctional space defined by those dimensions; communities correspond to clusters in that space.
ChatGPT revised:
Meaning Potential and Networks of Consistency
Meaning potential consists of a web of variant networks of metafunctional consistency — networks of different construals, different valuings, and different focalisations of attention. Meaning-makers align (to varying degrees of consistency or inconsistency1) with these networks, which together form the semiotic landscape of possible meaning.
Those who share alignment with a particular network of consistency form a potential community of like-minded individuals: individuals who share a common interest — a way of construing experience, a way of valuing those construals, a way of assigning salience among them.2 These communities are not fixed but contingent formations within the web of variation.
Because each individual may align — consistently or inconsistently — with multiple such networks, each may simultaneously belong to multiple ‘us’ communities and disaffiliate from multiple ‘you’ or ‘them’ communities. The web of meaning potential is not a stable map of identity but a shifting topology of alignment and disalignment across metafunctional dimensions.