Something that is projected as a meaning is still a phenomenon of language – it is what was referred to above as a ʻmetaphenomenonʼ; but it is presented at a different level – semantic, not lexicogrammatical. When something is projected as a meaning it has already been ʻprocessedʼ by the linguistic system; but processed only once, not twice as in the case of a wording. So for example the phenomenon of water falling out of the sky may be coded as a meaning, by a mental process of cognition, in ('she thought) it was raining'; but when the same phenomenon is represented by a verbal process, as in ('she said:) “ 'it’s raining' ”, it is the 'meaning' ʻit is rainingʼ that has been recoded to become a wording. A wording is, as it were, twice cooked.
- Halliday (1985), a pag.230