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Textual Semovergent Paralanguage

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 38, 233):

From a textual perspective³² we need to take into account how spoken language introduces entities and keeps track of them once there (IDENTIFICATION) and how it composes waves of information in tone groups, clauses and beyond (PERIODICITY). Semovergent paralanguage potentially supports these resources with pointing gestures and whole body movement and position.

³² Martinec (1998) interprets textual meaning as realised through cohesion, following Halliday and Hasan (1976); as introduced earlier for this monograph we follow Martin (1992) who reinterprets cohesion as discourse semantics (Martin, 2014), organised metafunctionally in Martin and Rose ([2003] 2007) as ideational resources (IDEATION, CONNEXION), interpersonal resources (NEGOTIATION, APPRAISAL) and textual resources (IDENTIFICATION, PERIODICITY).

Blogger Comments:

This is recycled almost verbatim from Martin & Zappavigna (2019). Here are the comments from the review of Martin & Zappavigna (2019): Textual Semovergent Paralanguage.

[1] To be clear, despite this claim, it will be seen that the authors provide no instances of semovergent paralanguage in this paper that either introduce entities or keep track of them.

Moreover, IDENTIFICATION is Martin's rebranding of Halliday and Hasan's (1976) grammatical cohesive systems of REFERENCE and ELLIPSIS-&-SUBSTITUTION, misunderstood, confused with ideational denotation and the interpersonal DEIXIS of nominal group structure, and relocated to discourse semantics; evidence here.

[2] To be clear, on the one hand, this confuses content (information) with expression (tone group), following Martin (1992: 384).  On the other hand, on Cléirigh's original model, any aspect of body language that highlights the focus of New information, or delineates a unit of information, functions as linguistic body language ("sonovergent" paralanguage), not epilinguistic body language ("semovergent" paralanguage).

[3] To be clear, PERIODICITY is Martin and Rose's (2003, 2007) reinterpretation of what Martin (1992: 393) models as interstratal interaction patterns as a textual systems of Martin's discourse semantic stratum.  However, Martin's model misrepresents writing pedagogy as linguistic theory, such that:

• introductory paragraph is rebranded as macro-Theme,
• topic sentence is rebranded as hyper-Theme,
• paragraph summary is rebranded as hyper-New, and
• text summary is rebranded as macro-New.

It will be seen that, unsurprisingly, the authors provide no instances of semovergent paralanguage in this paper that 'compose waves of information', let alone gestural realisations of introductory paragraphs, topic sentences, paragraph summaries or text summaries.

[4] To be clear, here Martin and his former student follow Martin (1992) in rebranding misunderstandings Halliday & Hasan's (1976) non-structural textual systems of lexicogrammar as structural discourse semantic systems across three metafunctions.

[5] To be clear, IDEATION is Martin's rebranding of Halliday and Hasan's (1976) textual system of LEXICAL COHESION, misunderstood, confused with logical relations between experiential elements of nominal group structure, also misunderstood, and relocated to discourse semantics as an experiential system; evidence here.

[6] To be clear, CONNEXION does not feature in Martin and Rose (2007), or in Martin (1992). The term 'CONNEXION' is a rebranding of Martin's CONJUNCTION by Martin's former student, Hao. CONJUNCTION is Martin's misunderstanding of Halliday and Hasan's (1976) textual lexicogrammatical system of cohesive conjunction as a logical system at the level of discourse semantics.  Moreover, it confuses non-structural textual relations with structural logical relations, and misunderstands and misapplies the expansion relations involved; evidence here.

That is to say, CONJUNCTION was the only one of Halliday and Hasan's cohesive systems that Martin neglected to rebrand as his own system, and this oversight was finally addressed by his former student.

[7] To be clear, NEGOTIATION is Martin's (1992) rebranding of Halliday's SPEECH FUNCTION.

Voice Quality

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 38):

Voice quality was noted in Section 1.5.1 in relation to the sing/song pitch (high then low) movement the vlogger uses in her last four tone groups to close down her hair dye narrative. From the perspective of APPRAISAL the sound quality resonates with her feeling that she is resigned to her current hair colour, at least for now. Work on this interpersonal aural dimension of paralanguage, drawing on van Leeuwen (1999), will be further explored in Chapter 5.

Blogger Comments:

This is recycled almost verbatim from Martin & Zappavigna (2019). Here are the comments from the review of Martin & Zappavigna (2019): Mistaking Language (Intonation) For Paralanguage (Voice Quality).

[1] Here the authors mistake prosodic features (the TONE sequence 3^13^3^1–) for a paralinguistic feature ("sing/song" voice quality).  Halliday (1985: 30-1) explains the difference as follows:

 

Moreover, if what the authors regard as "sing/song" pitch:

//3 hopefully / next ↑time I will 
//1 get my / ↓hair colour / back 
//3 um / but for / ↑now 
//3 this will / ↓do //

is compared with an accurate phonological analysis:

//3 hopefully / next time I will
//13 get my / hair colour / back
//3 um /but for / now 
//1- this will / do //

It can be seen that:

• the first ↑ corresponds to the low-rising pitch of tone 3,
• the first ↓ corresponds to the falling pitch of tone 1,
• the second ↑ corresponds to the low-rising pitch of tone 3, and
• the second ↓ corresponds to the narrow falling pitch of tone 1–

[2] To be clear, it is only the final TONE selection, tone 1–, that coincides with the APPRAISAL that the authors interpret as 'resignation' (this will do).  In SFL theory, the selection of tone 1– with declarative MOOD realises the KEY features 'mild or expected'.  Halliday (1970: 31):

Meaning of secondary tones In some cases the difference between a pair, or set, of secondary tones is mainly a matter of 'key', the degree of forcefulness or emotional intensity of the utterance. …

1. (medium), neutral; 1+ (wide), strong or unexpected; 1– (narrow), mild or expected.

On this basis, what the authors regard as voice quality "resonating" with 'resignation' is, in the authors' terms — though unknown to them — actually an instance of a secondary tone realising a feature of GRADUATION.

Engagement

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 37-8):

Turning to ENGAGEMENT, Hao and Hood (2019) note the significance of hand position as far as supporting the expansion and contraction of heteroglossia is concerned – with supine hands opening up dialogism and prone hands closing it down. In the following example the vlogger’s supine hands converge with the modalisation probably, reinforcing acknowledgement of the viewer’s voice:

 

Two moves later the hands flip over to prone position in support of the negative move shutting down the expectation that the vlogger was in control of the new colour of her hair.

 Blogger Comments:

This is recycled verbatim from Martin & Zappavigna (2019). Here are the comments from the review of Martin & Zappavigna (2019): The Semovergent Paralanguage Of ENGAGEMENT.

[1] This is misleading; the speaker's handshape does not "converge" with modalisation probably. To be clear, the speaker's handshape is timed with the tonic hair.  The timing of the gesture thus instantiates textual linguistic body language ("sonovergent" paralanguage), highlighting hair as the focus of New information.  On this basis, the handshape instantiates ideational epilinguistic body language ("semovergent" paralanguage), realising hair.

In this first instance, the authors have again tried to make the data fit their theory, instead of using the data as a resource for theorising.

[2] This is misleading; the speaker's hands are not in a prone position — lying flat, palm downwards — in this instance.  Instead, each hand has the tips of the thumb and curved forefinger touching to form a horizontal circle, with the other fingers below them and similarly curved.  This handshape is consistent with holding an object, such as a bottle of hair dye, which would be an instance of ideational epilinguistic body language ("semovergent" paralanguage).

In this second instance, the authors have again tried to make the data fit their theory, instead of using the data as a resource for theorising.

As in the first instance above, the gestures also realise the meanings of linguistic body language ("sonovergent" paralanguage).  In terms of the textual metafunction, both hands beat down on the salient syllables not and find, highlighting both Finite and Predicator, and then on the tonic hair, marking  the Complement hair dye as the focus of New information.  In terms of the interpersonal metafunction, both hands stay level for the tonic segment (hair dye that I), in line with the level/low-rising tone choice (tone 3).  (Note that this tone group is incorrectly analysed as tone 4 by Smith, which, with declarative MOOD, would realise the KEY meaning 'reservation'.)

Lastly, the reader may also want to consider why the speaker would need to shut down the possibility of other points of view on the proposition I could not find the hair dye that I bought previously when I dyed my hair.

De-centring Postures To Soften Focus

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 36-7):

Hao and Hood (2019) draw attention to the use of what they call de-centring postures to soften focus, using the example of a shoulder shrug converging with fairly non-contractile in a biology lecture. The paralinguistic generalisation here would appear to be loss of equilibrium, for example, asymmetrical facial expression, out-of-kilter posture or a rotating prone hand (interpretable as between prone and supine). Clear examples in our data are the faces the vlogger pulls as she struggles to name her skin condition in the second tone group, the second of which is accompanied by two shakes of her head.

(83) //4 anyway, it was
(84) //3 some / granu- / loma:: / ^ [out-breath] / something
(85) //1_ I don’t know – it’s / called – it’s / some sort of / skin thing. //

Blogger Comments:

This is recycled verbatim from Martin & Zappavigna (2019). Here are the comments from the review of Martin & Zappavigna (2019): De-Centring Postures To Soften Focus (Hao and Hood).

[1] To be clear, FOCUS is a system of GRADUATION in the system of APPRAISAL.  However, fairly non-contractile is not an appraisal (of muscles), since no assessment is made of them in terms of AFFECT, APPRECIATION or JUDGEMENT.  Since there is no appraisal, there is no graduation of appraisal, and since there is no graduation of appraisal, there is no focusing of appraisal, and since there is no focusing of appraisal, there is no softening of the focus of appraisal.

Here Hao and Hood have made the same fundamental error as Martin, confusing intensification, in general, with intensification in the APPRAISAL system.  This is hardly surprising, given that Hao is Martin's former student and Hood is Martin's current de facto.

Further, the characterisation of a shoulder shrug as 'de-centring' misrepresents the bodily movement in order to align it with the meaning 'soften focus'; in other words, the data is being made to fit the theory, instead of the reverse.

Moreover, the characterisation of a shoulder shrug as meaning 'soften focus' is at odds with its interpretation by the general community.  For example, the (epilinguistic) pictorial representation of a shoulder shrug has been decoded as follows:

The person shrugging emoji can designate ignorance, indifference, self-acceptance, passive-aggression, annoyance, giving up, or not knowing what to make of something. It could also be a visual form of the one-word response of indifference, “whatever.”

[2] To be clear, here the authors have generalised 'loss of equilibrium realises softening of focus' from a gesture (shrug) which doesn't constitute a loss of equilibrium and which doesn't realise a softening of the focus of an appraisal.

[3] To be clear, here the authors propose, without supporting argument, that a rotating hand, balanced between prone and supine in orientation, constitutes a loss of equilibrium.

[4] To be clear, naming a skin condition does not constitute an appraisal, and so there is no graduation of appraisal in this instance to be softened.

In Cléirigh's original model of epilinguistic body language, any postures and gestures that signify uncertainty — the speaker's next words were "I don't know what it's called — are realisations of MODALITY: MODALISATION: probability.  

Moreover, in this example, the speaker's face instantiates linguistic body language ("sonovergent" paralanguage), with her eyebrows rising with the pitch (tone 2) on the tonic something, signifying the general meaning of tone 2: 'polarity unknown'.

Graduation: Focus

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 36):

Alongside paralanguage of this kind converging with force, Hood (2011) notes the potential for precise hand shapes and muscle tension to resonate with focus. In the following example, introduced as (67) and repeated below as (67''), the vlogger tightens her grip on the tiny virtual needle she is holding and frowns slightly in concentration as she role-plays the precision involved in the dermatologist piercing her bumps:

 Blogger Comments:

This is recycled verbatim from Martin & Zappavigna (2019). Here are the comments from the review of Martin & Zappavigna (2019): Paralanguage "Resonating With" GRADUATION: FOCUS.

To be clear, FOCUS is a system of GRADUATION, which is concerned with the intensification of ATTITUDE in the interpersonal system of APPRAISAL.  Here, as the instance of language makes clear, no interpersonal assessment is being enacted, in terms of AFFECT, APPRECIATION, or JUDGEMENT, and so there is nothing to graduate in terms of FOCUS.

Moreover, in this instance, the authors have simply confused the focus of attention ('concentration') of the speaker with FOCUS as a system of APPRAISAL.

Graduation: Force

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 35-6):

The most striking example of intensification in the hair colour phase occurs when the vlogger uses whole body language to enact her reaction to how dark her hair is. She throws her head back and leans back as her arms rise up – literally overwhelmed with emotion (82).

Blogger Comments:

This is recycled almost verbatim from Martin & Zappavigna (2019). Here are the comments from the review of Martin & Zappavigna (2019): Paralanguage "Converging With" GRADUATION: FORCE.

[1] To be clear, it is not that the whole body expresses the same meaning in this instance, but that the authors have not analysed the different meanings being made by the various gestures and postures, including the shift of gaze.

[2] To be clear, the intensification in this instance is of the Quality dark, which is ideational in function, and quite distinct from the speaker's hatred of the Quality, which is construed by the following clause.  That is, the intensification is a feature of the assessed, not of the assessing (e.g. I really hate it).   This is demonstrated by the fact that the arm gesture beats on the tonic so, the intensifier of dark.

In terms of Cléirigh's original model, the beating of the gesture on the tonic is linguistic body language ("sonovergent" paralanguage), highlighting so as the focus of contrastively New information, whereas any aspects of the body language expressing conscious states are instantiations of paralinguistic body language.  That is, contrary to the authors' claim, no aspects of this instance of body language can be identified as epilinguistic ("semovergent").

[3] The claim that this gestural configuration expresses 'being overwhelmed by the emotion of hate' — literally or figuratively — requires considerable justification, none of which is given.

[4] To be clear, [82] displays an (incomplete and) incorrect phonological analysis — the tonic  actually falls on so, not dark, the initial foot is omitted, and the pronoun I begins the following tone group (after a silent Ictus):

//1+ and it's / so dark //

Graduation

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 35):

Turning to GRADUATION, as noted by Hood (2011) the size of hand shapes and the range of hand/arm motion can be used to support graded language. In (81) the sweeping extent of the hand/arm motion resonates with the large quantity of hair dye in stock (whole stack).

Blogger Comments:

This is recycled verbatim from Martin & Zappavigna (2019). Here are the comments from the review of Martin & Zappavigna (2019): Mistaking Ideational Intensification For Interpersonal Intensification (Graduation).

[1] To be clear, here the authors confuse the general notion of intensification with a specific type of intensification: the graduation of attitude.  In this instance of language, there is no graduation of attitude because there is no attitude being expressed.  This is because attitude is a system of interpersonal assessment  and here no interpersonal assessment is being made.  That is, the extending post-Deictic whole does not assess the Thing stack by reference to positive or negative values of emotion, ethics or æsthetics, for example.

On the other hand, the speaker's positive evaluation of the re-stocking of her favourite hair dye is instantiated protolinguistically, with the emotion expressed through facial expressions.

[2] Here again the word 'support' demonstrates that the authors are concerned with matching body language expressions with language content, instead of body language content — a confusion which leads them to falsely conclude (p28) that paralanguage is a system of the expression plane only, which realises the content of language, alongside phonology and graphology.

[3] To be clear, this iconic gesture is epilinguistic ("semovergent"), but it realises ideational meaning, a Quality of the stack, not an interpersonal assessment.  So, in the authors' terms, it "concurs" with the "verbiage", rather than "resonating" with it.

Combined Face And Body Commitment Of Affect

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 35):

A good example of a combined face and body commitment of affect in the vlog we are drawing our examples from comes as the vlogger is complaining about being hassled for her parking spot before she is ready to leave. The relevant tone groups are presented here, and we will return to this example in our discussion of mime in Chapter 7 (for a complete phonological analysis of this phase of the vlog, see Appendix B6). At this point we are simply interested in the way the vlogger’s facial expression and arm position are used to express the hassler’s exasperation (79).

(76) //3 some / guy was
(77) //3 sitting there and there was
(78) //3 cars be- / hind him and he was like
(79) // [mimics man’s gesture and expression]
(80) //1 ^ like / waving me / out… //

Blogger Comments:

This is recycled almost verbatim from Martin & Zappavigna (2019). Here are the comments from the review of Martin & Zappavigna (2019): An Epilinguistic Projection Of Protolinguistic Body Language.

[1] To be clear, in SFL theory, the relation between expression ('face and body') and content ('affect') is realisation, not commitment.  'Commitment' is Martin's misunderstanding of instantiation, as previously explained here.

…

[3] To be clear, this expression of exasperation realises ATTITUDE, not because it expresses an emotion, but because the exasperation enacts an assessment (of the speaker by a motorist).

In terms of Cléirigh's original model, contrary to the authors' interpretation, the motorist's ATTITUDE is realised in protolinguistic body language, not epilinguistic body language ("semovergent" paralanguage).  The gesture is a manifestation of a conscious state that functions socio-semiotically.

The vlogger's mime of the motorist's body language, on the other hand, is an instance of epilinguistic body language in which she projects the motorist's protolinguistic body language that assesses her.

Affect

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 34):

As outlined by Martin and White (2005) attitude may not be explicitly inscribed in language but invoked by ideational choices a speaker expects a reaction to. We introduced an example of this in (64) earlier; a headshot from this image is blown up in (64''), as the vlogger introduces the good news that her hair dye is back in stock at Target. Her smiling face makes explicit the affect that her language does not.

Blogger Comments:

This is recycled verbatim from Martin & Zappavigna (2019). Here are the comments from the review of Martin & Zappavigna (2019): The Meaning Of A Smile.

[1] This misrepresents the metafunctions as separate modules, instead of complementary perspectives on meaning.  Choices that invoke attitude are interpersonal choices.  Moreover, a speaker can "expect a reaction" to ideational meaning in the absence of attitude.

[2] Here again the authors deploy the logical fallacy of 'begging the question' (petitio principi), since they assume the point their argument needs to establish, namely that the speaker's smile realises an assessment: the goodness of the 'news that her hair dye is back in stock at Target' (the authors' interpretation, not the speaker's words).

To be clear, the speaker's smile coincides only with the word Target, on which the tonic falls, marking it as the focus of New information.  So the timing of the smile is an instance of linguistic body language (Martin's sonovergent body language), and functions textually.

This also means that, if an assessment is being realised by the smile, it is solely an assessment of Target.  However, no assessment is being made here, the smile simply realises the speaker's positive emotion, as will be argued below.

To be clear, a smile is a physiological process that manifests a state of consciousness: a token of a senser's sensing, to adapt Halliday & Matthiessen's (1999: 210) phrase.  On Cléirigh's model, such behaviours are the raw material from which protolanguage develops. For example, in rainbow lorikeets, semiotic expressions of anger function socio-semiotically as expressions of the regulatory microfunction ('I want you-&-me'), in Halliday's model of protolanguage.

On Cléirigh's model, the speaker's smile is thus interpreted as an instance of the personal microfunction of protolinguistic body language, realising a positive emotion.  By the same token, the speaker's eye gaze is interpreted as an instance of the interactional microfunction of protolinguistic body language, signifying engagement with the viewer.

		meaning	kinetic expression
action	regulatory	I want, refuse, threaten	ø eg raised fist, glower
	instrumental	give me, I invite you	ø eg extended hand
reflection	interactional	togetherness, bonding	ø eg mutual eye gaze
	personal	emotions	ø eg smiling face

(adapted from Matthiessen 2007: 5)

(Note that emoticons (emojis) are thus epilinguistic (pictorial) reconstruals of protolinguistic body language.)

So, contrary to the author's claims, the smile does not realise an attitudinal assessment (AFFECT), and constitutes an instance of protolinguistic body language, not epilinguistic body language ('semovergent paralanguage').

[3] As argued above, this is not true.  Moreover, if it were true, it would be an instance of 'semovergent paralanguage' "resonating" with what is not actually said.

Appreciation

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 34, 233):

Paralanguage deploys facial expression and bodily stance to share attitude. In (75) our vlogger nuances her appreciation (exciting) of a neighbourhood get-together she has dressed up for with raised eyebrows and a lopsided-mouth expression³¹ (which we might read as indicating that some followers might not find it all that exciting).

³¹ The ‘out-of-kilter’ mouth here can be interpreted as soft focus, converging with kind of.

Blogger Comments:

This is recycled verbatim from Martin & Zappavigna (2019). Here are the comments from the review of Martin & Zappavigna (2019): Nuancing Appreciation By (Not) Looking Surprised.

[1] Rewording this in terms of SFL theory:

In (semovergent) paralanguage, the meanings of ATTITUDE can be realised by facial expression and bodily stance.

That is, it isn't paralanguage that deploys, and the speaker enacts her attitude.

[2] The authors, after having just declared that, in terms of ATTITUDE, 'paralanguage can only enact emotion' (i.e. AFFECT and not APPRECIATION or JUDGEMENT), here present an example that, by their own terms, "resonates" with APPRECIATION.  They use term 'nuance' here to disguise the invalid claim that body language 'surprise' resonates with 'exciting'.  Moreover, as the reader can see, the facial expression does not realise the emotion 'surprise'.  Here the authors are misrepresenting the data to fit their own model.

[3] On Cléirigh's original model, the eyebrow raising here is an instance of linguistic body language (sonovergent paralanguage), not epilinguistic body language (semovergent body language).  This would be obvious if the authors had included the tone choice of the accompanying tone group, which they wrongly analyse for tonicity.  The speaker places the tonic on that's, marking it as the focus of New information, and uses tone 3 (level pitch):

//3 ^ so / that's / kind of ex/citing //

The tone group, which immediately follows an edit, begins at a high pitch and stays at that level throughout.  The eyebrows do the same, and so function the same interpersonally as the tone choice; see [4].

[4] To be clear, the "lopsided mouth" is, in this instance, merely a feature of the speaker's anatomy.

The meaning that the authors attribute to the speaker's anatomy is actually the meaning realised by her eyebrow position and tone choice.  As Halliday (1994: 305) points out, tone 3 with declarative mood can realise the KEY feature 'unimportant'.  So here the speaker's interpersonal paralanguage does not "resonate" with the positive APPRECIATION realised in wording; in fact, it contradicts it — what psychologists call 'involuntary self-disclosure'.

[5] Leaving aside the fact that the authors have attributed the meaning realised by the speaker's eyebrow position to a permanent feature of the speaker's anatomy, the authors here provide no basis whatsoever for interpreting an 'out of kilter' mouth as realising the GRADUATION feature 'soft focus'.  It is merely a bare assertion, unsupported by reasoned argument or evidence of any kind.  Readers familiar with the field of multimodality will not be surprised by this, of course.

Interpersonal Semovergent Paralanguage

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 33-4):

Evaluation (interpersonal semovergent paralanguage)

From an interpersonal perspective we need to take into account how spoken language inscribes attitudes, grades qualities and positions voices other than the speaker’s own (APPRAISAL). Semovergent paralanguage potentially resonates with APPRAISAL resources through facial expression, bodily stance, muscle tension, hand/arm position and motion (Hood, 2011; Ngo, 2018; Hao and Hood, 2019; Ngo, 2019) and voice quality (Caldwell, 2013). Whereas spoken language can make explicit attitudes of different kinds (emotional reactions, judgements of character and appreciation of things), paralanguage can only enact emotion. A further interpersonal restriction, setting aside emblems (e.g. the ‘thumbs-up’ or ‘OK’ gestures discussed in Section 1.6; cf. Kendon, 2004; McNeill, 2012), is that semovergent paralanguage cannot be used to support NEGOTIATION by distinguishing move types in dialogic exchanges (although sonovergent paralanguage can of course support tone choice in relation to these moves).

 Blogger Comments:

With one misleading omission, this is recycled almost verbatim from Martin & Zappavigna (2019). The misleading omission is the wording '(as suggested by Cléirigh)' after 'A further interpersonal restriction'. Again, the plagiarism in this work is effected through myriad small steps.

Here are the comments from the review of Martin & Zappavigna (2019): Interpersonal Semovergent Paralanguage. 

…

[2] To be clear, interpersonal semovergent paralanguage is the authors' rebranding of the interpersonal dimension of Cléirigh's epilinguistic body language.

[3] Here again the authors are looking to match semantic stratum systems instantiated in spoken language to expression plane instances of body language, instead of asking what linguistic meanings, of any mode, are being realised in body language expressions.  It will be seen that this procedural error leads the authors to wrongly conclude (Table 6, p28) that all paralanguage is an expression of language itself.

[4] Correcting for the error identified in [3], this claim becomes, in more coherent theoretical terms:

the instantiation of interpersonal meanings of semovergent paralanguage, realised in facial expression, bodily stance, muscle tension hand/arm position and motion and voice quality, "agrees with" the instantiation of interpersonal meanings of APPRAISAL systems.

However, since, in Cléirigh's model, the meanings of APPRAISAL can be instantiated both protolinguistically and epilinguistically, as well as linguistically, it will be seen that almost all of the instances to be discussed cannot be accurately described as epilinguistic ("semovergent").

[5] To be clear, with regard to the APPRAISAL system of AFFECT, emotional reactions only appraise if they enact an interpersonal assessment.  For example, the clause that surprised me construes an emotional reaction, but it does not in itself, even implicitly, enact a positive or negative assessment.

[6] To be clear, the APPRAISAL system of JUDGEMENT is not limited to assessing 'character'.  For example, the clause capitalism is immoral enacts a judgement, but not of 'character'.

[7] To be clear, the APPRAISAL system of APPRECIATION is not limited to assessing 'things', either in the narrow sense of non-conscious material objects, or in the wider semantic sense in contrast to 'quality'.  For example:

• an ugly man — semantically: a conscious thing;
• a gorgeous blue — semantically: a quality;
• a breath-taking performance — semantically: a process;
• scoring that goal in extra-time was pure magic — semantically a figure;
• scoring one goal and setting up three more was sensational — semantically a sequence.

[8] On the one hand, this confuses the construal of experience as emotion (ideational metafunction) with the enactment of intersubjective relations through AFFECT (interpersonal metafunction), the latter being assessments made on the basis of emotion, such as She loves synchronised swimming.

On the other hand, this is misleading, because it falsely claims that paralanguage, in the authors' own terms, cannot realise the same meanings as tsk! tsk! (negative JUDGEMENT) or wow! (positive APPRECIATION).

…

[10] The misunderstandings involved in the discussion of 'emblems' are very instructive, and will be examined in situ.

Semovergent Paralanguage And CONNEXION

 Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 33):

As noted earlier, ideationally semovergent paralanguage, as formulated in Chapter 4, does not involve resources for explicitly connecting gestures in terms of addition, comparison, temporality or causality and so does not converge with CONNEXION in spoken language.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This confuses levels of abstraction. To be clear, it is not a matter of connecting gestures, but a matter of gestures (expression) realising logico-semantic relations between figures (content). 

[2] To be clear, any gesture that realises relators such as 'and', 'or', before', 'after' etc. serves this function, such as pointing left, right, forward, behind while saying the temporal relator.

A more interesting case is the logico-semantic relation that Martin's CONNEXION does not account for: projection. A speaker can mark a projection by imitating the indexical features of the Sayer of the projecting figure. Halliday (1989: 30-1):

Indexical features, by contrast [with paralinguistic features], are not part of the language at all, but simple properties of the individual speaker. It may help to tabulate these (see Table 3.1).

So, for example, a satirist who imitates the indexical features of say, Donald Trump, is indicating that his projection is to be understood as a projection of Donald Trump.

Motion Used To Support Direction

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 33):

Motion can also be used to support direction in space or time. In Section 1.5.1 we illustrated two examples of hands sweeping right to left towards the past, concurring with the tone groups //2 bought / previously when I // (57) and // loved the / first time // (58). These contrast with left-to-right movement towards the future, concurrent with // hopefully next time I will //. This motion to the right is reinforced by a pointing gesture, which we discuss in Section 1.5.2.3 (as textual semovergence).

 Blogger Comments:

This is recycled verbatim from Martin & Zappavigna (2019). Here are the comments from the review of Martin & Zappavigna (2019): Gestural Motion "Supporting" Direction In Space Or Time.

[1] To be clear, here the authors propose a relation ('support') between the expression of one semiotic system, body language (direction of gesture movement), and the content of language ('direction in space or time').  That is, the authors are not concerned here with the content of body language itself.

[2] To be clear, here the authors interpret the direction of these two gestural motions as ideational in function, contradicting their previous (pp8-9) interpretation of it as textual in function:

In examples (2) and (3) the vlogger makes a sweeping right-to-left gesture referencing past time;

This same confusion is also found in the discourse semantic system of IDENTIFICATION (Martin 1992), where textual reference is confused with  reference in the sense of ideational denotation; evidence here.

[3] Here the authors deploy the logical fallacy known as begging the question (petitio principii), since they assume the very point that they are trying to make: that a gestural movement to the right signifies a "movement" to the future.

[4] To be clear, the claim here is that the direction of the body language gesture to the right agrees (is 'concurrent') with the meaning realised by the wording next time, which the authors interpret as 'movement toward the future'.

If next time is interpreted as a circumstantial Adjunct, then, as a circumstance of Location, it signifies 'rest' not 'motion'.  Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 317):

However, Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 612-3) list next time as an example of a conjunctive Adjunct (enhancement: spatiotemporal: complex).  On this reading, the meaning of next time is textual in metafunction, rather than ideational.

In Martin (1992), however, cohesive conjunction in the grammar is misunderstood as a logical system of discourse semantics (now termed CONNEXION).  That is, in Martin's terms, this gesture "concurs" with a logical relation between message parts in a message (here relabelled as figure and sequence, after Halliday & Matthiessen 1999).  However, the authors failed to recognise it as an instance of Martin's CONNEXION.

[5] To be clear, on the authors' model, a handshape realises an entity.  Since no entity is identified here, and the function is said to be textual rather than ideational, the conclusion must be that a pointed hand is not a handshape.

Motion On Its Own

 Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 32-3):

Motion can also occur on its own, without a hand shape concurring with an entity. For example, the vlogger uses a circular hand motion (two rotations) concurrent with the tone group //1 tried washing it / out it’s //.

Blogger Comments:

This is recycled verbatim from Martin & Zappavigna (2019). Here are the comments from the review of Martin & Zappavigna (2019): Failing To Account For Body Language Meaning.

To be clear, the hand is always shaped in some way. The semiotic question is whether or not the shape means something other than itself.  

The authors' (unsupported) declaration that handshapes "concur" with linguistic elements ("entities") ignores the meaning of all the handshapes that violate that stipulation, such as those depicted in [(74)].  

So in this instance, the authors' failure to identify body language meaning is presented, instead, as just one way that the body language system works.

Hand Shapes

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 32):

As noted earlier, for this paralinguistic sequence hand shape and motion are combined. In other cases hand shapes occur on their own. In the following sequence our vlogger concentrates on the size of the snack she has given her children, without setting the bowl in motion:

(70) //3 then they had a / snack I

(71) //4 gave them / each a / bowl - like a heaping / bowl

(72) //3 full of / Chex Mix and an

(73) //4 applesauce / squeeze and they //

Blogger Comments:

This is recycled almost verbatim from Martin & Zappavigna (2019). Here are the comments from the review of Martin & Zappavigna (2019): Gestures Realising Elements Rather Than Figures.

[1] To be clear, epilinguistic body language (rebranded here as 'semovergent paralanguage') is potentially expressed through the whole body, not just through handshapes and their movements.

[2] To be clear, the timing of these gestures functions as linguistic body language (rebranded here as sonovergent paralanguage'), since they beat with the rhythm of the speech, the first on the salient syllable hea-, the second on the tonic bowl, the focus of New information.

[3] To be clear, this demonstrates that these gestures realise elements rather than figures, the latter being what the authors claim to be analysing. These two very rapid gestures are made while the speaker utters the two words heaping and bowl, suggesting that they realise the semantic elements Quality (sense-measurement) and Thing (non-conscious material object) in parallel with the meaning realised in the wording.

[4] To be clear, this is not a sequence.  The two figures

• then they had a snack
• I gave them each a bowl like a heaping bowl full of Chex Mix and applesauce squeeze

are not structurally (logically) related into a sequence.  Any implicit relation between them is a cohesive (textual) relation between messages.

Moreover, the [four] tone groups presented as a sequence are further misanalysed for tonality [and tonicity].  [(71) actually comprises [two] tone groups, with tonic prominence [in (72)] on Mix, highlighting [it] as a Focus of New information.