The Pretext For Rebranding Cléirigh's Body Language Systems As The Authors' Paralanguage Systems

Martin & Zappavigna (2019: 6, [5], 7, [6]):

In their work on intermodal relations in children’s picture books (Painter and Martin 2012; Painter et al. 2013) Painter and her colleagues suggest a model involving degrees of convergence between verbiage and image. The model is organised by metafunction – degrees of concurrence for ideational meaning, degrees of resonance for interpersonal meaning and degrees of synchronicity for textual meaning (for illustrative text analysis see Martin 2008, Painter and Martin 2012). The relevant terminology is presented in Table 2 below.

We have drawn on this terminology to deal with two dimensions of the relation between language and paralanguage introduced by Cléirigh as ‘linguistic body language’ and ‘epilinguistic body language’. The basic distinction here is between paralanguage that is in tune with (resonance) or in sync with (synchronicity) the prosodic phonology (i.e. rhythm and intonation) of spoken language on the one hand and on the other paralanguage that expresses meanings made possible by having language – in Cléirigh’s terms linguistic vs epilinguistic body language respectively. We have preferred a more transparent terminology, derived from Table 2, with phonologically convergent paralanguage referred to as sonovergent and semantically convergent paralanguage as semovergent. This revised terminology is outlined in Table 3.

 

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[1] See the earlier clarifying critique The Notion Of Intermodal Convergence.

[2] To be clear, as previously explained, this model of intermodal relations merely compares the semogenesis of different semiotic modes and labels any similarity as 'convergence'.  So, in modelling the relations between language and paralanguage, it is limited to simply comparing them and noting any similarity; see [4] below.

[3] To be clear, the authors' pretext for rebranding Cléirigh's systems is that their newly invented words, 'sonovergent' and 'semovergent', are more "transparent"; see [4] below.

[4] To be clear, here the authors confuse a purported relation between semiotic modes — between language and paralanguage — with semiotic modes themselves, and rebrand the semiotic modes, linguistic and epilinguistic body language, in terms of the purported relation between them and language.

In considering the purported relations between language and paralanguage, as previously explained, the 'convergence' model is limited to the notion of similarity, so the authors are limited to identifying some point of similarity between language and paralanguage.  This leads them to propose that:

• linguistic body language is phonologically convergent with language ('sonovergent'), and
• epilinguistic body language is semantically convergent with language ('semovergent').

These claims can be examined in turn.

The problem with the claim that linguistic body language is phonologically convergent with language is that it is the exact opposite of what is true.  Being 'linguistic', linguistic body language is "convergent" with language itself.  Where it differs from language is in its mode of expression, visible body movements, usually silent, instead of audible sounds of the vocal tract.  This can be made more explicit by looking at the source of the authors' ideas, Cléirigh's model:

	lexicogrammar	prosodic expression
		phonology	kinetic
textual	LEXICAL SALIENCE	RHYTHM	gesture (hand, head) in sync with the speech rhythm
	FOCUS OF NEW INFORMATION	TONICITY	gesture (hand, head) in sync with the tonic placement
	INFORMATION DISTRIBUTION	TONALITY	gesture (hand, head) co-extensive with tone group
interpersonal	KEY	TONE	gesture (eyebrow, hand) in tune with the tone choice

By the authors' logic, graphology might also be described as "phonologically convergent" with language.

The problem with the claim that epilinguistic body language is "semantically convergent" with language is that it risks confusing bi-stratal epilanguage with tri-stratal language — a point that will be taken up in future posts that examine the authors' analyses of data.  A further problem is that epilinguistic body language is not exclusively paralinguistic — it can be used in the absence of language, as the practice of mime demonstrates.