Interpersonal Semovergent Paralanguage

Martin & Zappavigna (2019: 15):

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). We also need to account for how speakers exchange feelings, greetings, calls for attention, information and goods & services in dialogue (NEGOTIATION). Semovergent paralanguage potentially resonates with APPRAISAL resources through facial expression, bodily stance, muscle tension hand/arm position and motion (Hood 2011, Ngo n.d. in press) and voice quality. 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 (as suggested by Cleírigh), setting aside emblems (discussed in Section “Emblems” below; Kendon 2004, McNeill 2012), is that semovergent paralanguage cannot be used to distinguish move types in dialogic exchanges (although sonovergent paralanguage can of course support TONE choice in relation to these moves).

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, NEGOTIATION is not evaluation.

[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).

[9] To the authors' credit, this is the only misspelling of Cléirigh in the entire article.

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

[11] If this is true, then, it is misleading to claim that NEGOTIATION "resonates" with semovergent paralanguage.