Misinterpreting The Data

Martin & Zappavigna (2019: 12-3):

By way of illustration we now move to the next section in the vlog, which concerns a visit to the vlogger’s dermatologist (for treatment for granuloma). The sequence of figures we are interested in unfolds verbally in tone groups as follows (for the complete anecdote see Appendix B):

// and so the dermatologist um took like this needle
// and under each like bump
// and injected this like steroid
// and like it all bubbled up //

From the perspective of language, this sequence makes explicit four entities (dermatologist, needle, bump, steroid). The paralanguage uses handshape to concur with two of these (needle and bump) (Fig. 16). The ‘needle’ is first rendered as a tiny pointed entity the vlogger holds between thumb and index finger, and then with the hand shape used for holding a syringe. The ‘bump’ is not actually visualised until the fourth tone group, where it renders the shape of the steroid bubbling up. As we can see, the meanings construed in language and paralanguage can either correspond or complement one another. 

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is misleading. To be clear, 'sequence' and 'figure' are types of phenomenon in the ideational semantics of Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 48); they do not feature in the discourse semantic system of IDEATION (Martin 1992).

[2] Having introduced the data in terms of two higher orders of phenomenon in Halliday & Matthiessen's ideational semantics, sequence and figure, the authors actually analyse the data in terms of the lowest order, element.

[3] To be clear, the claim here is that the meaning realised by the handshape "concurs" with the meaning realised by the wordings needle and bump.  However, neither of the two handshapes realises needle, since neither handshape depicts a sharply pointed metal stick; see further in [5] below.  

[4] There are several inconsistencies in Figure 16.

• Firstly, the paralanguage gloss confuses content (holding needle, holding syringe) with expression (cupped hands).

• Secondly, the glosses correlate elements ("entities") of language (needle, bump) with figures for paralanguage (holding needle, holding syringe).

• Thirdly, the glosses of the paralanguage content are not motivated by the data.  On the basis of both the gestures and the accompanying language, the glosses are more consistently construed along the lines of taking needle and injecting steroid; moreover, the word syringe was not used by the speaker.

[5] To be clear, this handshape does not depict a needle.  Instead, the handshape realises the same meaning as the wording took this needle in the figure so the dermatologist took this needle; that is, it realises the nucleus of the figure, Process and Medium.  Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 156):

Semantically, the nucleus construes the centre of gravity of a figure, the focal point around which the system of figures is organised. When we describe the Medium as "actualising" the Process, we are really saying that the unfolding is constituted by the fusion of the two together — there can be no Process without an element through which this process is translated from the virtual to the actual.

Note that the Agent of this figure, the dermatologist, is represented by the speaker herself.

[6] To be clear, this handshape does not depict a needle.  Instead, the handshape realises the same meaning as the wording injected steroid in the figure and under each bump injected this steroid; that is, this again realises the the nucleus of the figure.  Again the (ellipsed) Agent of this figure, the dermatologist, is represented by the speaker herself.

[7] In this instance the handshape does depict one of the bumps (granulomas).  However, the reason why this gesture is made with the final figure, and not the second, is that it realises the nucleus of the final figure, and like it all bubbled up, rather than the meaning of the word bump in the second figure.

Note that, on the authors' interpretation, the meaning of the second tone group does not "concur" with the meaning of the co-occurring body language.

[8] To be clear, the handshape depicts the shape of a granuloma as it rises after the injection of the steroid.

[9] To be clear, the superficiality of this claim can be made more explicit by considering what it rules out:  

• the meanings construed in language and paralanguage neither correspond nor complement one another.

∞

These issues will be revisited in the following two posts.