The Need For A Metalanguage For Facial Expression

Martin & Zappavigna (2019: 18, 29):

Further work on this interpersonal aural dimension of paralanguage, drawing on van Leeuwen 1999, is beyond the scope of our current research.²¹ 

²¹ We also need to acknowledge that a metalanguage for facial expression, in some sense comparable in specificity to SFL work on attitude in the APPRAISAL framework, remains to be developed.

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To be clear, in Cléirigh's original model of body language, facial expressions can function:

1. protolinguistically (e.g. realising emotions), 
2. linguistically (e.g. realising features of KEY), or 
3. epilinguistically (e.g. realising 'uncertain' MODALITY). 

The authors (p29), however, have dismissed the notion of protolinguistic body language, on a misunderstanding, as previously demonstrated here, and reinterpreted it as either non-semiotic behaviour ("somasis") — which they nevertheless interpret as if semiotic — or as interpersonal epilinguistic body language ("semovergent" paralanguage).