What The Authors Have Done In This Paper

Martin & Zappavigna (2019: 25):

In this paper we have outlined a model distinguishing behaviour from meaning (somasis vs semiosis), and within semiosis, language from paralanguage. Paralanguage itself was then divided into sonovergent and semovergent systems according to their convergence with either the expression plane or content plane of language.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the model the authors have outlined is (part of) Cléirigh's model, linguistic and epilinguistic body language, though misunderstood and rebranded as their own systems, sonovergent and semovergent paralanguage.

[2] As previously demonstrated here, having distinguished non-semiotic behaviour from semiosis, the authors then interpret non-semiotic behaviour as semiotic.

[3] As previously demonstrated, the paralanguage that the authors rebrand as 'sonovergent' is actually, in their own terms, 'semovergent', not 'sonovergent', because it instantiates the same meanings as language, but it diverges from language in the way it is expressed, gesturally rather than vocally.

On the other hand, the authors' approach to semovergent paralanguage has been merely an unsuccessful attempt to fit gestural data to Martin's discourse semantic systems, instead of using the gestural data to encode theory.  This will lead them to the erroneous conclusion (p26, 28) that paralanguage is an alternative expression form of language, alongside phonology, graphology and sign.