Martin & Zappavigna's Model Of Paralanguage

Martin & Zappavigna (2019: 28):

Our model of paralanguage might also prove of interest as a contribution to the growing field of interactional linguists (Ochs et al. 1996; Fox et al. 2013; Couper-Kuhlen and Selting 2001, 2018). These linguists see language structure as an emergent phenomenon which can only be understood in relation to the use of language in dialogue, and they draw heavily on Conversation Analysis (CA) in their research. This brings paralanguage and other modalities of communication into the picture as far as our understanding of language is concerned (cf. Heath and Luff 2013). SFL’s perspectives on multimodality creates an opportunity for linguistics to make a stronger contribution to this transdisciplinary exercise (Martin forthcoming).

Blogger Comments:

The authors end their paper by leaving the reader with the confirmation that Cléirigh's model of body language is henceforth their model of paralanguage.

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.

The Notion That Semovergence Implies Sonovergence

Martin & Zappavigna (2019: 20-1):

It is probably safe to say that whenever semovergent paralanguage is deployed, it will be coordinated with TONALITY, TONICITY and RHYTHM; this is tantamount to arguing that semovergence implies sonovergence. Sonovergent paralanguage on the other hand can be deployed without semovergence, through gestures in tune with or in sync with prosodic phonology (but no more).

An important exception to these principles is what is commonly referred to as mime. In terms of our model mime is semovergent paralanguage that does not accompany language, an apparent contradiction in terms.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the authors have provided no evidence in support of this bare assertion, as the posts on semovergent paralanguage on this blog demonstrate.  This is merely a reassertion of their earlier claim (p3):

We will in fact suggest that SFL’s tone group, analysed for rhythm and tone, provides an essential unit of analysis for work on paralanguage as far as questions of synchronicity across modalities are concerned.

[2] As previously explained, "sonovergent" paralanguage (Cléirigh's linguistic body language) is the direct opposite of "sonovergent" because the expression plane is where it differs from language.  The reason Cléirigh called it linguistic body language is because it realises the same content as prosodic phonology.

[3] Here the authors present Cléirigh's theorising as an observation made in terms of "their" model. Cf. Cléirigh's original definition of epilinguistic body language ("semovergent" paralanguage):

These are body language systems which, like pictorial systems, are made possible by the transition into language, but which are not systematically related to the lexicogrammar of language. When used in the absence of spoken language, this type of body language is called mime, and it is mimetic in this sense.

Plagiarism is the "wrongful appropriation" and "stealing and publication" of another author's "language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions" and the representation of them as one's own original work.

Multiple Dimensions Of Paralanguage Converging On The Same Tone Group

Martin & Zappavigna (2019: 20, 16):

Although presented as a simple taxonomy, all five subtypes of paralanguage can combine with one another in support of a single tone group (Fig. 38). 

Several examples of multiple dimensions of paralanguage converging on the same tone group were in fact presented above (for example, the combination of motion towards the future and pointing deixis in Example (19) of section “representation (ideational semovergent paralanguage)”). 

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, this is Cléirigh's original model misleadingly presented as if it is a claim of the authors.

[2] As previous posts have demonstrated, this is not true of epilinguistic body language ("semovergent paralanguage"), which can be instantiated with or without language.  The authors have tried to mislead the reader, in this regard, by simply presenting all the text accompanying body language with tone group boundaries (//).

[3] For the misunderstandings and misrepresentations involved in the authors' analysis of this instance, see the two previous posts:

• Gestural Motion "Supporting" Direction In Space Or Time
• Introducing And Tracking Entities Through Finger Pointing

Ideational Semovergent Paralanguage

Martin & Zappavigna (2019: 11, 12):

Representation (ideational semovergent paralanguage) 

From an ideational perspective we need to take into account how spoken language combines entities, occurrences, qualities and spatiotemporal circumscriptions as figures (IDEATION), and how these figures are connected to one another (CONNEXION).

Semovergent paralanguage supports these resources with hand shapes, which potentially concur with entities, and hand/arm motion, which potentially concurs with occurrences; the hand/arm motion is optionally directed, potentially concurring with spatiotemporal direction (to/from there in space, to/from then in time). We say “potentially concurring” because ideational paralanguage can be used on its own, without accompany spoken language; see the discussion of mime in section "Multidimensionality (multiplying meaning)" below.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, 'semovergent paralanguage' is the authors' rebranding of Cléirigh's epilinguistic body language.

[2] As previously explained, and argued here, Martin's ideational discourse semantic systems of IDEATION and CONNEXION are neither ideational nor semantic, since they are misunderstood rebrandings of Halliday & Hasan's (1976) lexical cohesion and cohesive conjunction, which are lexicogrammatical systems of the textual metafunction.

[3] To be clear, this is a matter of language, regardless of whether it is spoken, written or signed.

[4] To be clear, in the discourse semantic system of IDEATION (Martin 1992: 314-9; Martin & Rose 2007: 96), 'entity' refers only to a subtype of Range.

[5] To be clear, in the discourse semantic system of IDEATION (Martin 1992: 314-9; Martin & Rose 2007: 90ff), these are termed 'processes', not 'occurrences'.

[6] This is presumably a typo for 'spatiotemporal circumstances', merely one of nine general types of circumstance.

[7] This is very misleading.  To be clear, 'figure' is a type of phenomenon in the (genuinely) ideational semantics of Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 48).  It does not feature in the discourse semantic system of IDEATION in Martin (1992).  Martin & Rose (2007: 74) introduce the term 'figure' without acknowledging their source and without integrating it into their model of IDEATION.  Moreover, because Martin's IDEATION is a rebranded misunderstanding of lexical cohesion, it cannot be integrated into their model in a theoretically consistent way.

[8] The word 'support' here is potentially misleading, since epilinguistic body language makes meaning in its own right.

[9] Here the authors propose 1-to-1 relationships between the expression of body language and the content of language — instead of the content of body language.  This confusion leads the authors to the false conclusion at the end of the paper that body language is just another expression mode of language itself.

Even so, the validity of proposed 1-to-1 relationships will be examined in upcoming posts.

[10] Here the authors mislead the reader by presenting a claim of Cléirigh's epilinguistic body language as if it is their own.

[11] See the upcoming critique of the authors' discussion of 'mime'.

Misrepresenting Cléirigh's Work As The Authors' Work

Martin & Zappavigna (2019: 8, 6):

Sonovergent paralanguage converges with the prosodic phonology of spoken language (Halliday 1967, 1970; Halliday and Greaves 2008; Smith and Greaves 2015). From an interpersonal perspective, it resonates with tone and involves a body part (e.g. eyebrows or arms) moving up and down in tune with pitch movement in a tone group (TONE and marked salience). From a textual perspective it involves a body part (e.g. hands, head) beating in sync with the periodicity of speech – which might involve beats aligned with a salient syllable of a foot, the tonic syllable of a tone group, or a gesture co-extensive with a tone group (i.e. in sync with TONALITY, TONICITY or RHYTHM). An outline of this sonovergent paralanguage is presented in Table 4.

 

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, as previously explained, 'sonovergent' paralanguage is the authors' rebranding of Cléirigh's 'linguistic' body language, justified on the basis that the invented word 'sonovergent' is more transparent.  As previously explained, linguistic body language, as the name implies, is "convergent" with language itself and differs from language only in its mode of expression — the opposite of the authors' claim.  As Cléirigh originally elaborated:

	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

* also: rolling of the eyes for tone 5.

[2] This is misleading.  Here the authors elaborate the details of Cléirigh's model of linguistic body language — see [1] — as if it is their own development of it as sonovergent paralanguage.  Proof that the omission of attribution is not accidental is provided by the misleading claim (p3) identified earlier which primes the reader for the interpretation of this work as the author's innovation:

We will in fact suggest that SFL’s tone group, analysed for rhythm and tone, provides an essential unit of analysis for work on paralanguage as far as questions of synchronicity across modalities are concerned.

Misrepresenting Cléirigh's Ideas As Their Own

Martin & Zappavigna (2019: 3):

We will in fact suggest that SFL’s tone group, analysed for rhythm and tone, provides an essential unit of analysis for work on paralanguage as far as questions of synchronicity across modalities are concerned.

Blogger Comments:

[1] Here the authors misrepresent what Cléirigh's model of body language "suggests" as their own suggestion.  Of the three types of body language in Cléirigh's model, only one of them, 'linguistic' body language, is exclusively paralinguistic, and this type is concerned with bodily movements in time with the rhythm of speech and in tune with the pitch movements of speech.

[2] Significantly, given "their" suggestion, neither author is capable of analysing speech data into tone groups (intonation) and feet (rhythm).  The analyses were carried out by a non-author (Smith). (Cléirigh's PhD thesis was on systemic phonology.)

[3] This misunderstands Cléirigh's model.  It is not a matter of "synchronicity across modalities", but that the beats of body movements in time with speech function linguistically — rather than protolinguistically or epilinguistically.  This is why this aspect of body language is termed 'linguistic'.