The Argument That All Body Language Is Paralanguage

Martin & Zappavigna (2019: 26):

Compared to other modalities of communication, paralanguage has a distinctive relation to language in that it is coordinated with prosodic phonology. This is obviously true, by definition, for sonovergent paralanguage. But semovergent paralanguage is also coordinated with TONALITY, TONICITY RHYTHM and TONE, since gestures, facial expression, bodily stance and sounds unfold in measures of time converging with units of rhythm and intonation. Even brief episodes of mime follow this principle, filling in for ‘missing’ tonic segments or tone groups as a whole. Alongside this expression form of temporal dependency, paralanguage is dependent on the content form of language because of its inherent generality. Semovergent paralanguage typically commits meaning far less specifically than spoken language can; instantiations are by and large interpretable with respect to what is said. With respect to these two dependencies, the prefix para- (understood as ‘beside’) is appropriate.

Blogger Comments:

[1] As previously noted, the authors have not demonstrated this to be the case; they have merely presented the language accompanying gestures with markers of tone group boundaries in order to fudge their argument.  This is the logical fallacy known as begging the question (petitio principii).

[2] Here the authors claim that the use of mime in the absence of language demonstrates that mime is timed with units of rhythm and intonation.  By the same logic, it could be argued that mime is timed with the units of grammar or semantics that are also absent.

[3] Here the authors interpret the fact that epilinguistic body language (semovergent paralanguage) can occur with or without prosodic phonology as body language being dependent on prosodic phonology.

[4] Here the authors claim that epilinguistic body language (semovergent paralanguage) is dependent on the content form of language.  Apparently unknown to the authors, the content form of language refers to the rank units of the grammar: clause, phrase/group, word and morpheme.  On the one hand, the authors have not demonstrated any relations between epilinguistic body language and grammatical forms, and on the other hand, epilinguistic body language is bi-stratal: content / expression only — it has no grammatical stratum.

[5] Here the authors confuse descriptive delicacy — which Martin's 'commitment' confuses with systemic delicacy — with stratification.  Because epilinguistic body language, like all epilanguage, is only bi-stratal, it lacks the grammatical resources for realising meaning.  That is, its (linguistic) meaning can only be realised directly in expression systems, and this greatly reduces its semogenic potential in comparison to language.

[6] To be clear, the authors argue that body language is 'para-' on the basis that it is 'hypo-' (dependent); cf. paratactic vs hypotactic.  Moreover, neither of the stated dependencies survives close scrutiny, as [4] and [5] above demonstrate.  That is to say, the authors' argument does not support their claim that 'paralanguage' is an appropriate characterisation of these two body language systems.

What Semovergent Paralanguage Does

Martin & Zappavigna (2019: 25):

semovergent systems construe ideational meaning, enact interpersonal meaning and compose textual meaning convergently with the discourse semantics of language (and its realisation through lexi[c]ogrammar).

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the claim here is that semovergent paralanguage (Cléirigh's epilinguistic body language) and discourse semantics construe the same ideational meaning; that is to say, that semovergent paralanguage instantiates the meanings of Martin's systems of IDEATION (experiential) and CONNEXION (logical).  There are two main problems with this claim:

Firstly, as previously demonstrated, the authors have not provided any evidence in support of the claim.  Secondly, Martin's two systems, IDEATION and CONNEXION, are his rebrandings of Halliday & Hasan's (1976) LEXICAL COHESION and COHESIVE CONJUNCTION, which are grammatical, not semantic, and textual in metafunction, not ideational.

[2] To be clear, the claim here is that semovergent paralanguage and discourse semantics enact the same interpersonal meaning; that is to say, that semovergent paralanguage instantiates the meanings of Martin's systems of NEGOTIATION and APPRAISAL.  There is one main problem with this claim:

As previously demonstrated, the authors have not provided any evidence in support of the claim.  That is, there are no instances of gestures realising NEGOTIATION features, and the gestures presented as realising APPRAISAL features are protolinguistic, not epilinguistic (semovergent).

[3] To be clear, the claim here is that semovergent paralanguage and discourse semantics compose the same textual meaning; that is to say, that semovergent paralanguage instantiates the meanings of Martin's systems of IDENTIFICATION and PERIODICITY. There are two main problems with this claim:

Firstly, as previously demonstrated, the authors have not provided any evidence in support of the claim.  That is to say, there are no instances of gestures realising the introduction of entities and their tracking through the discourse, and there are no instances of gestures realising macro-Themes, hyper-Themes, hyper-News or macro-News.

Secondly, Martin's system of IDENTIFICATION is his rebranding of Halliday & Hasan's (1976) COHESIVE REFERENCE, which is a grammatical system, not a semantic system; and Martin's system of PERIODICITY is writing pedagogy misunderstood as textual semantics.

[4] To be clear, Martin (1992) provides no specifications on how his discourse semantic systems are realised in lexicogrammatical systems.

What Sonovergent Paralanguage Does

Martin & Zappavigna (2019: 25):

Sonovergent systems enact interpersonal meaning in tune with and compose textual meaning in sync with the prosodic phonology of language;

Blogger Comments:

The claims here are that:

• sonovergent paralanguage and prosodic phonology are 'in tune' in enacting interpersonal meaning, and
• sonovergent paralanguage and prosodic phonology are 'in sync' in composing textual meaning.

The problems here are as follows.

Firstly, prosodic phonology doesn't enact interpersonal meaning, it realises the wording that realises interpersonal meaning. By the same token, prosodic phonology doesn't compose textual meaning, it realises the wording that realises textual meaning.

Secondly, Cléirigh's linguistic body language (sonovergent paralanguage) is a stratified semiotic system, not merely an expression plane system, like prosodic phonology.

Thirdly, (stratified) sonovergent paralanguage doesn't enact interpersonal meaning; it enacts intersubjective relations as interpersonal meaning.  By the same token, (stratified) sonovergent paralanguage doesn't compose textual meaning; it organises ideational and interpersonal meaning as textual meaning.

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 Emblematic Gestures Are Linguistic Alternatives To Phonology And Graphology

Martin & Zappavigna (2019: 25, 27, 29):

The relationship we are emphasising between emblems and alternative expression form systems is outlined in Fig. 44, using the words zero, one, two, three, four and five as examples. These words can be alternatively expressed in English through segmental phonology (e.g. /tuw/), graphological characters (e.g. ‘2’) or hand gestures (index and middle finger vertical).

 

An outline of the place of emblems in our overall system in presented in Fig. 45. Rather than treating them as a dimension of paralanguage, we have moved them over to language proper, as an alternative manifestation of its expression form.

 

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, Kendon's 'emblems', which he describes as 'quotable gestures', are conventionalised signs, such as 'thumbs-up', the 'V-sign', or the 'middle-finger salute'.  As signs, they are meaning/expression pairs, not tri-stratal language.

The authors, however, here present hand-shapes representing numbers as emblems and, on that basis, argue that the gestures involved are an alternative form of linguistic expression, along with phonology and graphology. An easy way to falsify this claim is to try to use emblematic gestures alone to express the following verse from Kenneth Grahame's The Wind In The Willows:

The clever men at Oxford
Know all that there is to be knowed.
But they none of them know one half as much,
As intelligent Mr. Toad!

The Argument That 'Emblems' Are Part Of Language

Martin & Zappavigna (2019: 24-5):

These gestures differ from the semovergent ones illustrated thus far in critical ways (cf. McNeill 2012: 7–10). For one thing they commit very specific meanings and can be readily recognised without accompanying co-text. As part of this specificity they can enact moves in exchange structure on their own – e.g. the statements and requests noted above, alongside greetings and leave-takings (hand waving), calls (beckoning gestures), agreement (nodding head), disagreement (shaking head), challenges (upright palm facing forward for ‘stop’) and so on. For another they are much more easily called to consciousness, as the first thing that comes to mind when someone mentions gesture. And in this regard they are often commented on as culturally specific (e.g. the difference between an Anglo supine hand beckoning gesture and its Filipino prone hand equivalent). In both respects emblems contrast with common-sense dismissals of the paralanguage (introduced in sections “Sonovergent paralanguage" and "Gesture converging with meaning (semovergent paralanguage)”) as idiosyncratic (although none of us has any trouble successfully interpreting another speaker’s sonovergent and semovergent systems). From the perspective of the sign language of the deaf, emblems most strongly resemble signs; they are expression form gestures explicitly encoding meaning. Similarly, from the perspective of character based writing systems (such as those of Chinese), emblems most strongly resemble characters (but gestured rather than scribed).

This indicates that emblems are better treated as part of language than as a dimension of paralanguage.

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, here the authors outline their argument for classifying what Kendon terms 'emblems' as language rather than semovergent paralanguage (Cléirigh's epilinguistic body language).

[1] Incidentally, here the authors exemplify the use the word one as a constituent of a conjunctive Adjunct; see the preceding post on the vlogger gesturing the meaning 'one'.

[2] To be clear, in SFL theory, unknown to the authors, the conventionalisation of the meaning of specific gestures in a community corresponds to the move of the sign (content/expression pair) from the instance pole to the system pole of the cline of instantiation.  However, since this can occur in the development of semiotic systems in general — e.g. protolanguage, emoji, pictorial signage — it does not support the authors' argument that emblems are part of language.

[3] To be clear, gestures don't "commit" meanings, they realise them, since realisation is the relation between expression and content.  'Commitment', on the other hand, in Martin's own terms, is concerned with  instantiation, the relation between potential and instance, though, as previously explained here, the notion derives from Martin's misunderstanding of systemic delicacy.

[4] To be clear, here the authors have switched attention from tone groups to exchange structures in an attempt to fudge their argument.  In their own terms, these moves would constitute examples of interpersonal semovergent paralanguage, since the meaning of these gestures "resonates" or "converges" with the meanings of Martin's interpersonal discourse semantic system of NEGOTIATION.  Accordingly, this does not support the authors' argument that emblems are part of language.

[5] The authors' "argument" here is that because these gestures are regarded as prototypical gestures, they are therefore part of language.

[6] To be clear, on the one hand, some emblems are culturally-specific and some are not.  So culture specificity cannot be used as an argument about emblems as a type.  On the other hand, in any case, the culture-specificity of semiotic systems is not confined to language, as demonstrated, for example, by differences in the protolanguages of separated populations of the same species.

[7] To be clear, Halliday (1989: 30-1) distinguishes paralanguage from indexical features, the latter being those that are peculiar to the individual ("idiosyncratic").  So the authors' argument here is that  emblems are language because they are not indexical features.

[8] As this blog demonstrates, the authors do have trouble in interpreting both the meaning of the vlogger gestures and the type of body language involved.

[9] To be clear, the authors' argument here is that emblems are part of language because their expressions resemble the expressions of language (Sign and Chinese), and that, in the case of one of these, at least, the expressions "explicitly encode" meaning.

On the one hand, if this is true, it applies to all languages, not just Sign and Chinese.  On the other hand, the reason it is not true is that the expressions of Sign and Chinese, encode the wording that encodes meaning, whereas the expressions of emblems only encode meaning.  That is, Sign and Chinese, being languages, are tri-stratal, whereas emblems, not being language, are bi-stratal.  Once again, the authors' argument does not support their claim that emblems are part of language.

[10] As the above clarifications demonstrate, not one of the arguments offered by the authors supports their hypothesis that emblems are part of language.

Emblems

Martin & Zappavigna (2019: 23-4):

Emblems

It remains to introduce our treatment of what Kendon (Kendon 2004) refers to as emblems, drawing on Ekman and Friesen (1969). Included here are gestures such as thumbs up or thumbs down (as praise or censure), index finger touching lips (for ‘quiet please’), hand cupped over ear (for ‘I can’t hear’), middle finger vertical (for ‘get fucked’) and so on. Our vlogger uses one of these gestures to introduce the first of her  explanations as to why her hair is darker than usual – raising her index finger as an emblem for the numeral ‘1’ (Fig. 43). 

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, in terms of SFL theory, the word one here functions like firstly, as a conjunctive Adjunct, realising a textually cohesive temporal conjunctive relation internal to the discourse.  On this basis, the index finger gesture, on Cléirigh's original model, is an instance of textual epilinguistic body language, an expression realising the same meaning as the word.

On Martin's (1992) model, cohesive conjunction is misunderstood as a logical discourse semantic system, now rebranded as CONNEXION.  On this basis, the authors here missed an opportunity to present an instance of logical semovergent paralanguage.  (It will later be seen that the authors regard emblems — what Kendon glosses as 'quotable gestures' — as expressions of language, rather than stratified paralanguage).