Discourse Semantics, Meaning Beyond the Clause, And Convergence

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 11-2):

We will briefly introduce six discourse semantic systems here, organised by metafunction as per Table 1.2.

For a detailed presentation of these systems, see Martin (1992), Martin and White (2005) and Martin and Rose ([2003] 2007); useful introductory overviews include Butler (2003), Martin (2009, 2014, 2015a, 2019) and Tann (2017). For each system we will note the diversification of grammatical systems realising discourse semantic ones, including where relevant what we will refer to as metaphorical realisations; and we will exemplify what we mean by co-textual relations between units of discourse that are not grammatically related to one another (i.e. meaning beyond the clause). As will be introduced later, in our model paralanguage converges with discourse semantic systems in language, not lexicogrammatical ones — IDEATION, APPRAISAL, IDENTIFICATION and PERIODICITY in particular.

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[1] For a detailed review of Martin (1992), see English Text: System And Structure. For a detailed review of Martin and Rose (2007), see Working With Discourse: Meaning Beyond The Clause.

[2] This misunderstands "cotextual relations". To be clear, what Martin means by 'meaning beyond the clause' is modelled in SFL Theory as lexicogrammatical cohesion (Halliday & Hasan 1976). It involves relations that are lexicogrammatical, but are not structural. In Martin (1992), these systems of cohesion are rebranded as Martin's systems of discourse semantics.

[3] Here yet again, the authors remind the reader that Cléirigh's model of body language is their model of paralanguage.  The plagiarism in this work is effected through myriad small steps.

[4] To be clear, this flatly contradicts the authors' definition of sonovergent paralanguage as 'phonologically convergent' (p22). Moreover, sonovergent paralanguage is neither sonovergent nor paralanguage. Sonovergent paralanguage is the authors' rebranding of Cléirigh's linguistic body language, in which gestures serve the same function as prosodic phonology. That is, sonovergent paralanguage is language, not paralanguage, and it is divergent from phonology and convergent with the lexicogrammar that prosodic phonology realises, not with discourse semantic systems.