Using Halliday's Linear Taxonomy Of Complexity To Classify Somatic Behaviours

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 19-20):

As far as somasis is concerned we have found it useful to draw on Halliday’s (1996) proposals for an evolutionary typology of systems. He recognises four orders of complexity, with semiotic systems evolving out of social systems, social systems out of biological ones and biological ones out of physical ones. 

We have adapted this framework in our classification of somatic behaviour, distinguishing physical activity, biological behaviour and social communion.

Physical activity covers material action involving some change in the relationship of one physical entity to another (walking, running, jumping, throwing, breaking, cutting, digging, pulling etc.). 

Biological behaviour can be divided into changes that restore comfort (sneezing, coughing, scratching, laughing, adjusting garments or hair etc.) and those that index discomfort (nail biting, fiddling, fidgeting, wriggling, blushing, shivering, crying etc.). 

Social communion can be divided into mutual perception (sharing gaze, pitch, proximity, touch, smell etc.) and reciprocal attachment (tickling, cradling, holding hands, hugging, stroking, hugging, kissing, mating etc.). These proposals are outlined in Figure 1.7.

… To put this another way, we are arguing that the behaviours outlined in Figure 1.7 can be treated as paralinguistic or not depending on whether or not they are negotiated as meaningful in interaction.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, non-semiotic behaviour ("somasis") is irrelevant to a model of paralanguage, and it only arises as an issue because the authors give priority the the view 'from below': gestures, in contradistinction to the methodology of SFL Theory, which gives priority to the view 'from above': meaning.

[2] To be clear, Halliday's model is set out in Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 508, 509):

Physical systems are just physical systems. Biological systems, however, are not just biological systems; they are at once both biological and physical. Social systems are all three: social, biological and physical. …

A biological system is a physical system with the added component of "life"; it is a living physical system. In comparable terms, a social system is a biological system with the added component of "value" (which explains the need for a synoptic approach, since value is something that is manifested in forms of structure). A semiotic system, then, is a social system with the added component of "meaning".

[3] To be clear, the authors' use of Halliday's model seriously misunderstands it. Halliday's model is concerned with orders of complexity, from atoms to organisms to social structures, where the later orders subsume the earlier orders. The authors' three types of behaviour, in contrast, are mutually exclusive categories of the behaviour of organisms.

[4] To be clear, if any of these behaviours are interpreted as meaning anything other than themselves, then they are interpreted semiotic. Moreover, for Halliday (2004: 18), contrā the authors, 'exchanging attention' is a gloss of the interactional microfunction, and so not only semiotic rather than somatic, but protolanguage.

[5] To be clear, there is no need to argue this, since this is just a definition of (interpersonal) semiosis.

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This is recycled verbatim from Martin & Zappavigna (2019). See also the comments at:

Confusing Levels Of Complexity With Types Of Behaviour
Interpreting Purportedly Non-Semiotic Behaviours As Semiotic