Hand Shapes

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 32):

As noted earlier, for this paralinguistic sequence hand shape and motion are combined. In other cases hand shapes occur on their own. In the following sequence our vlogger concentrates on the size of the snack she has given her children, without setting the bowl in motion:

(70) //3 then they had a / snack I

(71) //4 gave them / each a / bowl - like a heaping / bowl

(72) //3 full of / Chex Mix and an

(73) //4 applesauce / squeeze and they //

Blogger Comments:

This is recycled almost verbatim from Martin & Zappavigna (2019). Here are the comments from the review of Martin & Zappavigna (2019): Gestures Realising Elements Rather Than Figures.

[1] To be clear, epilinguistic body language (rebranded here as 'semovergent paralanguage') is potentially expressed through the whole body, not just through handshapes and their movements.

[2] To be clear, the timing of these gestures functions as linguistic body language (rebranded here as sonovergent paralanguage'), since they beat with the rhythm of the speech, the first on the salient syllable hea-, the second on the tonic bowl, the focus of New information.

[3] To be clear, this demonstrates that these gestures realise elements rather than figures, the latter being what the authors claim to be analysing. These two very rapid gestures are made while the speaker utters the two words heaping and bowl, suggesting that they realise the semantic elements Quality (sense-measurement) and Thing (non-conscious material object) in parallel with the meaning realised in the wording.

[4] To be clear, this is not a sequence.  The two figures

• then they had a snack
• I gave them each a bowl like a heaping bowl full of Chex Mix and applesauce squeeze

are not structurally (logically) related into a sequence.  Any implicit relation between them is a cohesive (textual) relation between messages.

Moreover, the [four] tone groups presented as a sequence are further misanalysed for tonality [and tonicity].  [(71) actually comprises [two] tone groups, with tonic prominence [in (72)] on Mix, highlighting [it] as a Focus of New information.