Motion Used To Support Direction

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 33):

Motion can also be used to support direction in space or time. In Section 1.5.1 we illustrated two examples of hands sweeping right to left towards the past, concurring with the tone groups //2 bought / previously when I // (57) and // loved the / first time // (58). These contrast with left-to-right movement towards the future, concurrent with // hopefully next time I will //. This motion to the right is reinforced by a pointing gesture, which we discuss in Section 1.5.2.3 (as textual semovergence).

 Blogger Comments:

This is recycled verbatim from Martin & Zappavigna (2019). Here are the comments from the review of Martin & Zappavigna (2019): Gestural Motion "Supporting" Direction In Space Or Time.

[1] To be clear, here the authors propose a relation ('support') between the expression of one semiotic system, body language (direction of gesture movement), and the content of language ('direction in space or time').  That is, the authors are not concerned here with the content of body language itself.

[2] To be clear, here the authors interpret the direction of these two gestural motions as ideational in function, contradicting their previous (pp8-9) interpretation of it as textual in function:

In examples (2) and (3) the vlogger makes a sweeping right-to-left gesture referencing past time;

This same confusion is also found in the discourse semantic system of IDENTIFICATION (Martin 1992), where textual reference is confused with  reference in the sense of ideational denotation; evidence here.

[3] Here the authors deploy the logical fallacy known as begging the question (petitio principii), since they assume the very point that they are trying to make: that a gestural movement to the right signifies a "movement" to the future.

[4] To be clear, the claim here is that the direction of the body language gesture to the right agrees (is 'concurrent') with the meaning realised by the wording next time, which the authors interpret as 'movement toward the future'.

If next time is interpreted as a circumstantial Adjunct, then, as a circumstance of Location, it signifies 'rest' not 'motion'.  Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 317):

However, Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 612-3) list next time as an example of a conjunctive Adjunct (enhancement: spatiotemporal: complex).  On this reading, the meaning of next time is textual in metafunction, rather than ideational.

In Martin (1992), however, cohesive conjunction in the grammar is misunderstood as a logical system of discourse semantics (now termed CONNEXION).  That is, in Martin's terms, this gesture "concurs" with a logical relation between message parts in a message (here relabelled as figure and sequence, after Halliday & Matthiessen 1999).  However, the authors failed to recognise it as an instance of Martin's CONNEXION.

[5] To be clear, on the authors' model, a handshape realises an entity.  Since no entity is identified here, and the function is said to be textual rather than ideational, the conclusion must be that a pointed hand is not a handshape.