Confusing Content With Expression, Semiosis With Somasis, And Paralanguage With Language

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 97):

DEPICTION considers whether the paralinguistic entity has a defined contour that is visually ‘drawn’ in space (by, e.g. drawing the outline of an entity with a pointed finger in the air) or ‘sculpted’ (by, e.g. cupping a hand as in the example in (3)). The features sculpted and drawn correspond to two of Müller’s (1998) four modes of expression used in representational gestures: drawing (tracing the silhouette of an object in the air with a finger or hand) and moulding (sculpting or shaping the form of an object with the hands). 

Müller’s (1998) two other modes, imitating/acting (‘acting out’ an action) and representing/portraying (where the hands represent an object, e.g. a ‘V’ shape made with middle fingers to represent scissors) are dealt with in Chapter 1 in terms of somasis and emblems, respectively.

Blogger Comments:

[1] As previously explained, the term 'paralinguistic entity' confuses discourse semantics (entity) with paralanguage misunderstood as an expression-only semiotic system. To be clear, gestures are expressions that realise semantic entities; they are not the entities — just as phonemes that realise semantic entities are not the entities.

[2] To be clear, the system of DEPICTION confuses content (entity) with its expression (drawn, sculpted).

[3] To be clear, here the authors misunderstand semiosis as nonsemiosis (somasis). A gesture that imitates (mimes) an action represents that action, and as such, is semiotic, since it means something other than the gesture itself.

[4] As seen in Chapter 1, the authors treat emblems as part of language, rather than paralanguage, so here they are claiming that a hand shape that means 'scissors' is language. To be clear, even in their own model, this hand shape semovergently realises the entity 'scissors'. Here again the authors have become confused by taking the view 'from below' (expression) rather than the view 'from above' (content). That is, because the V-shape meaning 'scissors' resembles the V-shape meaning 'two', they have classified it in the same way: as an emblem.