The Authors' Intention In Chapter 5

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 159):

Researchers from both social semiotics and linguistics (Thibault, 2004; Feng and O’Halloran, 2013; Mondada, 2016; Lim, 2019) have recently raised the challenge of developing a holistic approach to the study of social interaction. They argue persuasively that it is not sufficient to single out just one or two semiotic modes for examination (e.g. language and facial expression or language and gesture) if we are to understand the meaning of social interactions. 

The intention in this chapter is to respond to the challenge by providing a systemic functional social semiotic account of a number of paralinguistic systems as a framework for studying the orchestration of multiple semiotic modes in interaction in the expression of interpersonal meaning and the enactment of social relations in the context of animated film. 

We look forward to reports of research adapting our framework to the study of interpersonal relations in other modalities of interaction, in film, theatre, clinical, educational and forensic contexts, casual conversation and beyond, and additionally to its application in educational contexts. In relation to the latter, as an exemplary animation of its kind, Coraline offers a significant educational resource.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the extent to which the authors have succeeded in responding to this challenge can be gauged by carefully considering all the posts that examine this chapter (here).

[2] To be clear, the representations of body language on clay puppets by animators using the emotion-face coding system of Ekman are not instances of the system of human body language, and so do not constitute valid data for theorising.

[3] To be clear, the authors' framework is their misunderstanding of Cléirigh's framework.