Thu Ngo, Susan Hood, J.R. Martin, Clare Painter, Bradley A. Smith & Michele Zappavigna.
Modelling paralanguage using systemic functional semiotics: Theory and application.
London: Bloomsbury, 2022. xiv + 280pp.
Reviewed by Arianna Maiorani (Loughborough University, United Kingdom)
This book is an excellent example of collaborative work on systemic functional linguistics (hereafter SFL) theory into areas of multimodal communication that clearly still need the development of systematic mapping of resources for communication.
With the increased development of studies in multimodal communication and the attention focusing on the concept of materiality (i.e.Bateman et al.2017; Bateman 2019), and on modelling forms of movement-based communication (i.e. McMurtrie 2017; Maiorani 2017, 2021) the work carried out by this group of scholars is a very welcome addition to the growing ensemble of analysis-led collaborative research that is helping SFL theory branch out and demonstrate the semiotic nature and flexibility of the systemic functional grammar model.
As stated in the Preface, the book is based on the work carried out and presented at a series of workshops that the authors held at the University of Sydney in 2016, which focused precisely on the development of a model for describing and analysing paralanguage from a systemic functional perspective. The different authors contributed to the volume from their areas of expertise but rather than offering a collection of separate essays, the authors managed to produce a truly cohesive volume that offers the first comprehensive presentation of paralanguage systems modelled according to SFL theory. The models are certainly going to be developed and enriched further, but in this respect this book represents quite an achievement for the consistency and the rigour in which SFL principles are employed both at theoretical and at practical levels in the examples of analysis.
The first chapter offers an overview of the SFL approach applied to the description and analysis of paralanguage as embodied meaning. The book focuses on paralanguage used with spoken English discourse – the authors use the expression “that accompanies spoken English discourse” (p.1), which in a sense contradicts what this work itself demonstrates: that paralanguage does not accompany meaning, it works in interplay with other semiotic systems to create meaning, a fundamental approach adopted by multimodal discourse studies. By paralanguage the authors intend facial expressions, body postures and movements, gestural resources defined according to McNeill’s (1992) formulation of the “Kendon’s Continuum” (based on Kendon’s (2004) historical survey of gestural resources), and vocalisations as outlined largely in van Leeuwen (1992). The authors set up their theoretical parameters as axis (paradigmatic and syntagmatic relations are complementary), metafunctions (for distinguishing different types of meaning) and stratification (for distinguishing different levels of semiosis). This is a concise, strategically placed introduction to the principles of SFL which will be extremely useful to those scholars who are not necessarily familiar with the theory or do not work within the area of SFL-based discourse analysis.
The authors then proceed to define discourse semantics systems in connection to the Hallidayan metafunctions, thus already providing a clear map of what paralanguage can (and cannot) do according to the model of analysis that they are going to describe and implement. The ideational metafunction is connected to the semantic systems of ideation and connexion – which resonates with the classic Hallidayan distinction between experiential and logical meanings accounted for by the ideational metafunction; the interpersonal metafunction is connected to the semantic systems of negotiation and appraisal; the textual metafunction is connected to the semantic systems of identification and periodicity.
The first chapter also posits some theoretical foundations drawing on language ontogenesis, thus enriching the theoretical background of the forthcoming model of paralanguage and linking the emergence of protolanguage to the distinction between semiosis (semiotic behaviour) and somasis (non-semiotic behaviour). This part in particular will facilitate the engagement of scholars and students from different disciplines who are not familiar with the importance of making such distinctions. This chapter also foregrounds a fundamental revision of terminology that draws on the Hallidayan notion of linguistic system stratification and reflects the socio-semiotic approach of the whole book and the analytical model it proposes. The authors replace the definitions of “linguistic body language” (expression plane oriented) and “epilinguistic body language” (content plane oriented) respectively with sonovergent paralanguage (phonologically convergent) and semovergent paralanguage (semantically convergent), thus reflecting the Hallidayan systematic approach to the analysis of semiotic systems. The first one is intended as the paralanguage that converges with the prosody of spoken language (p.23); the second one is intended as the paralanguage that converges with the lexicogrammar and discourse semantics of spoken language (p.28). This distinction facilitates the systematisation of these complementary but different paralinguistic resources and is perhaps the most valuable contribution to paralinguistic system modelling offered by the whole book. The modelling carried out according to this distinction also highlights the fact that whereas semovergent paralanguage can indeed realise ideational, interpersonal and textual meanings, sonovergent paralanguage can only realise interpersonal and textual meanings, which is quite significant for the analysis of multimodal communication.
The second chapter offers a very interesting overview of the study of the origin of paralinguistic systems and connects the whole work with both cognitive linguistic studies and with communication studies in general, while creating continuity with the academic background set up in the first chapter.
The third chapter explores the notion of the “semiotic voice” in a systemic functional perspective, offering a range of analytical tools that approach voice in a new, socio-semiotic light and in relation to two aspects of analysis: the synchronisation of phonological intonation and rhythm with visual paralanguage (i.e.gestures) and the synchronisation of phonological prosody with specific facial effects. This is the first comprehensive modelling of the use of voice as a semiotic resource in a systemic functional perspective and a fundamental contribution to the development and application of SFL.
Chapters four, five and six are then devoted to the exploration of paralanguage from the perspective of field (ideational paralanguage), social relations (interpersonal paralanguage) and information flow (textual convergence). They offer a comprehensive systematisation of paralinguistic resources with plenty of examples whose analysis is also indebted to Kress and van Leeuwen’s (2020) Reading images:The grammar of visual design. The analysis of intrasemiosis and the combination of interpersonal paralinguistic resources is particularly interesting, and it will be specifically useful for scholars working on multimodal data annotation of human interaction. These chapters offer the systemic functional models of five paralinguistic systems: sonovergent interpersonal, sonovergent textual, semovergent ideational, semovergent interpersonal and semovergent textual, with numerous examples to show how analysis can be carried out within and across systems.
Besides addressing a gap in the application of SFL theory to the modelling of paralanguage, this book offers important analytical tools that can be used in discourse analysis and multimodal discourse analysis, thus fostering interdisciplinarity and highlighting the semiotic nature of the Hallidayan theory. In this respect, it is a fundamental contribution to the development of SFL theory and its relevance within the area of discourse studies.
Some questions naturally emerge along the reading: for example, the notion of “move” as a unit of paralanguage analysis is not well-defined and the segmentation of moves also seems to be taken for granted. As the book could really represent an important resource for multimodal discourse annotation, it would be useful if these clarifications were made available.
It is also unclear why the analysis of paralanguage used by human beings and paralanguage used by cartoon characters seems to be considered comparable as examples of both are analysed side by side. The criteria that determined the choice of examples are clear but as human paralanguage emerges from human socio-semiotic behaviour in context whereas paralanguage created for cartoons emerges from the choices of artists who want to target a specific audience in a specifically created context using non-human facial, body and expressive affordances, one would expect that these differences were taken into more serious consideration in the evaluation of the proposed examples of analysis. As the authors eventually claim that the book wishes to prove a certain “alarming trend” in multimodal studies wrong which defines the study of language as “logocentric”, this is perhaps the only feature of the book that shows a lack of attention to the multimodal materiality of communication and its significance for an accurate analysis.
Considerations on materiality aside, this is undoubtedly a volume that should be present on the bookshelves of all scholars working within the areas of discourse and communication studies and an unmissable addition to all academic libraries.
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