Misrepresenting Matthiessen As Endorsing Martin's Misunderstanding Of Register

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 207-8):

Modelling concurrence and resonance is more of a challenge. One response would be to quantify the semantic ‘weight’ of the contributions from alternative modalities in terms of degrees of commitment – where commitment refers, following Martin (2010), to the number of optional systems taken up and the degree of delicacy of selections from both optional and obligatory systems. Figueredo and Figueredo (2019) outline a quantitative model for measurements of this kind. This would offer us a gauge of how much meaning language and paralanguage were committing but not tell us much about the kinds of meaning involved. 

Another response, perhaps better suited to this shortcoming, would be to turn to a higher-order semiotic such as register (Matthiessen, 2007) or genre (Bateman, 2008) and assign it responsibility for the distribution of meaning across modalities. Models of this kind take advantage of work on the relation of hierarchically organised categories in language (i.e. system realised in structure, higher ranks realised by lower ones and more abstract strata realised through more concrete ones) to explore intermodality – in effect treating co-instantiation across modalities as if it were realisation within a modality.

Blogger Comments:

[1] As previously explained, Martin's notion of 'commitment' is invalidated by the fact that it is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the system network, namely: that a speaker can choose the degree of delicacy to be instantiated during logogenesis. That is, Martin misconstrues what the linguist can do — decide on the degree of delicacy "pursued" in analysing a text — as what a speaker can do. But Martin also confuses 'delicacy' in the technical sense of a scale of decreasing generality in system networks with 'delicacy' in the sense of a scale of decreasing generality in a hyponymic taxonomy experiential meanings. See the earlier post Why Martin's Notion Of Commitment Is Invalid.

[2] This is very misleading indeed, because it knowingly misrepresents Matthiessen as supporting Martin's misunderstanding of register as a higher-order semiotic. Matthiessen, of course, follows Halliday in modelling register as a language variation (instantiation), not as a system more abstract than language (stratification).

[3] This confuses constituency (rank scale) with symbolic abstraction (realisation). All ranks are of the same level of symbolic abstraction, so a higher rank is not realised by a lower rank.

[4] To be clear, here the authors advocate making the same type of theoretical error that Martin made in his misunderstanding of register. With register, Martin modelled different types of language in terms of a more abstract stratum, and here he proposes modelling different types of semiotic system in terms of a more abstract stratum.

Confusing Discourse Semantics And Expression In A System Network [3]

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 104, 105):

Paralinguistic occurrence figures incorporate motion to construe a happening or activity. Unlike paralinguistic state figures which always visually incorporate a paralinguistic entity, a paralinguistic occurrence figure can occur both with or without committing a definable entity. There are three other dimensions along which such figures vary: whether or not the motion repeats (iterated/isolated), the speed of the motion (constant/adjusted) and the direction of the motion (omni/linear) – as shown in the system network in Figure 4.4.

Blogger Comments:

[1] As previously explained, the terms 'paralinguistic entity' and 'paralinguistic figure' confuse discourse semantics (entity, figure) with paralanguage misunderstood as an expression-only semiotic system. The system network in Figure 4.4 further demonstrates this confusion by presenting a discourse semantic network (occurrence figure) with expression plane systems of gestural motion (RECURRENCE, FLOW, DIRECTION).

[2] To be clear, this use of 'committing' misunderstands the authors' own notion of commitment. The authors' notion of commitment is misunderstood as the degree of delicacy selected in the process of instantiation. Here the term is used, not for delicacy, but for the relation between a figure and one of its constituents (entity).

Misrepresenting Expression Stratum Systems As A Semantic Stratum Network

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 95-6):

In terms of how they are construed in paralanguage, entities vary across two main dimensions – SPECIFICITY and DEPICTION, as represented in the system network in Figure 4.1. SPECIFICITY deals with how much meaning is committed in terms of shape and size, while DEPICTION addresses how the entity is visually formed.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, here the authors misrepresent systems of expression stratum features as a semantic stratum network. This confusion follows directly from their previous misunderstanding of linguistic entities that are realised by paralinguistic expressions as paralinguistic entities, thereby classifying content in terms of how it is realised on the expression plane. This is analogous to classifying these discourse semantic units as phonological entities, since this is how they are realised on the expression plane of language. Cf.:

In terms of how they are "construed" in phonology, entities vary across two main dimensions – PLACE and MANNER (of articulation).

This error invalidates the authors' network — a network being a theory of the system (Halliday). 

[2] To be clear, the relation between meaning and expression/form is realisation.

Why The Argument For Ideational Convergence (Concurrence) Is Invalid

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 94-5):

Here we draw on the concept of commitment ‘which refers to the amount of meaning instantiated as a text unfolds’ (Martin, 2011b: 255) as developed in Martinec (2008) and Martin (2010). 

Language and paralanguage can vary in terms of the amount of meaning that is specified by each semiotic mode. For instance, returning again to the example from the ‘Visit to the Dermatologist’ phase, and as noted in Chapter 1, some entities were committed in the language alone (e.g. the occurrence film in I didn’t film it) and not in the paralanguage. 

There can also be differences in how delicately meaning is committed in language and paralanguage. For example, the needle and the foot bump were more delicately committed in the paralanguage than in language, as far as qualities such as size and shape are concerned. 

So rather than separating gestures into a catalogue of types based on their purported resemblance to things in the world, the approach adopted in this chapter considers how gestures function as a resource which supports ideational meaning-making – focusing on how they concur with ideational discourse semantic selections.

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, this is the authors' argument for modelling paralanguage as convergent with ideational discourse semantics. It can be characterised as:

Premiss 1: Some meanings are made in language, but not in paralanguage.

Premiss 2: Paralanguage and language vary in the degree to which meanings are specified.

Conclusion: Paralanguage will be modelled as realising the ideational meaning of language.

There are two basic reasons why this argument is fallacious. The first is formal: the conclusion does not logically follow from the premisses, since the variation across modes is distinct from the question of whether one realises ("supports") the other. The second is informal: in the premisses and the conclusion, the authors misunderstand paralanguage as an expression-only semiotic system ('gestures'). See further below.

[1] As previously explained (here), Martin's notion of commitment is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the system network, namely: that a speaker can choose the degree of delicacy to be instantiated during logogenesis. That is, it confuses systemic delicacy, in this case, with the degree to which a Thing (needle, bump) is expanded by Qualities (size, shape).

[2] As previously explained, it was not the needle that was gestured, but how a needle is held, and it was not simply the bump that was gestured, but the bubbling up of the bump (granuloma) after an injection.

[3] To be clear, both of these alternatives misunderstand paralanguage as an expression-only semiotic system ('gestures'), and the second preferred alternative proposes that this expression-only system realises ('supports') the ideational meanings of language.

The first rejected alternative, the only other possibility recognised by the authors, proposes that this expression-only system be categorised in terms of the material order phenomena that the gestures visually resemble.

In Cléirigh's model, the gestures of body language simply realise the meanings of body language, whether used paralinguistically or on their own.

The Argument That 'Emblems' Are Part Of Language

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 42):

These gestures differ from the semovergent ones illustrated thus far in critical ways (cf. McNeill, 2012: 7–10). For one thing they commit very specific meanings and can be readily recognised without accompanying co-text (linguistic or paralinguistic). As part of this specificity they can enact moves in exchange structure on their own, for example, statements and requests, alongside greetings and leave-takings (hand waving), calls (beckoning gestures), agreement (nodding head), disagreement (shaking head), challenges (upright palm facing forward for ‘stop’) and so on. For another they are the first thing that comes to mind when someone mentions gesture. And in this regard they are often commented on as culturally specific (e.g. the difference between an Anglo supine hand beckoning gesture and its Filipino prone hand equivalent). In both respects emblems contrast with common-sense dismissals of the paralanguage as idiosyncratic (although none of us has any trouble successfully interpreting another speaker’s sonovergent and semovergent systems). From the perspective of the sign languages of the deaf, emblems most strongly resemble signs; they are expression form gestures explicitly encoding meaning. Similarly, from the perspective of character-based writing systems (such as those of Chinese), emblems most strongly resemble characters (but gestured rather than scribed). 

This indicates that from an SFL perspective emblems are better treated as part of language than as a dimension of paralanguage.

 Blogger Comments:

This is recycled almost verbatim from Martin & Zappavigna (2019). Here are the comments from the review of Martin & Zappavigna (2019): The Argument That 'Emblems' Are Part Of Language.

To be clear, here the authors outline their argument for classifying what Kendon terms 'emblems' as language rather than semovergent paralanguage (Cléirigh's epilinguistic body language).

[1] Incidentally, here the authors exemplify the use the word one as a constituent of a conjunctive Adjunct; see the preceding post on the vlogger gesturing the meaning 'one'.

[2] To be clear, in SFL theory, unknown to the authors, the conventionalisation of the meaning of specific gestures in a community corresponds to the move of the sign (content/expression pair) from the instance pole to the system pole of the cline of instantiation.  However, since this can occur in the development of semiotic systems in general — e.g. protolanguage, emoji, pictorial signage — it does not support the authors' argument that emblems are part of language.

[3] To be clear, gestures don't "commit" meanings, they realise them, since realisation is the relation between expression and content.  'Commitment', on the other hand, in Martin's own terms, is concerned with  instantiation, the relation between potential and instance, though, as previously explained here, the notion derives from Martin's misunderstanding of systemic delicacy.

[4] To be clear, here the authors have switched attention from tone groups to exchange structures in an attempt to fudge their argument.  In their own terms, these moves would constitute examples of interpersonal semovergent paralanguage, since the meaning of these gestures "resonates" or "converges" with the meanings of Martin's interpersonal discourse semantic system of NEGOTIATION.  Accordingly, this does not support the authors' argument that emblems are part of language.

[5] The authors' "argument" here is that because these gestures are regarded as prototypical gestures, they are therefore part of language.

[6] To be clear, on the one hand, some emblems are culturally-specific and some are not.  So culture specificity cannot be used as an argument about emblems as a type.  On the other hand, in any case, the culture-specificity of semiotic systems is not confined to language, as demonstrated, for example, by differences in the protolanguages of separated populations of the same species.

[7] To be clear, Halliday (1989: 30-1) distinguishes paralanguage from indexical features, the latter being those that are peculiar to the individual ("idiosyncratic").  So the authors' argument here is that  emblems are language because they are not indexical features.

[8] As this blog demonstrates, the authors do have trouble in interpreting both the meaning of the vlogger gestures and the type of body language involved.

[9] To be clear, the authors' argument here is that emblems are part of language because their expressions resemble the expressions of language (Sign and Chinese), and that, in the case of one of these, at least, the expressions "explicitly encode" meaning.

On the one hand, if this is true, it applies to all languages, not just Sign and Chinese.  On the other hand, the reason it is not true is that the expressions of Sign and Chinese, encode the wording that encodes meaning, whereas the expressions of emblems only encode meaning.  That is, Sign and Chinese, being languages, are tri-stratal, whereas emblems, not being language, are bi-stratal.  Once again, the authors' argument does not support their claim that emblems are part of language.

[10] As the above clarifications demonstrate, not one of the arguments offered by the authors supports their hypothesis that emblems are part of language.

Combined Face And Body Commitment Of Affect

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 35):

A good example of a combined face and body commitment of affect in the vlog we are drawing our examples from comes as the vlogger is complaining about being hassled for her parking spot before she is ready to leave. The relevant tone groups are presented here, and we will return to this example in our discussion of mime in Chapter 7 (for a complete phonological analysis of this phase of the vlog, see Appendix B6). At this point we are simply interested in the way the vlogger’s facial expression and arm position are used to express the hassler’s exasperation (79).

(76) //3 some / guy was
(77) //3 sitting there and there was
(78) //3 cars be- / hind him and he was like
(79) // [mimics man’s gesture and expression]
(80) //1 ^ like / waving me / out… //

Blogger Comments:

This is recycled almost verbatim from Martin & Zappavigna (2019). Here are the comments from the review of Martin & Zappavigna (2019): An Epilinguistic Projection Of Protolinguistic Body Language.

[1] To be clear, in SFL theory, the relation between expression ('face and body') and content ('affect') is realisation, not commitment.  'Commitment' is Martin's misunderstanding of instantiation, as previously explained here.

…

[3] To be clear, this expression of exasperation realises ATTITUDE, not because it expresses an emotion, but because the exasperation enacts an assessment (of the speaker by a motorist).

In terms of Cléirigh's original model, contrary to the authors' interpretation, the motorist's ATTITUDE is realised in protolinguistic body language, not epilinguistic body language ("semovergent" paralanguage).  The gesture is a manifestation of a conscious state that functions socio-semiotically.

The vlogger's mime of the motorist's body language, on the other hand, is an instance of epilinguistic body language in which she projects the motorist's protolinguistic body language that assesses her.

Why Martin's Notion Of Commitment Is Invalid

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 30):

In terms of commitment (i.e. the amount of meaning specified across semiotic modes; Martin, 2010; Painter et al., 2013), the ‘dermatologist’ and ‘steroid’ are committed in the language but not the paralanguage; but the ‘needle’ is more delicately committed in the paralanguage as a tiny pointed entity and then as a syringe. And the paralinguistic commitment of the ‘bump’ convergent with (69) in fact takes place two tone groups after it is committed verbally in (67).

 Blogger Comments:

This is recycled verbatim from Martin & Zappavigna (2019). Here are the comments from the review of Martin & Zappavigna (2019): Martin's Notion Of Commitment.

[1] To be clear, Martin's notion of 'commitment' is invalidated by the fact that it is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the system network, namely: that a speaker can choose the degree of delicacy to be instantiated during logogenesis.  As Martin (2011: 255-6) explains:

Instantiation also opens up theoretical and descriptive space for considering commitment (Martin 2008, 2010), which refers to the amount of meaning instantiated as the text unfolds.  This depends on the number of optional systems taken up and the degree of delicacy pursued in those that are, so that the more systems entered, and the more options chosen, the greater the semantic weight of a text (Hood 2008).

To be clear, a system network is not a type of flowchart, such that instantiation involves a movement through more and more delicate systems.  A system network is a network of relations.  In the case of lexicogrammar, the system specifies how all the features are related to each other, such that the instantiation of each lexical item in a text is the instantiation of all the features that specify it, from the most general all the way to the most delicate.

In short, Martin misconstrues what the linguist can do — decide on the degree of delicacy "pursued" in analysing a text — as what a speaker can do; but see also [3] below.

[2] Translating into SFL theory, the claim here is that the meanings 'dermatologist' and 'steroid' are instantiated in the language but not in paralanguage.  However, this is manifestly untrue.  As previously explained, the body of the speaker herself represented the dermatologist in two figures ('taking the needle' and 'injecting the steroid').

The instantiation of the meaning 'steroid' is more subtle.  Because, as Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 156) point out, a Process requires a Medium for its actualisation, the gesture representing the 'injecting' Process implicates a Medium, and so the meaning 'fluid' is at least implicated in the gesture, even if the meaning 'steroid' is not precisely specified.  (Try gesturing the meaning 'steroid'.)

To be clear, the authors' false claim derives from two procedural errors:

• assuming that handshape is the only bodily expression of ideational meaning here, and
• analysing at the level of element ("entity") instead of figure (while claiming the latter).

[3] As explained in [1], Martin's notion of "more delicate commitment" is nonsensical, based as it is on his misunderstanding of what system networks represent.

However, here it can also be seen that Martin confuses 'delicacy' as a scale of decreasing generality in system networks with 'delicacy' as a scale of decreasing generality in construing experience as meaning, as in 'needle' vs 'tiny pointed entity'.   It can also be seen that, even in these terms, the authors have the relation backwards, since 'tiny pointed entity' is a more general construal than 'needle', not more delicate, since, as a class, it includes a broader range of potential members.

[4] To be clear, the word 'syringe' is not instantiated in the data.  It appears only in the authors' gloss of the body language accompanying the wording and injected this like steroid.

[5] As explained in the previous post, the reason why this gesture is made with the final figure, and not the second, is that it realises the nucleus of the final figure, it all bubbled up, rather than the meaning of the word bump in the second figure.  The authors' confusion again arises from analysing isolated elements instead of their functions in figures.