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.

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.