Problems With The Authors' Analysis Of The Interaction Of Paralinguistic Deixis And Graduation

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 177-8):

The potential for a deictic gesture to be expressed simultaneously with one or more gestural realisations from other paralinguistic systems was noted in the introduction to this chapter. This is further exemplified in (16) where we zero in once again on the example discussed as (8) and (15) earlier.

In (16) the focus of attention is the deictic gesture realising [virtual:location]. In this instance the realisation of [home] converges with the verbal expression of time – today. The pinching of the thumb and index finger in image 1 selects [narrow] from the SCOPE system – but simultaneously expresses interpersonal semovergence in selecting [sharpen] in PARALINGUISTIC FOCUS (see Figure 5.14 on PARALINGUISTIC GRADUATION; Hao and Hood, 2019). Interpersonally the expression flags maximum exactitude or precision, in this instance flagging definitiveness in relation to the claim you told me today.

Upscaled PARALINGUISTIC FORCE is also enacted through the marked muscle tension involved in the pinching point in image 1 in (16) and a forceful long downward trajectory of forearm and hand indicated by the arrow in image 2 in (16). Here the systems of PARALINGUISTIC DEIXIS and PARALINGUISTIC GRADUATION interact to invoke the significance of the claim.

Blogger Comments:

[1] See the previous post. The gesture makes reference to a spatial location symbolising a temporal location, and 'narrow' is a feature of the expression (hand shape) not the content ("deixis").

[2] To be clear, 'sharp' describes the hand shape (expression), not its function (content). The claim that the finger pointing graduates an appraisal in terms of exactitude, precision or definitiveness is a bare assertion unsupported by evidence (the ipse dixit fallacy). Moreover, if the meaning to be recovered is 'today', then there is no appraisal made by the gesture, and so no graduation of an appraisal.

If, on the other hand, the gesture is interpreted as making reference to the addressee in the speaker's quoted text, then it could be interpreted as an accusatory JUDGEMENT. But this is not the authors' interpretation.

[3] To be clear, as the authors have previously acknowledged, the forceful downward beat coincides with the tonic prominence on today, which highlights it as the Focus of New information. That is, the beat of the gesture functions linguistically ("sonovergently") and textually ('significance'), not epilinguistically ("semovergently") and interpersonally (graduated appraisal).

Problems With The Authors' Analysis Of The Resonance Of Affect And Force

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 156, 157):

In Coraline’s first encounter with Wybie, a boy of her own age from the same neighbourhood, he accuses her of being a water witch to which she responds: //3 ^ and if / I’m a / water / witch //1 ^ then / where’s the secret / well //. The focus in (30) is on the second tone group of this utterance, that is, //1 ^ then / where’s the secret / well //. … 

The first image in (30) captures Coraline forcefully stomping her right foot and punching down with her arms and clenched hands in an expression of PARALINGUISTIC AFFECT – [anger] with [strong] FORCE. The voice quality on where realises VOICE AFFECT as [anger] – through high intensity, tension and roughness (shown as the grey area in the spectrogram in (30)). Coraline’s face is not visible in the first image; but a prosody of FACIAL AFFECT [anger] is additionally realised more or less intensively in the remaining three images – as the eyebrows are drawn down and together. These expressions of PARALINGUISTIC FORCE in realisations of [anger] resonate with and amplify one another.

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, the depiction of body language on an animated clay puppet is not body language, but an epilinguistic construal of body language, because the representation of body language on an animated clay puppet requires the prior development of language in the animator; it is not something that a dog or cat, for example, could do.

In considering the body language that is thus epilinguistically depicted:

[1] As previously explained, the beating of the foot and arms realises textual salience, and is linguistic, like the beats of speech. Here the authors again misconstrue this textual salience as interpersonal force (and as epilinguistic instead of linguistic).

[2] As previously explained, the bodily expression of emotion is protolinguistic, and so pre-metafunctional, because it does not require the prior evolution and development of language, as demonstrated by Darwin's work on the expression of emotions in other animal species. Here, however, the authors misconstrue the expression of emotion as requiring the prior evolution and development of language (epilinguistic) and locate it within the interpersonal metafunction, regardless of whether or not it is used to evaluate.

[3] To be clear, as the above demonstrates, the "resonance" here is between the protolinguistic expression of emotion (which other animals can do) and the linguistic expression of salience (which other animals cannot do).

Problems With The Authors' Analysis Of Paralinguistic Focus

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 146-7):

In (24), PARALINGUISTIC FOCUS as [sharpen] is expressed in the narrowly targeted index-finger point that zooms in towards the Other Mother. This expression of sharpened FOCUS functions to identify the target (Other Mother) in a highly specifying manner (see Chapter 6). This together with the expression of negative judgement in the spoken language in stole serves to amplify the expression of [disdain] in FACIAL AFFECT.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, GRADUATION is the scaling of an interpersonal APPRAISAL (Martin & White 2005: 135). The evaluation here is made through the process stole, so any upscaling of the evaluation must be an upscaling of stole not of the evaluated you. So there is no sharpening of the FOCUS of evaluation here (nor a quantifying of the FORCE of evaluation expressed by the extended arm). The interpersonal function of the orientation of the index-finger of the clay puppet here is simply deictic: it points to the addressee you from the speaker I .

[2] To be clear, this is an instance of 'pointing the finger' which is to accuse or blame (someone) — a 'j'accuse' — a gesture which the authors might easily have classified, in their own terms, as an emblem, since they write (p38):

Gestures treated as playing a speech functional role in dialogue in other models are treated as emblems in our framework.

In terms of Cléirigh's original model, this is a genuine example of epilinguistic body language — not to be found in protolinguistic species — in which the gesture expresses an appraisal of judgement, an accusation of wrongdoing, which the authors claimed (pp118, 121) that body language can not do.

[3] To be clear, the judgement instantiated as body language is consistent with the judgement instantiated as language. Whether or not the face of the clay puppet here specifically represents disdain, a feeling of contempt for someone or something regarded as unworthy or inferior is arguable, at the very least.

Problems With The Authors' Analysis Of Paralinguistic Force

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 146):

In (23), Coraline is arguing with her mother about why she has locked a tiny door. Convergent with dreams aren’t dangerous, her left hand depicts the proposition (dreams aren’t dangerous) as a semiotic entity (see Chapter 4) at the same time as her left arm is extended out front of her body. The expression realises PARALINGUISTIC FORCE as [quantify:size:extent]. In this instance FORCE is expressed in the embodied paralanguage but not in convergent spoken language.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is a bare assertion since it is unsupported by argument: the ipse dixit fallacy. Moreover, it is demonstrably false. In terms of practicability, the reader is invited to use one hand to represent dreams aren’t dangerous as an entity. In terms of theory, if this were possible, it would be an instance of grammatical metaphor — a figure realised as an element (Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 250) — in a semiotic system without a grammar: a contradiction in terms.

[2] To be clear, the claim here is that the extending of an arm to represent the extent of an entity is an instance of GRADUATION, the scaling of an interpersonal APPRAISAL (Martin & White 2005: 135). This is demonstrably false. Firstly, the representation of the extent of an entity is an ideational construal, not an interpersonal appraisal. Secondly, the only entity here is dreams, and this mental 'process thing' (Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 244) is clearly not represented by the hand, and the extent of the arm does not represent the extent (duration) of dreams. Thirdly, the evaluation here is made through the quality dangerous, so any upscaling of the evaluation must be an upscaling of dangerous not of dreams, and this the extending of the arm does not represent.

Moreover, this image contradicts the authors' model of PARALINGUISTIC ENGAGEMENT, because here a supine hand is used to represent the [monogloss] of dreams aren’t dangerous, whereas on the authors' model a supine hand represents not only [heterogloss], but [heterogloss: expansion], which is 'allowing space for other voices' (p143).

Misunderstanding Textual Language As Interpersonal Paralanguage

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 146):

Embodied paralanguage can adjust the FORCE of verbally expressed meanings through options of [intensify] and [quantify]. The feature [intensify] can be realised in a number of ways: through increased muscle tension in a hand-beat; in a very rapid frequency of such beats (syncing with syllable-timed rhythm in the prosodic phonology of English – see Chapter 6); or in the holding of the completed position of a beat for an extended time.

Blogger Comments:

[1] As Halliday (1967) pointed out, the prosodic phonology of English is foot-timed, not syllable-timed (e.g. Italian).

[2] To be clear, the beating of the hands with the rhythm of speech is the use of the hands to realise the same content as those realised by the rhythm of speech. That is, the function of the hand-beats is linguistic, to realise textual salience, which is why such gestures are classified as linguistic in Cléirigh's model. So here the authors have misunderstood the textual salience as interpersonal force. Put in their own terms, the authors have misunderstood textual sonovergent paralanguage as interpersonal semovergent paralanguage.

A Problem With The System Of Paralinguistic Graduation (Body)

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 145):

The system of PARALINGUISTIC GRADUATION (body) (Hood and Zhang, 2020) is shown in Figure 5.14.

Blogger Comments:

The system in Figure 5.14 models paralanguage as a bi-stratal semiotic system, and although this is consistent with the notion of a semiotic system, it is inconsistent with the preceding chapters in which paralanguage is misunderstood as an expression-only semiotic system. Where in previous chapters it was just paralinguistic expression that was semovergent with language, in this chapter it is both paralinguistic content and expression that is semovergent with language.

A Problematic Analysis Of Facial Affect

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 125-6):

Expressions of relative FORCE in FACIAL AFFECT are additionally realised through the relative duration over which an expression is held. …

In example (6), Coraline, having sensed danger, tells her Other Parents that she wants to go to bed. Her intention is to escape from the Other world in her sleep. However, the Other Parents follow closely behind her, the Other Mother even offering to tuck her into bed. 

Coraline’s anxiety is not revealed in the spoken exchange with the Other Mother but rather in her expression of FACIAL AFFECT as [spirit:down] realised through eyebrows raised and drawn together and downcast eyes. The expression is extended in duration, sustained over the three tone groups of the exchange (marked as //…//…//…).

Blogger Comments:

As previously argued, from the perspective of SFL Theory, these graded epilinguistic images are of the personal microfunction of protolanguage depicted on clay puppets by animators using the emotion-face code devised by Ekman.

[1] To be clear, since the authors claim (p123-4) that expressions of surprise typically have the briefest duration, the claim here is that surprise is typically has weaker force than other emotions.

[2] To be clear, the Coraline character is here concealing her anxiety from the other characters, as the spoken language demonstrates, so as not to raise suspicion, so the interpretation of this facial configuration — in which the eyes are not downcast — expressing any anxiety at all, let alone stronger anxiety, would seem to be the opposite of what is true.

The Praat waveforms are irrelevant here, since they just represent the articulation of consonants and vowels.

The Depiction Of Muscle Tension On A Clay Puppet

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 125):

Illustrated in (5) are two instances of FACIAL AFFECT as [spirit:up]. Image 2 is graded up in PARALINGUISTIC FORCE through increased muscle tension in the face as evident in the curled up corners of the mouth.

Blogger Comments:

As previously argued, from the perspective of SFL Theory, these graded epilinguistic images are of the personal microfunction of protolanguage depicted on clay puppets by animators using the emotion-face code devised by Ekman. What varies is the intensity of the emotional state depicted on the puppet.

The Paralinguistic Force Of Facial Affect Reconsidered

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 124):

Linguistic GRADUATION comprises two principal subsystems – FORCE and FOCUS. FORCE can function to adjust the relative intensity or quantity of inscribed attitude or to invoke an attitudinal meaning by grading ideational phenomena. FOCUS has to do with adjusting the categorical boundaries of phenomena as more or less sharply or softly defined (Hood, 2010, 2021; Hood and Zhang, 2020). However, unlike its linguistic counterpart and unlike the PARALINGUISTIC GRADUATION of body gestures (Hao and Hood, 2019; Hood and Zhang, 2020), FACIAL AFFECT can only be graded in FORCE. Features of [strong] to [weak] are shown as positions on a cline in Figure 5.4, realised through variations in muscle tension and/or the duration for which an expression is held.

Blogger Comments:

As previously demonstrated, the facial expression of emotion is not an interpersonal system of language, so the linguistic systems of APPRAISAL, such as ATTITUDE and GRADUATION, do not apply. Instead, from the perspective of SFL Theory, the facial expression of emotion serves the personal microfunction of protolanguage, and so what is presented here as graduated force is more consistently understood as a graduation of emotional intensity within the personal microfunction.