The Irrelevance Of 'Somatic Behaviour' To A Model Of Paralanguage

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 197-8):

An early step in our work involved drawing a distinction between somatic and semiotic behaviour (Figure 7.1), drawing on functional studies of language development – where the distinction bears critically on the emergence of protolanguage (our focus in Chapter 2).

 

We accept in drawing this distinction that all behaviour has the potential to be treated as meaningful or not by speakers. A clear example comes from the data underpinning Chapter 5, as Coraline swings rhythmically back and forth several times on a squeaky door, staring at her father who is busy at this desk as she does so (example (1)) – until he responds verbally and paralinguistically to this behaviour as a request for attention.

We can further illustrate this point anecdotally to show that it is not just human behaviour that can be construed as meaningful. In 2018 one of our authors, along with her sister-in-law and her partner (another of our authors), participated in an informal memorial ashes ceremony on the edge of a reef in South Australia – pouring the sister-in-law’s partner’s ashes into the ocean there where that couple, keen divers, had spent many weekends and holidays exploring the reef together. As they did so a large ray swam slowly by. This was interpreted by all involved as a remarkable meaningful event, retold and enjoyed on many occasions with close relatives and friends – with the ray construed as a dear loved one saying goodbye. In cases such as these somasis is recontextualised as semiosis by the meaning-making interlocutors involved. What is crucial from the perspective of discourse analysis is the uptake of what went on, or not, by meaners.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, an earlier step in their work involved taking Cléirigh's model and having multiple meetings in attempts to understand it.

[2] To be clear, the perspective taken by SFL theory is 'from above'; that is, it is concerned with questions of what meanings are distinguished and how they are expressed. From this perspective, gestures that do not realise meanings are irrelevant to a model of paralanguage. The need for a distinction between semiotic and "somatic" behaviour only arises from mistakenly taking the opposite perspective 'from below': the question of whether gestures express meanings.

[3] To be clear, the authors' focus in Chapter 2 was an argument against Cléirigh's 'protolinguistic' body language, the type that humans share with all other social semiotic species. The purpose of removing this type of body language was to allow for the interpretation of facial expressions of emotion in terms of one linguistic system of APPRAISAL, AFFECT, in Chapter 5, despite the fact that emotions are facially expressed in species without language.

[4] To be clear, this confuses two different roles of interlocutor: speaker ('sayer') and interpreter ('senser'). The fact that interlocutors can mentally construe material order phenomena as semiotic order metaphenomena is irrelevant to a model of paralanguage. In SFL Theory, a model of body language identifies the potential meanings that can be distinguished by speakers, with their bodies, while speaking.

Taking Steps To Realise Marked New

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 187, 189-90):

To what extent does the regularity in this sequence synchronise with PARALINGUISTIC PERIODICITY? The lecturer’s movement is schematised in Figure 6.5 (adopting the perspective of the students). 

The vertical lines to left and right denote the peripheries of the space, and the black rectangle denotes a centrally located desk towards the back of the space. The arrows show direction of movement; and the orientation of the foot indicates whether the lecturer is stepping forward or backwards in a given direction (it is always forward in (19'')). The figures and movement in Figure 6.5 are correlated as follows:

The movement in Figure 6.5 involves a regular three-step rhythm synchronous with each figure. The first step always falls on the intermodally prominent entity that construes the nutrient (i.e. glucose, vitamins, amino acids or water).

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, in comparing textual paralanguages, it is the textual metafunction that is relevant, not the ideational. So, the relevant textual structure for description that is building on the rhythm and tonicity of gestures, is the Given-New structure of information unit realised by tone groups. 

[2] To be clear, the first step of each movement coincides with the tonic that realises the Focus of marked New information.

So here the authors are positing a systematic relation between stepping and language. For Halliday and Cléirigh, that categorises the function of this movement as linguistic, or "sonovergent" in the authors' terms.

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.

Confusing Epilinguistic Pictures With Protolinguistic Body Language

 Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 62-3):

As we have seen, much of what is assigned to body protolanguage involves the expression of emotions. Here we meet again the challenge of discriminating somasis and semiosis. Nonetheless, in the analysis of visual depiction, Painter et al. (2013) propose VISUAL AFFECT as an interpersonal meaning system complementing that of verbal AFFECT within the linguistic domain of APPRAISAL. 

The details of the system remain unspecified by them, but Martinec (2001) provides networks of meaning options for basic emotions with realisations specified in terms of facial movements. These systems are again treated by him as belonging within the interpersonal metafunction and thus able to be put into play alongside meanings originating from within the other metafunctions. For our own work in this domain, see Chapter 5.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is misleading, because it is untrue. As we have seen in previous posts, this false claim derives from the authors misconstruing Halliday's microfunctions of protolanguage as types of emotions. See

• The Problem With Reinterpreting Early Protolanguage As A System Of "Semioticised Affect"
• The Disadvantage Of Modelling Protolanguage From The Perspective Of Affect

In Cléirigh's model, following Halliday ((e.g. 2004 [1998]: 18), since emotions are personal states, they are restricted to the personal microfunction.

[2] This is misleading, because it is untrue. If body movements and postures mean something other than themselves, emotions, they are semiotic, not merely "somatic" (the authors' confusion of biological and social orders of complexity).

As previously explained, this challenge to the authors only arises from their taking the view 'from below' (body movements and postures) instead of the SFL view 'from above' (the meanings expressed), and this error derives from misunderstanding paralanguage as an expression-only semiotic system..

[3] As previously explained, visual depiction is an epilinguistic semiotic system — "semovergent" in the authors' terms — since it requires the prior evolution and development of language. This means that its meaning is metafunctionally organised. Painter et al simply applied the interpersonal metafunction to what is depicted in instances of an epilinguistic system. Importantly, the visual depiction of emotions is irrelevant to the issue of protolinguistic body language, since it is not concerned with the meanings that can be made by an organism of a social semiotic species in whom language has not developed. See the earlier post

• Misrepresenting Epilinguistic Pictures As Evidence Against Protolinguistic Body Language

For a more detailed consideration of the epilinguistic depiction of protolinguistic body language, see the review of Chapter 5 of this publication on interpersonal paralanguage.

[4] As previously explained, this is simply a description of paralanguage, whether protolinguistic or epilinguistic. As such, it does not serve the authors' argument against protolinguistic body language.

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Most importantly, just as an image of a pipe is not a pipe, an image of body language is not body language.

Misrepesenting Epilinguistic Pictures As Evidence Against Protolinguistic Body Language

 Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 62):

If we turn now to other SFL theorists, particularly those who have considered the visual depiction of human communicative interaction, we can see some common threads. There is a general agreement about the meanings of the way the body is oriented in relation to an addressee. 

For example, Kress and van Leeuwen’s (2006) system of INVOLVEMENT within their ‘visual grammar’ explains the meaning as relative detachment or involvement of the viewer with the content of the image. The meaning is realised by horizontal angle, with an oblique angle signifying greater detachment than a front-on angle. 

Painter et al. (2013) extend this to analysis of the depicted interacting characters in picture books to propose a system of ORIENTATION with different orientations between characters (face to face, side by side, back to back) comparably realising different degrees of engagement, solidarity or detachment. 

Martinec (2001) similarly has a comparable system of ANGLE (operating alongside one of SOCIAL DISTANCE) again with similar realisations.  

In all of this work the meaning systems are placed within the interpersonal metafunction and are thus seen as available alongside textual and/or ideational paralanguage systems and all three metafunctions of language.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is misleading, since these are not independent theorists. Painter et al, at least, theorise on the basis of Kress and van Leeuwen's work, at least.

[2] Importantly, visual depiction is an epilinguistic semiotic system — "semovergent" in the authors' terms — since it requires the prior evolution and development of language. So here the authors are using an epilinguistic system as evidence that a protolinguistic system is epilinguistic.

[3] To be clear, Kress and van Leeuwen are concerned with a human's interpretation of an image, and Painter et al are concerned with relations within an image. Both are irrelevant to the issue at hand, since neither is concerned with the body language of an organism of a social semiotic species.

[4] To be clear, because visual depiction is an epilinguistic semiotic system, its meaning is metafunctionally organised. These colleagues have simply applied the interpersonal metafunction to what is depicted in such epilinguistic systems.

[5] To be clear, this is simply a description of paralanguage, whether protolinguistic or epilinguistic. As such, it does not serve the authors' argument against protolinguistic body language.

Somasis: Confusing Biological And Social Orders Of Complexity

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 47-8):

By two or three months of age, then, the infant’s expressive but pre-symbolic behaviour can be modelled, as shown in Figure 2.1, as either ‘biological behaviour’ or ‘social communion’. The former may have meaning for the adult but is unaddressed, while the latter involves shared address but no content. Both are regarded here as examples of ‘somasis’, that is, human vocal and bodily behaviour that is not being deployed for meaning-making.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, bodily behaviour that does not realise meaning is irrelevant to a model of semiotic systems. It has only become an issue here because the authors take the view 'from below', expression, in contradistinction to the SFL perspective 'from above', content.

[2] To be clear, classifying 'social' as 'biological' confuses different orders of complexity. On Halliday's model, which the authors have previously cited, but misunderstood, a social system is of a different order of complexity, because it is a biological system with the added component of value. Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 508, 509):

Physical systems are just physical systems. Biological systems, however, are not just biological systems; they are at once both biological and physical. Social systems are all three: social, biological and physical. …

A biological system is a physical system with the added component of "life"; it is a living physical system. In comparable terms, a social system is a biological system with the added component of "value" (which explains the need for a synoptic approach, since value is something that is manifested in forms of structure). A semiotic system, then, is a social system with the added component of "meaning".

On Halliday's model, an infant's pre-symbolic behaviour of 'social communion' is, as the name implies, social, not biological ('somatic'). That is, it is biological with the added component of value. The value, in this model, can be understood in terms of Edelman's Theory of Neuronal Group Selection, which proposes that neural systems include inherited 'values', which bias the perceptual categorisation of experience toward categorisations that have been naturally selected to be of adaptive value to the organism's ancestors. This can be seen, for example, in the peacock's courtship display, where the fanning of a peacock's tail selects a perception of positive value in the neural system of a peahen. 

In the case of the 'social communion' of a human infant, the infant's 'expression with no symbolic content' selects a perception of positive value in the neural system of an adult, thus biasing the behaviour of the adult towards the caregiving of the infant, and through that, the strengthening of a social structure: a social bond between infant and caregiver.

Using Halliday's Linear Taxonomy Of Complexity To Classify Somatic Behaviours

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 19-20):

As far as somasis is concerned we have found it useful to draw on Halliday’s (1996) proposals for an evolutionary typology of systems. He recognises four orders of complexity, with semiotic systems evolving out of social systems, social systems out of biological ones and biological ones out of physical ones. 

We have adapted this framework in our classification of somatic behaviour, distinguishing physical activity, biological behaviour and social communion.

Physical activity covers material action involving some change in the relationship of one physical entity to another (walking, running, jumping, throwing, breaking, cutting, digging, pulling etc.). 

Biological behaviour can be divided into changes that restore comfort (sneezing, coughing, scratching, laughing, adjusting garments or hair etc.) and those that index discomfort (nail biting, fiddling, fidgeting, wriggling, blushing, shivering, crying etc.). 

Social communion can be divided into mutual perception (sharing gaze, pitch, proximity, touch, smell etc.) and reciprocal attachment (tickling, cradling, holding hands, hugging, stroking, hugging, kissing, mating etc.). These proposals are outlined in Figure 1.7.

… To put this another way, we are arguing that the behaviours outlined in Figure 1.7 can be treated as paralinguistic or not depending on whether or not they are negotiated as meaningful in interaction.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, non-semiotic behaviour ("somasis") is irrelevant to a model of paralanguage, and it only arises as an issue because the authors give priority the the view 'from below': gestures, in contradistinction to the methodology of SFL Theory, which gives priority to the view 'from above': meaning.

[2] To be clear, Halliday's model is set out in Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 508, 509):

Physical systems are just physical systems. Biological systems, however, are not just biological systems; they are at once both biological and physical. Social systems are all three: social, biological and physical. …

A biological system is a physical system with the added component of "life"; it is a living physical system. In comparable terms, a social system is a biological system with the added component of "value" (which explains the need for a synoptic approach, since value is something that is manifested in forms of structure). A semiotic system, then, is a social system with the added component of "meaning".

[3] To be clear, the authors' use of Halliday's model seriously misunderstands it. Halliday's model is concerned with orders of complexity, from atoms to organisms to social structures, where the later orders subsume the earlier orders. The authors' three types of behaviour, in contrast, are mutually exclusive categories of the behaviour of organisms.

[4] To be clear, if any of these behaviours are interpreted as meaning anything other than themselves, then they are interpreted semiotic. Moreover, for Halliday (2004: 18), contrā the authors, 'exchanging attention' is a gloss of the interactional microfunction, and so not only semiotic rather than somatic, but protolanguage.

[5] To be clear, there is no need to argue this, since this is just a definition of (interpersonal) semiosis.

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This is recycled verbatim from Martin & Zappavigna (2019). See also the comments at:

Confusing Levels Of Complexity With Types Of Behaviour
Interpreting Purportedly Non-Semiotic Behaviours As Semiotic