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.
