Misrepresenting Protolinguistic Paralanguage As Evidence Against The Category [2]

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

Another group of behaviours from Zappavigna and Martin’s (2018) ‘body protolanguage’ category involves relative uprightness of body posture, frontal or oblique facial and body orientation and the leaning forward or backwards of the torso in relation to the addressee. These expressive movements of the body are similarly independent from any ideational meanings with which they may combine and, similarly to facial movements, may also combine with other interpersonal strands of meaning, whether linguistic (e.g. a variety of spoken mood forms) or paralinguistic (e.g. smiling or widening the eyes). There is thus neither fusion of ideational/interpersonal meaning in relation to ‘content’ nor multimodal fusion in the form of expression. The characteristics of protolanguage as a developmental semiotic are not therefore in evidence.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the use of the terms 'behaviours' and 'expressive/facial movements' here again betray the authors' misunderstanding of body language as an expression-only semiotic system.

[2] Again, the authors (Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna) are not here arguing with themselves (Zappavigna and Martin); they are arguing to exclude protolinguistic body language from Cléirigh's model which they have claimed as their own. The plagiarism in this work is effected through myriad small steps.

[3] To be clear, these postures and orientations also occur in other social semiotic species, such as rainbow lorikeets. When they are meaningful, they are protolinguistic on the basis that they do not require the evolutionary or developmental emergence of language.

[4] To be clear, on Cléirigh's model, these are simply examples of protolinguistic body language accompanying the ideational or interpersonal meanings of language; that is, of protolinguistic body language being used paralinguistically. 

The authors' confusion here derives from their misunderstanding that such body language expressions realise the metafunctional meanings of the linguistic instance rather than the microfunctional meanings of the protolinguistic instance. This misunderstanding, in turn, derives from the authors' notion of convergence, in which paralanguage expression is said to converge with language content. This misunderstanding, in turn, derives from the authors' misunderstanding of body language as an expression-only semiotic system — a misunderstanding that invalidates their model of paralanguage.

[5] To be clear, on the one hand, the ideational and interpersonal metafunctions are irrelevant to a characterisation of protolanguage, since they do not evolve or develop until the emergence of language. The microfunctions are predecessors of the metafunctions, not a fusion of them. On the other hand, as Halliday's previously cited data (Halliday 2004 [1975]: 36) demonstrate, multimodality is not a necessary condition of protolanguage.

[6] To be clear, the characteristics of protolanguage as a developmental semiotic are merely characteristics of protolanguage in relation to the ontogenesis of language. Protolinguistic body language is concerned with protolanguage in its own right, not as a means to a linguistic end. 

Misrepresenting Protolinguistic Paralanguage As Evidence Against The Category [1]

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 61):

To explore this, some examples of adult paralinguistic behaviour classified by Zappavigna and Martin (2018) as protolinguistic will be briefly discussed. One group comprises various facial expressions such as smiling, raising, lowering or widening the eyes, opening the mouth and the presence or absence of eye contact with the addressee, all features of ‘social communion’ that predate even protolanguage (see Figure 2.1).  

As has been discussed, during the transition phase there is evidence that facial affect can be separated from other strands of interpersonal expression (e.g. looking happy while saying oh dear) and in the adult semiotic system affective facial expressions can clearly combine freely with any ideational meaning. In these respects, such expression forms are unlike protolinguistic signs, and the issue to be resolved in a particular case is whether that instance is somatic or semiotic.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the authors (Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna) are not here arguing with themselves (Zappavigna and Martin); they are arguing to exclude protolinguistic body language from Cléirigh's model which they have claimed as their own. The plagiarism in this work is effected through myriad small steps.

[2] To be clear, the use of the terms 'behaviour' and 'expression(s)' here betray the authors' misunderstanding of body language as an expression-only semiotic system.

[3] To be clear, this misunderstanding arises from again giving priority to the view 'from below', facial expression, instead of the view 'from above', meaning. The meanings of facial expressions cannot predate protolanguage, since protolanguage is the initial semiotic system. Before protolanguage, such facial expressions have a social function only: the selection of value in the other, not a semiotic function: the expression of symbolic value for the other.

[4] Here the authors provide evidence against their own argument. To be clear, a child looking happy while saying oh dear, and an adult combining facial expressions with language are both instances of the paralinguistic use of protolinguistic body language. They are paralinguistic because they are used alongside language, and they are protolinguistic because they are semiotic systems that do require the prior evolution and development of language.

[5] This is misleading. The difference here is only that, in these instances, the protolinguistic signs are being used paralinguistically, rather than pre-linguistically.

[6] To be clear, the issue to be resolved in a particular case is whether the instance is social (carries value) or protolinguistic (carries symbolic value). As previously explained, the authors' category of 'somatic' confuses two distinct orders of complexity: the biological and the social.

Misrepresenting The Microfunctions As Criterial Of Protolinguistic Body Language

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 61):

Nor is it possible to argue that certain forms of adult paralanguage are organised in terms of microfunctions simply because it is possible to interpret them this way. As explained earlier, there is no formal way to determine the microfunction of an infant expression – it is an interpretation from context. Therefore, given that any adult communication could be assigned to a microfunction on contextual grounds, since adult language has limitless uses, this does not in itself count as evidence for microfunctional organisation. It would therefore be more appropriate for the term ‘protolanguage’ to be used only if it can be shown that the defining characteristics of protolinguistic communication are apparent, that is, if the expression form is an irreducible multimodal complex and if the meaning is similarly an inseparable bundle of ideational and interpersonal meaning.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is very misleading indeed, because it misrepresents the micofunctions that are used to model protolanguage as criterial of the category. To be clear, protolinguistic body language is simply body language that does not require the prior evolution or development of language, and as such, can be found in all other species with a social semiotic system. The microfunctions are not criterial in determining the category 'protolinguistic', they are merely Halliday's means of modelling paralanguage.

So here again the authors are arguing against their own misunderstanding of Cléirigh's model, instead of against Cléirigh's model itself. In terms of logical fallacies, this is an example of the

Straw man fallacy – refuting an argument different from the one actually under discussion, while not recognising or acknowledging the distinction.

[2] This is misleading, because it is untrue. For example, protolinguistic interjections like yuck! and ouch! are not expressed by "an irreducible multimodal complex". Halliday (1994: 95):

Exclamations are the limiting case of an exchange; they are verbal gestures of the speaker addressed to no one in particular, although they may, of course, call for empathy on the part of the addressee. Some of them are in fact not language but protolanguage, such as Wow!, Yuck!, Aha! and Ouch!.

Moreover, Halliday's publications provide a wealth of examples of expressions that are not multimodal. For example, Halliday (2004 [1975]: 36):

In other species, the expression may be unimodal or multimodal. For example, in rainbow lorikeets, a 'prohibitive' regulatory function, which could be glossed as 'you just try it!) is expressed as rough growl with low rising tone (tone 3), whereas a 'threatening' regulatory function, which might be glossed as 'you're asking for it!', is expressed by the arching of the back, a lowering of the face and eye ridges, a fierce glare, and multiple wing-flaps while standing on 'tippy-toes' as if the bird was about to make a flying attack. Other examples can be found here.

[3] To be clear, this characterises human protolanguage in terms of the semiotic system it will evolve and develop into, metafunctional language, instead of in its own terms as microfunctional protolanguage. In evolutionary terms, this is analogous to characterising the features of therapod dinosaurs in terms of the features of birds.

Halliday (2004 [1975]: 52) provides a summary of the development from microfunction to metafunction:

The Disadvantage Of Modelling Protolanguage From The Perspective Of Affect

 Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 54):

While modelling protolanguage from the perspective of affect does not lend itself as readily to tracking the development of the system as protodialogue (involving calls, greetings, offers, refusals, acknowledgements, playful exchanges) and imaginative play, it has the advantage of emphasising the continuity with the earlier, emotion-charged forms of social communion and of allowing for a clearer focus on the origins of the verbal ATTITUDE system in the adult semantics of APPRAISAL (Martin and White, 2005).

Blogger Comments:

[1] As previously explained, a model of protolanguage from the perspective of emotion ("affect") is a model of the sensing that might accompany protolanguage — like a model of sensing that might accompany language — not a model of the meaning that is actually expressed. As previously explained, it is not a question of whether protolanguage is "emotion-charged", but of whether it is emotions that constitute the content of what is expressed.

[2] To be clear, it is Halliday's linear taxonomy of complexity that provides a means of understanding the developmental move from pre-semiotic social communion to protolanguage. Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 509):

… a social system is a biological system with the added component of "value" … . 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 social; it is biological with the added component of value. Again, 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 been naturally selected to be of adaptive value to the organism's ancestors.

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. It is when this value becomes symbolic value that the social system acquires the added component of meaning that makes it a semiotic system: protolanguage.

[3] To be clear, the 'clearer focus' that is allowed by modelling protolanguage from the perspective of emotion ("affect") is the important distinction between the protolanguage systems that are common to all social semiotic species and the language systems that are unique to humans.

Moreover, the ATTITUDE system of AFFECT is concerned with the interpersonal assessment by reference to emotion, not with emotion as experiential meaning. As Halliday (2008: 179-80) explains, as a system of interpersonal assessment, the system of ATTITUDE arises from the systemisation of POLARITY and MODALITY:

In terms of children’s early language development, the interpersonal metafunction provides the prototype of how meanings come to be grammaticalised. The two systems that were first grammaticalised by one small child (Nigel, aged 0;10) were:

POLARITY: positive / negative
MODALITY: VALUE: low / high

followed shortly by the two forms of “appreciation” in conjunction with the feature “positive”:

APPRECIATION (positive): impact (“that’s interesting”) / quality (“that tastes nice”)

Note that these were not yet mother tongue; they were protolanguage, realised by sounds and gestures. But they were systemic, or at least proto-systemic; and they provided the model for the linguistic systems of appraisal, where each lexical item realises the intersection of an appraisal feature with polarity and/or modality.

The Inspiration For Zappavigna & Martin’s Model Of Paralanguage

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 43-4):

The remainder of this book proceeds as follows: In Chapter 2 we review the SFL ontogenesis research that inspired Zappavigna and Martin’s (2018) model of paralanguage and consider its implications for the revision of terminology and some of that model’s parameters here. In Chapter 3 we introduce the SFL description of English rhythm and intonation, which paralanguage converges with in spoken interaction. We then explore paralanguage from an ideational perspective in Chapter 4, from an interpersonal perspective in Chapter 5 and from a textual perspective in Chapter 6. Chapter 7 concludes the book with a discussion of intermodality, including consideration of mime, emblems and the place of paralanguage in a functional model of language and semiosis.

Blogger Comments:

[1] Here the authors misrepresent Cléirigh's model (2010) as the work of Zappavigna and Martin (2018), which satisfies the definition of plagiarism. The plagiarism in this work is effected through myriad small steps.

[2] To be clear, Cléirigh's model of body language was not inspired by SFL ontogenesis research. Instead, it simply differentiated gestures and postures according to whether they were protolinguistic, linguistic or epilinguistic. Protolinguistic systems do not require the prior evolution or development of language, whereas epilinguistic systems do. This is a taxonomy based on types of semiotic systems, not on any actual research on ontogenesis.

The Issue Of What Counts As Semiosis And What Does Not

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 18-9):

SFL research on language development in young children has proven a useful starting point for work on paralanguage in two respects. On the one hand, the emergence of the first signs (protolanguage) highlights the issue of what counts as semiosis and what does not. On the other hand, the realisation of these first signs is multimodal – linguistic and paralinguistic resources are not differentiated at this stage. …

The influence of SFL research on the ontogenesis of language on our model of paralanguage is explored in detail in Chapter 2.

One basic challenge that has to be faced when working on paralanguage is how to distinguish it from behaviour – separating semiosis from non-semiosis in other words. …

From this point on we will use the term ‘somasis’ for non-semiotic behaviour (such as sneezing, stretching, scratching an itch and so on) and ‘semiosis’ for systems of signs.

 

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, in SFL Theory, the perspective taken is 'from above': how are these meanings expressed? The issue of what does or does not count as semiosis only arises from taking the opposite perspective 'from below': is or is not this an expression of meaning? That is, the authors have misunderstood SFL methodology, according to which, non-semiotic behaviour is irrelevant to a model of paralanguage.

See also the original comments on this at Misunderstanding The Difference Between Semiosis And Non-Semiosis.

[2] Here yet again, the authors remind the reader that Cléirigh's model of body language is their model of paralanguage. The plagiarism in this work is effected through myriad small steps.

To be clear, it is Cléirigh's model of body language that derives from taking an ontogenetic (and phylogenetic) perspective:

• protolinguistic systems are those that develop before language (and persist thereafter);
• linguistic systems are those that develop as language;
• epilinguistic systems are those that develop after language.

The authors rebrand linguistic body language as sonovergent paralanguage, despite it being neither sonovergent nor paralanguage, which invalidates their rebranding of Cléirigh's model.

The authors rebrand epilinguistic body language as semovergent paralanguage, despite it not being restricted to paralanguage, and include within it protolinguistic body language that is used by species without language, and so is not epilinguistic, and reject the notion of protolinguistic body language, consigning the remainder to non-semiosis, as will be seen.