The Authors' General Model Of Sonovergent And Semovergent Systems

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 211):

Our expectation is that each new register will lead to reconsideration of the details of the specific paralinguistic systems proposed in Chapters 4, 5 and 6. We do hope on the other hand that our general model of sonovergent and semovergent systems will stand a longer test of time and prove a productive framework for exploring the contribution of gesture, body orientation, position and movement, facial expression, gaze and voice quality to face-to-face interaction. … As functional linguists, we have been sidelining paralanguage for far too long.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the authors' distinction between sonovergent and semovergent paralanguage is their rebranding of Cléirigh's distinction between linguistic and epilinguistic body language. As explained throughout, the authors' sonovergent paralanguage is language, not paralanguage. And as demonstrated throughout, the authors include protolinguistic body language in their semovergent paralanguage, despite the fact that this is a rebranding of body language that is only made possible by the prior evolution and development of language. Either of these misunderstandings, alone, invalidates the authors' model.

[2] Here again Martin justifies his work as the righting of a wrong. Cf. Martin & Doran (2023: 44):

Structure markers make important contributions to the realisation of systemic options in many languages… . Our goal here has been to suggest a way forward for grammarians disposed towards granting these structural orphans a home.

The sentiment might be summarised as "Make Paralanguage Great Again".

Problems With The Semovergence Of Discourse Semantics And Paralanguage

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 207, 208):

And, as outlined in Table 7.2, semovergence was explored in terms of how linguistic and paralinguistic systems concur with one another (ideational meaning), resonate with one another (interpersonal meaning) and sync with one another (textual meaning).

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, as previously demonstrated, 'semovergence' derives from the authors' original misunderstanding of paralanguage as an expression-only semiotic system that "converges with" (realises) the content of language. This view was assumed in Chapter 1, which was previously published as Martin & Zappavigna (2019), and was partially maintained in Chapter 4, where ideational networks confused content with expression, but abandoned by Chapters 5 and 6, where interpersonal and textual networks distinguished content from expression.

[2] To be clear, the authors' model of semovergent paralanguage substitutes the discourse semantics of Martin for the semantics of Halliday in Cléirigh's model of epilinguistic body language, but maintains Cléirigh's terms 'articulatory' and 'mimetic'. Cf.

Of the authors' paralinguistic discourse semantic systems,

• IDEATION is a rebranding of the semantics of Halliday & Matthiessen (1999), rather than the discourse semantics of Martin (1992);
• APPRAISAL is a linguistic system misapplied to protolanguage;
• IDENTIFICATION is a system of DEIXIS that classifies referents; and
• PERIODICITY is a system without a network that merely correlates the location of a speaker with what he says, without regard to how each identifies the other (realisation).

Mistaking Language For Paralanguage

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 203-4):

This raises a question of how we might position onomatopœia (e.g. animal noises such as meow, woof, neigh, baa) and phonæsthesia (e.g. slinky, slimey, slinky, slippery, slither, slurp, slushy) were we to further develop our description of language and paralanguage. This would involve bringing relevant dimensions of voice quality (outlined in Chapter 5) to bear, as well as exploring the potential for human articulatory resources to imitate sounds (arguably an ideational resource) and attitudinally ‘colour’ phonæsthetic series (arguably an interpersonal one). Our expectation is that these resources could be brought into a model of paralanguage based on further research (cf. Chapter 5, Section 5.5, on voice quality differentiation between miserable and angry meows).

Blogger Comments:

This misunderstands language as paralanguage. To be clear, words, including those classified as onomatopœic or phonæsthetic, are of the lexicogrammar of language, and so are not part of paralanguage. Onomatopœic words that imitate the meaningful vocalisations of other animals are linguistic representations of non-human protolanguage. Phonæsthetic words are those whose phonetic realisations imitate the perceptual qualities of material order phenomena.

Mime As Semovergent Paralanguage That Does Not Accompany Language

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 200-1, 202-3):

An important exception to these principles is what is commonly referred to as mime. In terms of our model mime is semovergent paralanguage that does not accompany language, an apparent contradiction in terms. To explore this further we will return to a miming segment in our vlogger’s ‘Parking Lot’ phase. …

In this sequence, there is a miming segment where tone groups might have been, as the vlogger mimes the paralanguage of her parking spot assailant. She first mimes his exasperation. 

She then mimes his ideational paralanguage as he twice gestures for her to leave (including a deictic pointing gesture).

The third time his motion gesture is mimed in fact concurs with language.

As we can see, the two miming segments are heavily co-textualised by language that makes explicit what is going on. The orientation to the narrative introduces the recurrent problem of someone following the vlogger in a parking lot and waiting for her to leave. The miming segments are introduced with an incomplete tone group //3 cars be- / hind him and he was like // [mimics man’s gesture and expression] //, with a missing Tonic segment. The vlogger then mimes the expected information before making it linguistically explicit in a tone group converging with the third iteration of the gesture.  

Setting aside the mime performances of mime artists (the ‘art of silence’ Marcel Marceau referred to), we can predict that co-textualisation of this kind is a generalisable pattern as far as semovergent paralanguage (in the absence of language) is concerned. What the moment of mime does not provide as far as language is concerned, the immediately preceding and following co-text does. The convergent nature of semovergent paralanguage as a recurrent pattern is clear.

Blogger Comments:

With the exception of the correction of 'pantomime' to 'mime', all but the first paragraph is recycled verbatim from Martin & Zappavigna (2019: 26). See the original review at Mime As Paralanguage.

[1] Importantly, this is an instance of using body language to depict body language. In Cléirigh's original model, the miming body language is epilinguistic, since it is a depiction that is only made possible by the ontogenesis of language, as evinced by the inability of other animals to do it.

The body language of the motorist, on the other hand, is at first protolinguistic (personal microfunction: exasperation) and then epilinguistic (SPEECH FUNCTION: gesturing a command for her to leave).

[2] As the authors demonstrate, this type of mime does indeed accompany language, thereby invalidating their model of mime as semovergent paralanguage that does not accompany language.

[3] Significantly, the authors do not actually identify the system of linguistic meaning that the mime is said to converge with in their model, being only concerned to relate this semovergent paralanguage to phonology, as if it were sonovergent instead. The authors frequently state categorically that paralanguage cannot "converge" with NEGOTIATION (p29, 34, 38, 203), which the gesture of a command, above, clearly contradicts.

What The Authors Say They Did vs What The Authors Actually Did

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 198, 199, 240n):

We then moved to build a general model of paralanguage, drawing on the concept of stratification (levels of abstraction) and metafunction (kinds of meaning) in systemic functional linguistics (SFL) theory.¹ We used stratification to distinguish between paralanguage that converges with the prosodic phonology (intonation and rhythm) of spoken language and paralanguage that converges with its discourse semantics (IDEATION, APPRAISAL, IDENTIFICATION and PERIODICITY) – sonovergent versus semovergent paralanguage, respectively (Figure 7.2).

¹ In this respect our model contrasts with the syntax, semantics and pragmatics framework assumed in most related studies. We do not oppose form to meaning (syntax vs semantics); and we do not conflate resources enacting social relations with those composing information flow (as pragmatics).

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is very misleading indeed. The authors actually began with Cléirigh's general model of body language that was already organised in terms of stratification and metafunction. The plagiarism in this book is effected through myriad small steps.

[2] To be clear, what the authors actually did was rebrand Cléirigh's 'linguistic' body language as 'sonovergent' paralanguage and Cléirigh's 'epilinguistic' body language as 'semovergent' paralanguage. This created many of the inconsistencies that invalidate the authors' entire model of paralanguage. To explain:

The distinction in Cléirigh's model is between body language that functions as protolanguage ('protolinguistic'), body language that functions as language ('linguistic'), and body language made possible by the evolution and development of language ('epilinguistic'). That is, the types are distinguished in terms of semogenesis: phylogenesis and ontogenesis.

Despite semogenesis being the criterion for these types, the authors renamed the types as if they differed in terms of the linguistic strata they converged with. This generated many confusions. The notion of convergence arose in the first place because the authors misunderstood paralanguage as an expression-only semiotic system. This led two of the authors, Martin & Zappavigna (2019), to conclude that paralanguage is an expression system of language — evidence here — thereby invalidating the notion of convergence. 

In this publication, the misunderstanding of paralanguage as an expression-only semiotic system persists in Chapter 1 and Chapter 4 (ideational semovergent paralanguage). In contrast, Chapter 5 (interpersonal semovergent paralanguage) and Chapter 6 (textual semovergent paralanguage) understand paralanguage as both content and expression, thereby making the notion of 'semovergence' with language redundant.

And as previously observed, because 'sonovergent paralanguage' serves the same functions as prosodic phonology, it is language, not paralanguage, and so realises grammatical systems (INFORMATION and KEY) rather than "converging" with vocal tract systems.

[3] This is a serious misunderstanding of SFL Theory. Of course SFL opposes 'form to meaning': phonology is form, semantics is meaning, and lexicogrammar is form interpreted in terms of its function in realising meaning.

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.

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).

The Claim That The Face Does Not Express Desire

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 152, 156):

The possibility of different paralinguistic resources being instantiated simultaneously allows us to infer meanings not necessarily interpretable from an expression in a single paralinguistic mode. For example, FACIAL AFFECT has no distinct option for the expression of desire. However, when raised eyebrows and wide-opened eyes (realising FACIAL AFFECT as [surprise]) are expressed convergently with PARALINGUISTIC PROXIMITY as [personal] and PARALINGUISTIC ORIENTATION as [involved], the emotion of desire is strongly invoked. Two such instances are described in (29).

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, this is a serious omission in the authors' model. The bodily expression of desire is enshrined in Shakespeare's Julius Cæsar:

Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look

and at least one of the following facial expressions might reasonably be construed as expressing desire:

[2] To be clear, the authors' claim here is that a personal, involved expression of surprise "invokes" (i.e. evokes) an expression of desire. In contrast, none of the desiring faces above look at all surprised.

Problems With The System Of Paralinguistic Engagement

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 144):

From a social semiotic approach, Hood (2011) considers how embodied paralanguage resonates with linguistic ENGAGEMENT resources (see Figure 5.13).

 

For example, a prone (palm down) hand gesture realises [contraction] and functions to close down space for the negotiation of propositions or proposals. A supine (palm up) hand gesture realises [expansion] and functions to open up space for negotiation. Hao and Hood (2019) and Hood and Zhang (2020) also discuss an oscillating movement of the hand as softening focus in relation to the fulfilment or actualisation of a propositional figure, while additionally realising [heteroglossic: expansion]. Heteroglossic [expansion] and [contraction] are frequently realised through the positioning of the hands but can also be expressed through a more general open or closed posture of the body torso or the positioning of the head. An open face (tilted upwards) realising [expansion] will also display relaxed rather than compressed facial muscles.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear ,the system in Figure 5.13 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.

[2] Importantly, this use of body language requires the prior evolution of language — it is not found in pre-linguistic species — and so is epilinguistic, in terms of Cléirigh's model. This contrasts with the prior discussion in this chapter of the bodily expression of emotion, which is found in pre-linguistic species, and so is protolinguistic, in terms of Cléirigh's model.

Social Bonding Through Reciprocated Expressions Of Emotion

 Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 140-1): 

When such couplings are tendered in interaction with others and reciprocated they are said to constitute bonds, and it is through the sharing of multiple bonds that we build affiliating communities (Knight, 2013; Zappavigna, 2018, 2019).  Here we are concerned with how selected features of FACIAL AFFECT and VOICE AFFECT couple with their ideational triggers in the negotiation of bonds in the service of affiliation. Figure 5.11 presents options and realisations in a system of BONDING adapted from Zappavigna (2018, 2019) with realisations for PARALINGUISTIC AFFECT.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the claim here is simply that reciprocated evaluations bond interlocutors socially.

[2] To be clear, the claim here is that reciprocated emotional evaluations, expressed by the face and voice, bond people socially.

The problem here is that facial and vocal expressions of emotion are not systems of the interpersonal metafunction of language, but are systems of pre-metafunctional protolanguage, as demonstrated by all the members of other socio-semiotic species whose facial and vocal configurations express emotion.

Given this, the claim is that reciprocated emotional responses to the same environmental stimulus bond people socially. One example of this would be when two strangers, both afraid of being eaten by same approaching crocodile, are bonded socially through their reciprocated facial expressions.

Accepting The Biological Nature Of Vocal And Facial Expressions Of Emotion

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 139):

If we accept that natural (i.e. not performed) vocal and facial expressions of emotion are biological in nature (Darwin, 1872; Barlow, 2002), this would suggest resonance across the systems of FACIAL AFFECT and VOICE AFFECT (in the absence of intentional divergence such as in expressions of sarcasm).

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the biological nature of vocal and facial expressions of emotion, whether natural or performed, lies in the fact that the organs of organisms are their material basis. Moreover, the fact that the vocal and facial expressions of emotion are not restricted to humans (Darwin 1872) demonstrates that these semiotic systems do not require the prior evolution and development of language, and so are (personal) protolinguistic systems, rather than (interpersonal) AFFECT systems of language.

[2] For amusement, the following illustrates the divergence between the expressed content of protolanguage and the unexpressed content of language.

Misapplying A Confusion Of Ideational And Interpersonal Meaning To A Representation Of Protolanguage [2]

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 127-8):

A further example in (8) shows how information acquired from past events can trigger a response in FACIAL AFFECT. The instance involves Coraline’s first encounter with the Cat in the orientation stage of the film’s narrative. The episode begins with Coraline exploring the neighbourhood along a steep hillside path. A rock falls onto her path from on high. She calls out but gets no response, then throws the rock in the direction from which it fell. A pained cry is heard. Extremely alarmed by this, she runs as fast as possible, sensing something is pursuing her. Startled by a loud ‘meow’ from behind, she turns to look. Seeing that it is only a cat, her facial expression of [fear] swiftly changes to [surprise], but then to [anger], as in the three images in (8).

Blogger Comments:

[1] That is:

• a Phenomenon of auditory perception (pained cry) is the Agent (trigger) of the mental Process of emotion (alarm);
• a Phenomenon of auditory perception (a loud meow) is the Agent (trigger) of the mental Process of emotion (surprise); and
• a Phenomenon of visual perception (a cat) is the Agent (trigger) of the mental Process of emotion (anger).

Again this confuses ideational with interpersonal meaning, and misapplies the confusion to an epilinguistic representation of pre-metafunctional protolanguage on a clay puppet.

[2] To be clear, here the expression of emotion does not accompany speech, so it is not functioning as paralanguage, and is not semovergent.

Misapplying A Confusion Of Ideational And Interpersonal Meaning To A Representation Of Protolanguage [1]

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 127):

In (7), the trigger for facial expressions of emotion is apparently sourced internally. 

In the resolution stage of the narrative storyline in the film, Coraline meets the Cat, a good friend whom she has not seen since she threw him at the Other Mother in attempting her escape from the Other World.

In image 1 in (7) Coraline expresses both mild [surprise] and [spirit:up]. There is no immediately convergent speech, and the trigger is not interpretable at this point by the viewer. 

However, in image 2 more visual information is made available. The Cat is now revealed as standing outside Coraline’s bedroom window, and his presence retrospectively explains the trigger for her facial [surprise] and [spirit:up] in image 1. 

In image 2, convergent with her spoken language, Coraline’s expression of FACIAL AFFECT changes from [spirit:up] to [spirit:down]. Again there is no apparent trigger in the visually available information. The resonant spoken language I’m really sorry I threw you out at the Other Mother suggests that the trigger at this point is sourced internally through her reflection on past events. The broader co-text of the story supports this interpretation.

Blogger Comments:

[1] That is, a cognitive Phenomenon is the Agent (trigger) of the mental Process of emotion. This confuses ideational with interpersonal meaning, and misapplies the confusion to an epilinguistic representation of pre-metafunctional protolanguage on a clay puppet.

[2] To be clear, in SFL terms, this is an expression of the personal microfunction of protolanguage, epilinguistically represented on a clay puppet.

[3] To be clear, if the expression of emotion does not accompany speech, then it is not functioning as paralanguage, and is not semovergent.

[4] That is, a Phenomenon of visual perception is the Agent (trigger) of the mental Process of emotion. This again confuses ideational with interpersonal meaning, and misapplies the confusion to an epilinguistic representation of pre-metafunctional protolanguage on a clay puppet.

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.

Misunderstanding Semiosis As Somasis

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

Our focus is on the semiosis of facial expression realising emotion in human interaction, but it is important to note that the face can also manifest non-emotional (somatic) states. A frown, for example, might manifest concentrated thinking (Fasel and Luettin, 2003: 260) or physiological states of pain or fatigue (see Chapter 1). Instances of somatic facial expression can of course index purposeful feelings, which remains a challenge for analysts as discussed in Chapter 1. The approach taken in this book is that behaviours can be treated as paralinguistic (i.e. semiotic) depending on whether or not they are negotiated as meaningful in interaction.

Blogger Comments:

This is a very serious misunderstanding. If a facial configuration means ('manifests', indexes') something other than itself, then it is the signifier of a signified, and so semiotic, not "somatic". At the social level, in terms of Halliday's linear taxonomy of complex systems, some facial configurations select a positive value (e.g. 'approach') in the other, whereas some select a negative value (e.g. 'avoid').

Why Facial Affect Is More Limited Than Language

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 121):

As noted earlier, ATTITUDE in language can be expressed through systems of AFFECT, APPRECIATION or JUDGEMENT while paralinguistic expressions of ATTITUDE are restricted to FACIAL AFFECT (see, e.g. Tian, 2011). This means that the paralinguistic meaning potential for expressing emotion is relatively limited with respect to language. 

For example, an array of finely distinguished lexical instantiations of the feature [realis: happiness; mood; positive] (Table 5.1) are possible, as, for instance, in happy/joyful/delighted/thrilled and so on, such fine distinctions are not available in FACIAL AFFECT. 

In analyses of intermodal resonance in Coraline, fine distinctions in verbal instances (e.g. happy vs joyful) may be inferred for resonant facial expressions but cannot be attributed to specific variations in the facial expression. In other words a given expression of FACIAL AFFECT might couple with a diverse array of lexical realisations of [realis: happiness; mood; positive].

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, this relative limitation with respect to language is simply explained by the fact that the facial expression of emotion is a protolinguistic semiotic system, which means it lacks a grammatical stratum.

Neither Affect Nor Body Language

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 121, 122):

In summary, the network in Figure 5.3 models FACIAL EFFECT with six features of emotion: [spirit:up], [spirit:down], [fear], [anger], [disdain] and [surprise]. Each of these six features is illustrated and described in (2). Facial resources for expression are in bold.

Blogger Comments:

[1] As previously demonstrated, in terms of SFL Theory, the facial expression of emotion is protolanguage, serving the personal metafunction, and so not an interpersonal system (AFFECT) of the discourse semantics of language.

[2] As previously observed, the facial expressions constructed on clay puppets are not body language, but epilinguistic representations of body language created by animators using the emotion-face coding of Ekman.

Misrepresenting 'Threat' As An Emotion

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 120-1, 239n):

An additional opposition proposed by Darwin (1872) is between facial movements interpreted as ‘fear’ and ‘anger’. For Darwin, ‘fear’ is a feeling caused by the anticipation that one could be harmed (which we interpret as a response to what might happen, i.e. an irrealis trigger) and ‘anger’ is a feeling that might result in one harming others (which we interpret as a response to something real happening, i.e. a realis trigger). In the network of FACIAL AFFECT in Figure 5.3 [fear] and [anger] are opposing features of [threat]. Each feature is realised through a different set of facial expressions shown in italics. In the intersemiosis of facial expression and the unfolding storyline in language and action, the facial feature [fear] is interpretable as negative and irrealis, that is, it is a negative emotional response to what might happen. In contrast the feature [anger] is interpretable as negative and realis, an emotional response to what is happening or has happened.

Blogger Comments;

[1] As previously explained, the title Darwin (1872), The expression of the emotions in man and animals, demonstrates that the meanings here are protolinguistic, since other animals do not express the meanings of language. So, to model protolanguage as language, as FACIAL AFFECT, is theoretically invalid. On Halliday's model, the expression of emotion serves the personal microfunction of protolanguage. 

[2] To be clear, here the authors misrepresent the result of anger (harming others) as the reason for it (trigger).

[3] To be clear, in Figure 5.3, the authors misrepresent 'threat' as an emotion, with its result (fear) and cause (anger) as its subtypes.

[4] Again, the system in Figure 5.3 confirms the fact that here the authors model 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.

Problems With The System Of Facial Affect

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 120, 121):

The systemic functional semiotic system of FACIAL AFFECT presented in Figure 5.3 takes into account these important contributions in a number of areas, including descriptive terminology. For example, the naming of features in the model of FACIAL AFFECT avoids the use of Ekman’s terms of ‘happiness’ and ‘sadness’ as [happiness] is already a feature in linguistic ATTITUDE. Instead emotion terminology is sourced to Darwin’s (1872) opposition in facial movements of ‘high spirit’ and ‘low spirit’. Darwin’s influence is seen in Figure 5.3 in the naming of the feature [spirit] and its opposing features as [up] and [down].

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the system in Figure 5.3 confirms the fact that here the authors model paralanguage as a bi-stratal semiotic system. As previously noted, 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.

[2] To be clear, the title of Darwin (1872), The expression of the emotions in man and animals, acknowledges that the expression of emotion does not require the evolution and development of language. As such, the facial expression of emotion is protolanguage, not language.

Where AFFECT is a system of the interpersonal metafunction in the tri-stratal semiotic of language, protolanguage is a bi-stratal system that is pre-metafunctional. On Halliday's model, the expression of emotion serves the personal microfunction. 

In short, to model the personal microfunction of protolanguage as the interpersonal metafunction of language, as FACIAL AFFECT, is theoretically invalid.