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Modelling Paralanguage using Systemic Functional Semiotics: Theory and Application.

by Thu Ngo, Susan Hood, J.R. Martin, Clare Painter, Bradley A. Smith and Michele Zappavigna.

This book is the first comprehensive account of 'body language' as 'paralanguage' informed by Systemic Functional Semiotics (SFS). It brings together the collaborative work of internationally renowned academics and emerging scholars to offer a fresh linguistic perspective on gesture, body orientation, body movement, facial expression and voice quality resources that support all spoken language.

The authors create a framework for distinguishing non-semiotic behaviour from paralanguage, and provide a comprehensive modelling of paralanguage in each of the three metafunctions of meaning (ideational, interpersonal and textual). Illustrations of the application of this new model for multimodal discourse analysis draw on a range of contexts, from social media vlogs, to animated children's narratives, to face-to-face teaching. Modelling Paralanguage Using Systemic Functional Semiotics offers an innovative way for dealing with culture-specific and context specific paralanguage.

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If you buy or reference this book, you will be supporting plagiarism.

See Martin's Model Of Paralanguage.

The Proud Authors: Clare Painter, Jim Martin, Sue Hood And Thu Ngo At The Book Launch

Textual Meaning In The Nominal Group

Halliday (1985: 170):

Textual meaning is embodied throughout the entire structure, since it determines the order in which the elements are arranged*, as well as patterns of information structure just as in the clause (note, for example, that the unmarked focus of information in a nominal group is on the word that comes last, not the word that functions as Thing: on pantographs, not on trains [in those two splendid old electric trains with pantographs]). 

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 387-8) add to the foregoing as follows: 

This means that there is a certain potential for assigning experientially similar meanings different textual statuses within the structure of the nominal group. In particular, they may be presented either as Classifier or as Qualifier (e.g. wooden table ~ table of wood) and as either Deictic or as Qualifier (e.g. my brother’s house ~ house of my brother), with the Qualifier having the greater potential as news.

* On the order in which the elements are arranged, Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 381) explain:

So there is a progression in the nominal group from the kind of element that has the greatest specifying potential to that which has the least; and this is the principle of ordering that we have already recognised in the clause. In the clause, the Theme comes first. We begin by establishing relevance: stating what it is that we are using to introduce this clause into the discourse, as ‘this is where I’m starting from’ – typically, though by no means necessarily, something that is already ‘given’ in the context. In the nominal group, we begin with the Deictic: ‘first I’ll tell you which I mean’, your, these, any, a, etc. So the principle that puts the Theme first in the clause is the same as that which puts the Deictic first in the nominal group: start by locating the Thing in relation to the here-&-now – in the space-time context of the ongoing speech event. From there we proceed to elements that have successively less identifying potential – which, by the same token, are increasingly permanent as attributes. By and large, the more permanent the attribute of a Thing, the less likely it is to identify it in a particular context.

The Natural Relation Between Grammar And Meaning

Con Game vs Incompetence

"What is the relationship between story, the material world, and consciousness?"

From the perspective of SFL Theory, language construes experience as two domains of first-order meaning:

1. an outer material-relational domain,
2. an inner mental-verbal domain ('consciousness').

Processes of the mental-verbal domain 

1. project second-order meaning (metaphenomena, including stories),
2. range over — or are impinged on by — first-order meaning (phenomena) and second-order meaning (metaphenomena, including stories).

Turn-Taking In Dialogue

Inappropriate Use Of The Colon

The Main Traditions In Western Thinking About Meaning

 Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 415-7):

We can identify two main traditions in Western thinking about meaning (see Halliday, 1977):

(i) one oriented towards logic and philosophy, with language seen as a system of rules; 

(ii) one oriented towards rhetoric and ethnography, with language seen as resource.

… the orientations differ with respect to where they locate meaning in relation to the stratal interpretation of language:

(a) intra-stratal: meaning is seen as immanent — something that is constructed in, and so is part of, language itself. The immanent interpretation of meaning is characteristic of the rhetorical-ethnographic orientation, including our own approach. 

(b) extra-stratal: meaning is seen as transcendent — something that lies outside the limits of language. The transcendent interpretation of meaning is characteristic of the logico-philosophical orientation.

… The modern split within the "transcendent" view is between what Barwise (1988: 23) calls the world-oriented tradition and the mind-oriented tradition, which he interprets as public vs. private accounts of meaning …

The world-oriented tradition interprets meaning by reference to (models of) the world; for example, the meaning of a proper noun would be an individual in the world, whereas the meaning of an intransitive verb such as run would be a set of individuals (e.g. the set of individuals engaged in the act of running). 

The mind-oriented tradition interprets meaning by reference to the mind; typically semantics is interpreted as that part of the cognitive system that can be "verbalised".

Martin's Subjacency Duplexes

Blogger Comments:

A duplex is a two-unit complex. 

A complex is an expansion of a rank scale unit.

Martin's proposed new structure violates both principles.

(β# does not expand α, and α is not restricted to single rank unit.)

Re-Education

Education

Education, n, That which discloses to the wise, and disguises from the foolish, their lack of understanding.

— Ambrose Bierce 'The Devil's Dictionary'.

Learning, n. The kind of ignorance distinguishing the studious.

— Ambrose Bierce 'The Devil's Dictionary'

Education is what’s left when you’ve forgotten everything you ever learned.

— Alan Bennett ‘Forty Years On’

I count exams, even for Oxford and Cambridge, as the enemy of education.

— Alan Bennett 'The History Boys'

The chief enemy of culture, in any school, is always the headmaster.

— Alan Bennett 'The History Boys'

Everybody who is incapable of learning has taken to teaching.

— Oscar Wilde

Rhyme Without Reason

Bondicons, Heroes And Ideology

Bertrand Russell History Of Western Philosophy (pp 21-2):

Throughout this long development, from 600 BC to the present day, philosophers have been divided into those who wished to tighten social bonds and those who wished to relax them.  With this difference, others have been associated.   

The disciplinarians have advocated some system of dogma, either old or new, and have therefore been compelled to be, in greater or lesser degree, hostile to science, since their dogmas could not be proved empirically.  They have almost invariably taught that happiness is not the good, but that ‘nobility’ or ‘heroism’ is to be preferred.  They have had a sympathy with irrational parts of human nature, since they have felt reason to be inimical to social cohesion.   

The libertarians, on the other hand, with the exception of the extreme anarchists, have tended to be scientific, utilitarian, rationalistic, hostile to violent passion, and enemies of all the more profound forms of religion.   

This conflict existed in Greece before the rise of what we recognise as philosophy, and is already quite explicit in the earliest Greek thought.  In changing forms, it has persisted down to the present day, and no doubt will persist for many ages to come.

Promotion Material

Evidence-Based vs "Evidence-Based"

The 'Transcendent' vs 'Immanent' Views of Meaning Explained

The 'transcendent' view of meaning holds that there is meaning outside of language and other semiotic systems.

The 'immanent' view of meaning holds that all meaning is within language and other semiotic systems.

To illustrate, imagine the scenario of a person seeing a cat in a backyard.

From the 'transcendent' perspective, 'a cat in a backyard' is meaning that is outside of language. Only if the person says 'there is a cat in the backyard' is the meaning inside language, in which case, it is said to refer to meanings outside semiotic systems. Reality is outside language, and language refers to it.

From the 'immanent' perspective, 'a cat in a backyard' is meaning that is inside language: a mental projection of meaning (rather than a verbal projection of wording). This entails a token-value relation between meanings of perceptual systems and the meanings of linguistic systems: perceptual tokens realise linguistic values. The meanings of perceptual systems are construed as the meanings of linguistic systems. Reality is what language construes of what perceptual systems construe.

Playing The System

Successful Meeting

Truth

The Function Of Thematic Equatives

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 95-6):

A thematic equative (which is usually called a ‘pseudo-cleft sentence’ in formal grammar) is an identifying clause which has a thematic nominalisation in it. Its function is to express the Theme-Rheme structure in such a way as to allow for the Theme to consist of any subset of the elements of the clause. This is the explanation for the evolution of clauses of this type: they have evolved, in English, as a thematic resource, enabling the message to be structured in whatever way the speaker or writer wants.

Let us say more explicitly what this structure means. The thematic equative actually realises two distinct semantic features, which happen to correspond to the two senses of the word identify. On the one hand, it identifies (specifies) what the Theme is; on the other hand, it identifies it (equates it) with the Rheme.

The second of these features adds a semantic component of exclusiveness: the meaning is ‘this and this alone’. So, the meaning of what the duke gave my aunt was that teapot is something like ‘I am going to tell you about the duke’s gift to my aunt: it was that teapot — and nothing else’. Contrast this with the duke gave my aunt that teapot, where the meaning is ‘I am going to tell you something about the duke: he gave my aunt that teapot’ (with no implication that he did not give – or do – other things as well).

Hence even when the Theme is not being extended beyond one element, this identifying structure still contributes something to the meaning of the message: it serves to express this feature of exclusiveness. If I say what the duke did was give my aunt that teapot, the nominalisation what the duke did carries the meaning ‘and that’s all he did, in the context of what we are talking about’. 

This is also the explanation of the marked form, which has the nominalisation in the Rheme, as in that’s the one I like. Here the Theme is simply that, exactly the same as in the non-nominalised equivalent that I like; but the thematic equative still adds something to the meaning, by signalling that the relationship is an exclusive one –  I don’t like any of the others. Compare a loaf of bread we need and a loaf of bread is what we need. Both of these have a loaf of bread as Theme; but whereas the former implies ‘among other things’, the latter implies ‘and nothing else’. 

Note that some very common expressions have this marked thematic equative structure, including all those beginning that’s what, that’s why, etc.; e.g. that’s what I meant, that’s why it’s not allowed.

Updating Opinions

A Trap For Young Postgrads

Virtuous Circles

"Virtue signalling may be thought of as a form of moral grandstanding, in which a viewpoint or answer is calculated to "look good", thereby making the object or speaker appear virtuous to others.

Virtue signalling may incorporate some or all elements found in political correctness, self-righteousness, and moral superiority.

…a public act intended to inform others of one's socially acceptable alignment on an issue."

∞

Virtues, like essences, lose their fragrance when exposed.

— William Shenstone

True virtue is life under the direction of reason.

— Baruch Spinoza

The SFL Approach To Grammar

Halliday (2002 [1984]: 307-8):

To understand [grammatical] categories, it is no use asking what they mean. The question is not ‘what is the meaning of this or that function or feature in the grammar?’; but rather ‘what is encoded in this language, or in this register (functional variety) of the language?’ This reverses the perspective derived from the history of linguistics, in which a language is a system of forms, with meanings attached to make sense of them. Instead, a language is treated as a system of meanings, with forms attached to express them. Not grammatical paradigms with their interpretation, but semantic paradigms with their realisations.

So if we are interested in the grammatical function of Subject, rather than asking ‘what does this category mean?’, we need to ask ‘what are the choices in meaning in whose realisation the Subject plays some part?’ We look for a semantic paradigm which is realised, inter alia, by systematic variation involving the Subject: in this case, that of speech function, in the interpersonal area of meaning. This recalls Firth’s notion of ‘meaning as function in a context’; the relevant context is that of the higher stratum – in other words, the context for understanding the Subject is not the clause, which is its grammatical environment, but the text, which is its semantic environment.

Collegiality

Education vs Examination Performance

Zoom Tips

The Needy Student

How To Test Whether a Clause Is Behavioural

If a (middle) behavioural clause features two participants, then the second participant must construe a behaviour.

So if the second participant does not construe a behaviour, then the clause cannot be a behavioural clause.

For example, the clause he tracked the data cannot be a behavioural clause because the data is not a behaviour.

Perceived Credibility