Punctuating text: demarcating information through vocal and non-vocal sound

Abstract This paper draws on an emerging perspective in Systemic Functional Semiotics on the role of contextual resources in organising language and semiosis. Here we look specifically to resources of mode as they resonate with resources for textual meaning-making in language. Therein we foreground a particular contextual system called juncture. This system concerns the potential to mean through demarcating information into coherent chunks of information. To explore the role of sound in demarcation, we focus especially on resources which we call punctuatives , described in this paper as relatively short, sharp, transient sounds which fall outside standard phonemic models of English. We include both non-pulmonic vocal sounds such as clicks and percussives, embodied beat gestures contacting various kinds of surface, and slightly less transitory sounds such as whistles. These resources reflect the diversity of contexts explored, which include storytelling, classroom discourse and sports coaching. Although the precise sonic resources vary between these contexts, we are able to show that the way the resources are used is relatively stable. Punctuatives are frequently found to co-occur with other semiotic resources which function to organise and chunk segments of spoken text.