ANTH 243:
Language and the body:
Embodied communication in cross-cultural perspective
Oberlin College, Fall 2009
Thursday 7-9 pm
Room: King 341
Erika Hoffmann
Office: 320-A
Office Hours: Tuesdays and Thursdays 10-12
Email: Erika.Hoffmann@oberlin.edu
Course description:
This course introduces students to anthropological perspectives on embodied communication,
including natural and experimental studies of primate communication, and cross-cultural studies
of body language, gesture, and sign languages in human societies. Throughout the course we will
question the Cartesian division between mind and body that has informed many disciplines’
conceptions of language. Questions to be raised include: what are the limits of language? What
aspects of language are unique to humans? What is the relationship between gesture, language,
and thought? How do we manage the body in the presentation of the self in social interaction?
How does embodied communication vary across and within human societies? In what ways do
sign languages differ from spoken languages and from each other? Our approaches to these
questions, while primarily grounded in linguistic anthropology, will draw on all four fields of
anthropology.
Required texts: Do You See What I Mean?: Plains Indian Sign Talk and the Embodiment of
Action by Brenda Farnell
We will also be watching and analyzing video recordings of the Plains Indian Stories that appear
in this text.
Additional required readings will be posted on Blackboard.
Course Requirements:
Attendance and participation (10%): Attendance and participation is vital to the success of this
course. Students must be prepared to discuss the assigned material for each class session.
Discussion questions (10%): Four times during the term (twice before the mid point and twice
afterwards) students must submit a 1-2 page document that reflects on the week’s readings and
raises questions for discussion. These must be posted to the Blackboard discussion thread by 5
pm on the Tuesday preceding that week’s meetings. The ideas you share will benefit the group by
identifying interesting topics for discussion and will benefit you by allowing you to mull over the
ideas and topics you find most compelling. You will also be helping me understand what topics
you find interesting, confusing, or would like to learn more about.
In addition, there will be space on our course Blackboard site for student-initiated discussions of
issues relevant to our course. If you have thoughts or questions that you weren’t able to raise in
class, consider posting them there for us all to engage with!
Assignment 1: The commodification of “body language” (20%): There are many books,
pamphlets, videos, and websites that purport to reveal the “secrets” of body language, claiming
that this will allow those who purchase them to read the “true intentions” of others, while
successfully managing their own presentation of self. Choose one such source and attempt to put
its recommendations to use in interactions with your peers. Then, in a 3-5 page paper, describe
your experience and identify and discuss the assumptions (whether valid or invalid) about the
nature of language, thought, and the body that inform its claims. To whom are such products
marketed? From what do these products derive their authority? Due in class 10/1.
Assignment 2: Representing body movement in texts (20%): Throughout this course the
books and articles we will read take many different approaches to the problem of representing
embodied communication in two-dimensional transcripts. In this group assignment (teams of
four), you will be assigned a particular reading and asked to analyze of its means of representing
visual communicative channels. Choose a video on YouTube that includes spoken and gestural
communication and use your assigned system of representation to create a brief transcript (I will
schedule a meeting with each group to assist you). Then, in a 5-page paper, discuss the merits of
this methodology. What does this approach reveal about the communicative event and what does
it obscure? Be prepared to share your findings with the class. Your work on this project may help
you choose a method of representation for your final project. Due in class 11/5.
Research Project (40%): Choose a research topic that engages with the themes of the class.
Choose something that you will find exciting and will enjoy working on throughout the semester!
While a 10-15 page paper is an acceptable medium for the final project, you are encouraged to
experiment with other modalities (such as a video, a poster project, etc). Your work in any
modality must show good scholarship, clear argumentation, and thoughtful incorporation of the
ethnographic and theoretical knowledge that you have accumulated throughout the semester. You
must submit a one-page project proposal by 9/24 for my approval. On 10/8 we will have a
research tutorial in the library. On 12/3 you will workshop your project-in-progress with class
peers and on 12/10 we will present the final works in class.
Miscellaneous:
All assignments, unless otherwise noted, should be typed and double-spaced with regular 1 inch
margins and must adhere to the stated length requirements.
Extensions will be granted only under extraordinary circumstances. Late assignments will be
graded down 1/3 of 1 letter grade every 24 hours after the due date. No assignments will be
accepted more than 1 week late.
The Honor Code:
At the end of each graded assignment, including the discussion questions, you are required to
write and sign the Oberlin honor pledge: “I affirm that I have adhered to the Honor Code in this
assignment”. For more information about the Honor System please see:
www.oberlin.edu/students.links-life/rules-regs.html.
Students with Disabilities should be sure to see me at the start of the semester so that I can
provide any necessary accommodations.
Class schedule:
Week 1 (9/3): Introduction: Embodiment, language, and collapsing Cartesian dualism
Topics: Why is the body widely disparaged in Western philosophy and other disciplines? How
has the anthropological focus on embodiment attempted to collapse the dichotomy between mind
and body (and associated dichotomies such as verbal/non-verbal…)
Readings:
Farnell, Introduction and Chapter 1: The Nineteenth-Century Legacy
Mauss, Marcell
(1935)1973 Techniques of the Body. Economy and Society 2: 70-88.
Week 2 (9/10): The body in linguistics and linguistic anthropology
Topics: How have linguists and anthropologists defined language? To what extent has linguistic
theory been influenced by broader societal and philosophical assumptions about the body? What
is the role of the body in the production of language and meaningful action?
Readings:
Farnell, Chapter 2: The Bias Against the Iconic
Bonvillain, Nancy
2003 The Form of the Message. In Language, Culture, and Communication: The Meaning of
Messages. New Jersey. Prentice Hall. Pp. 7-45
Duranti, Allesandro
1997 The Scope of Linguistic Anthropology. In Linguistic Anthropology. Cambridge.
Cambridge University Press. Pp. 1-21
Week 3 (9/15):
Non-human primates and language origins
Topics: How do primates communicate in the wild? What evidence is there of language-like
behavior in these populations? To what extent have non-human primates been able to acquire
human language? How have researchers’ assumptions about the nature of language affect the
design, results, and interpretations of studies of non-human primate communication? Why do
theorists frequently suggest that gestural language may have predated spoken language?
Readings:
King, Barbara J.
2003 How can we know the dancer from the dance? The dynamic nature of African great ape
social communication. Anthropological theory Vol. 3, no. 1, p. 5-26.
Burling, Robbins
1993 Primate Calls, Human Language, and Non-Verbal Communication. Current
Anthropology Vol 34. No1. Pp. 25-53.
Armstrong, David and William Stokoe
1994 Signs of the Origin of Syntax. Current Anthropology, Vol. 34, No. 4. Pp. 349-368.
Week 4 (9/24): Gesture, language, and thought
Topics: Why and when do we gesture? Are language and gesture parts of a single system? Does
gesture offer a window to conceptual processes that precede language?
One page research paper proposal due in class!
Readings:
Kendon, Adam
1997 Gesture. Annual Review of Anthropology. Vol 26, Pp. 109-128.
McNeill, David
1985 So You Think Gestures are Non-Verbal? Psychological Review. Vol. 92. No.3. Pp 350371.
Lakoff, George and Mark Johnson
1980 Chapters 1, 4, 5, and 12 in Metaphors We Live By. Chicago. University of Chicago
Press.
Week 5 (10/1): The Body and the presentation of self; The commodification of body
language
Project 1 due! Be prepared to discuss your findings
Topics: What is the role of the body in the presentation of self in social interaction? How do
specialists sell knowledge concerning the management of body language?
Readings:
Goffman, Erving
1959 Introduction. In The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York. Doubleday: 1-16.
Irvine, Judith
1989 When talk isn’t cheap. American Ethnologist 16: 248-267.
Week 6 (10/8): Cross-cultural (and -gender and -class) differences in embodied
communication/Research tutorial
Topics: How does the use of the body in communication vary across social categories? How can
the use of the body be implicated in cross-cultural misunderstandings or used to perpetuate
relationships of dominance and authority?
Readings:
Farnell Chapter 7: The Primacy of Movement in Assiniboine Culture
Bailey, Benjamin
2001 Communication of Respect in Interethnic Service Encounters in Linguistic Anthropology,
Durant ed. Oxford. Blackwell Publishers.
Week 7 (10/15): Body, space, and narrative
Topics: How does the location of the speaking body in space affect the creation of meaning?
How do cross-cultural differences in conceptions of human space affect embodied language?
Readings:
Farnell Chapter 5: Getting to the Point: Spatial Orientation and Dexis in PST and Nakota
Farnell, Chapter 6: Storytelling and the Embodiment of Symbolic Form
Optional: Levinson, Stephen
1996 Language and Space. Annual Review of Anthropology. Vol 25, Pp. 353-382.
(break)
Week 8 (10/29): Semiotic ecologies: body, language, and built environment
Topics: How do social bodies, which move and act in cultural spaces, incorporate the
surrounding physical environment into the making of meaning?
Readings:
Farnell Chapter 3: Geographical and Historcal Spaces: Assiniboine Territory and the
Embodiment of Deixis
Duranti, Alessandro
1992 Language and Bodies in Social Space: Samoan Ceremonial Greetings. American
Anthropologist, Vol. 94, No. 3. pp. 657-691.
Moore, Jerry
1996 The Archaeology of Plazas and the Proxemics of Ritual: Three Andean Traditions.
American Anthropologist. Vol. 98, No. 4. Pp. 789-802.
Week 9 (11/5): Methodologies: representing the moving body
Topics: How is our understanding of embodied communication tied into our ability to represent
the phenomena in writing?
Readings:
Ochs, Elinor
1979 Transcription as Theory. Development pragmatics, Ochs and Schieffelin eds. New York:
Academic Press. Pp. 43-72.
Project 2 due! Be prepared to discuss your findings
Week 10 (11/12): Home sign systems
Topics: What are homesign systems? To what extent are systems of communication, created by
deaf people in the absence of a sign language, language-like? What can they tell us about
language more generally?
Readings:
Susan Goldin-Meadow
2003 The Resilience of Language: what gesture creation in deaf children can tell us about how
all children learn language. New York. Psychology Press.
(selection TBD)
Morford, Jill
1996 Insights to language from the study of gesture: A review of research on the gestural
communication of non-signing deaf people. Language & Communication
Volume 16, Issue 2, April 1996, Pp. 165-178
Senghas, R.
2003 New Ways to be Deaf in Nicaragua. In Many Ways to be Deaf: International Variation in
Deaf Communities. L. Monaghan, C. Schmaling, K. Nakamura and G. H. Turner eds. Pp.
173-193.Washington D.C., Gallaudet University Press.
In-class film: Birth of a language
2000 Janet Klein
Week 11 (11/19): Sign Languages in Cross-cultural Perspective
Topics: Are sign languages universal? Why is that notion so pervasive? What do they have in
common with one another and with spoken languages? In what ways does modality affect
structure? How have ideologies about language, gesture, and the body affected the lives of d/Deaf
individuals in the United States and in other countries?
Readings:
Sandler, Wendey and Dian Lillo-Martin
2000 The Handbook of Linguistics, Aronoff and Rees-Miller, eds. Oxford Blackwell.
Natural Sign Languages pp. 533-562
Padden, Carol and Tom Humphries
1988 Deaf in America: Voices from a Culture. Cambridge. Harvard University Press.
A Different Center pp. 39-55
Monaghan, L.
2003 A world's eye view: Deaf cultures in global perspective. In Many ways to be deaf:
International variation in deaf communities. L. Monaghan, C. Schmaling, K. Nakamura
and G. H. Turner. Washington D.C., Gallaudet University Press: 1-24.
Optional -- Zeshan, U.
2004
Interrogative constructions in signed language: crosslinguistic perspectives. Language
80(1).
Week 12 (11/26): No class – Thanksgiving break!
Week 13 (12/3): Final project workshop
In-class group workshop of research paper drafts
Week 14: (12/10) Presentations and wrap up!