Thursday 13 September 2007

embodied meaning - BODY LANGUAGE

‘BODY LANGUAGE’ ANALYSIS
- devised from my teaching experiences

breaks down into 4 categories
- space
- levels
- angles
- open/close


SPACE refers to the distance between people – this indicates degrees of familiarity – also increases and decreases availability – degrees of intimacy & availability

LEVELS refers to status & power interactions – high equating with the lifting of status, and low with the reverse – sameness & difference – power-play & same-&-difference regulator – people dress similar to be on the same level, but the police wear uniforms to impose a barrier of authoritative difference

ANGLES refers to the front of the body, the head, and the eyes – this indicates degrees of interest – also see David Morris’s reference to the concept of “a grammar of facing bodies” (154)

OPEN/CLOSE refers to the crossing & uncrossing of limbs – indicates warm & cold zones, inclusion & exclusion, and comfort & discomfort


these categories are analytically applied to behavioural characteristics between people, or between people and objects, as well as between people and aspects of the environment (they can also be applied to animals)
they seem to reveal bio-physical laws that social and cultural factors modify, where differences become variations on more deeply placed understandings of movement and space
in everyday use, broader gestural and postural states are richly populated by a teeming world of micro-shifts, reactions, and physical adjustments that create a shifting, flickering panorama of rich multifaceted semi-automatic communicative activity – all of which can be easily examined using the above analytical categories

FOR MY RESEARCH PROJECT, THIS ACTIVITY WILL BE OBSERVED AND ANALYSED

- in interactional situations between people in social or any other type of setting

- in the interactions between people and their immediate physical environment

- in relationships between performers and viewers in performance situations

No comments:

Post a Comment