Kinesic signalling in literature

[Sydney Grew]

Professor Cave has kindly written in to the T.L.S. to let us know about some ideas that are very revolutionary indeed. He points out that "Kinesic resonances, responses elicited by bodily movement, are an ancient evolutionary adaptation: we share them not only with primates, but with all creatures who [sic] are capable of responding instantly to a perceived movement or behaviour in another creature (as when shoals of fish or flocks of birds change direction simultaneously). They are the observable effect of the operation of what are popularly known as 'mirror neurons.' When a certain movement is performed - one example of many would be a smile - a comparable neural response is triggered in both the performer and the observer. Most strikingly, kinesic resonances of this kind are not only activated by immediate perception: they can also be mediated by language. Some linguists are now suggesting that language itself is profoundly connected with the sensorimotor system, that is to say the set of neurological processes, developed in infancy, that enable us to manage sense-perceptions and to engage effectively with the physical world."

"If language is cognitively embodied, then the language of Proust, Jane Austen, Milton and the rest [not forgetting Shakespeare we may presume] is not so much a 'code' as a fine-tuned instrument designed to elicit from the reader a wide range of responses to the evidence it presents of imaginary (but really felt) bodily and mental states."

And Professor Cave dares to take the next step: "Are," he asks us, "kinesic intelligence and everyday mind-reading in fact not two aspects of the same cognitive skill?"

That of which I most approve therein is the part about the "fine-tuned instrument" of novelists. Is "fine-tuned instrument" not a suitable description for a good computer programme?

http://www.sjc.ox.ac.uk/3122/The-Balzan-Project.html

[LeMartinPecheur]

Isn't one difficulty with this theory the extreme differences between languages? There can hardly be any common sonic elements. About the only thing that human languages share (AFAIK) is the use of the same grammatical building blocks - nouns, adjectives, verbs etc. In short, what exactly is (can be) 'cognitively embodied', and how??

[Pabmusic]

...Professor Cave has kindly written in to the T.L.S. to let us know about some ideas that are very revolutionary indeed. He points out that "Kinesic resonances, responses elicited by bodily movement, are an ancient evolutionary adaptation: we share them not only with primates, but with all creatures who [sic] are capable of responding instantly to a perceived movement or behaviour in another creature (as when shoals of fish or flocks of birds change direction simultaneously)...

A fascinating article, SG, thank you - but we are primates (apes actually) so sharing traits with them is not so difficult (common ancestor with chimps and bonobos about 5-6 million years ago; with gorillas about 10 million; with orang-utans about 17 million).

Isn't one difficulty with this theory the extreme differences between languages? There can hardly be any common sonic elements. About the only thing that human languages share (AFAIK) is the use of the same grammatical building blocks - nouns, adjectives, verbs etc. In short, what exactly is (can be) 'cognitively embodied', and how??

Not quite true. There are many language families that are closely related. English belongs to the Indo-European group, showing common traits stretching back thousands of years to now-extict languages. My wife speaks Ilonggo, Visayan and Tagalog, which are all of the Malay-Polynesian group.

[eighthobstruction]

I can see all these traits bubbling under in Boris Johnson....

[Pabmusic]

I can see all these traits bubbling under in Boris Johnson....

You know, you might just have a point...

[gurnemanz]

Isn't one difficulty with this theory the extreme differences between languages?

As I understand it, these differences only emerge at the level of the surface syntax of individual languages. At the deep structure level a universal grammar operates. This enables a human baby to master any language which it is exposed to in its early years.

[Sydney Grew]

As I understand it, these differences only emerge at the level of the surface syntax of individual languages. At the deep structure level a universal grammar operates. This enables a human baby to master any language which it is exposed to in its early years.

Yes, actually the Professor appears to have anticipated some of these points. Permit me to quote again:

"Linguistic signs are self-evidently for the most part arbitrary, but the way they are learnt and used is always situational. The verbs 'bring' and 'take' carry with them a ghost echo of directed movement; sets of near-synonymous verbs such as 'glide,' 'slide,' 'slip,' and 'slither' elicit instant calibrations of the dynamics of a body moving across a smooth surface. It is important to note here that, although onomatopœia may play a role in some cases, the theory of kinesic response focuses on the set of sensorimotor contexts through which the word is acquired and used, rather than on phonic imitation."

The whole article appears on two pages of the T.L.S. number 5739 dated the twenty-ninth of March, in the guise of a review of a book entitled "The Style of Gestures - Embodiment and cognition in literary narrative," written by Miss G. Bolens.

Here is Augustine in the fifth century describing how he acquired language; he uses terms such as "movements, facial expressions, and states of mind" but I do not think he goes as far as the Professor's "sensorimotor contexts":

"When my elders named some object, and accordingly moved towards something, I saw this and I grasped that the thing was called by the sound they uttered when they meant to point it out. Their intention was shewn by their bodily movements, as it were the natural language of all peoples: the expression of the face, the play of the eyes, the movement of other parts of the body, and the tone of voice which expresses our state of mind in seeking, having, rejecting, or avoiding something. Thus, as I heard words repeatedly used in their proper places in various sentences, I gradually learnt to understand what objects they signified; and after I had trained my mouth to form these signs, I used them to express my own desires."