Topic 5

Dear all,

there are questions to Birdwhistell's Kinesics and context (review by Adam Kendon):

What is the most important contribution of Birdwhistell’s work Kinesics and context?

What is his best innovation (comparing to Darwin or Ekman)? Is there anything similar to Darwin or Ekman?

Do you see any limits in Birdwhistell’s description of communication?

What is the main difference between Birdwhistell’s approach to study of facial expressions and two mentioned experimental approaches?

What do you say on his linguistics analogy in research of nonverbal communication (facial expressions, gestures)? Is that kind of approach useful? And is it consistent from the linguistic viewpoint?

Is there an obvious parallel to the descrption of sign languages in Birdwhistell’s approach? What about the basic distinction to kinemes, kinemorphs and kinemorphic constructions?

What do you think about the concept of “stance“?

What do you think about the Birdwhistell’s book as a whole?

You can decide in the survey (above), if we will discuss these questions in real time or if you prefer to send them in written form via moodle.

MJ

Dear all, thank you once more for your excellent homeworks. I also contributed with a few comments, so see the word file attached (with my name). Again, I hope you do not mind that I collected your comments and made the word file "summary".