ChoreoLinguistics: An experiment in interdisciplinarity, or
the (un)likely pairing of choreography and linguistics in a liberal arts
setting
Why should we think about language and dance together? What
are the ways in which language/linguistics and dance/choreography
intersect? How specifically might we
think about choreography and syntax as two sides of the same coin/exploring the
same ideas/aiming for the same goals?
1)
Both language and dance are communicative
practices, labeled as “basic” human communication tools (by whom? What sources can we rely on here?)
2)
Language is a mechanism for communication with
inherent structure. Choreographed dance
is also a mechanism for communication with inherent structure. What happens
when you overlay the structure of language on top of a choreographed piece? Is it possible to use the structure of
choreography to study language?
a.
What are the meaningful units in
language/dance? How do we identify
them? What characteristics do we rely
on?
b.
What is the underlying structure of these
meaningful units?
c.
How do we put these units together into larger
units and how do we use them to communicate?
d.
What about the larger structure of
conversation? How might conversational
analysis interact with the conversation of a performance?
e.
Both linguistics and choreography involve
codifying structure.
3)
Choreographers and speakers exercise choice when
putting these units together.
a.
Languages are said to choose between
explicitness and economy (e.g. Haspelmath 1999)
b.
Choreographers choose to highlight elements
through a variety of tools, e.g. contrast, repetition, etc.
c.
How might explicitness and economy apply to
choreography?
d.
How might choreographic choices also be evident
in language choice?
4)
Both dance and language involve movement of the
body.
a.
The production of spoken language involves movement
of articulators such as the tongue, velum, jaw, and vibration of the vocal
folds. It also involves modulated air
flow.
b.
Spoken language may be accompanied by gesture.
c.
The production of signed language involves
movement of the hands, arms, and fingers, as well as parts on the face such as
the eyebrows, and movement of the shoulders.
d.
Signed language may be accompanied by spoken
gestures.
e.
What types of body movement statements would you make about dance?
f.
Note that the creation of music also requires
movement.
5)
Choreographers and linguists study motion of the
body
a.
Choreographers need and use vocabulary for
describing movement in order to instruct dancers (e.g. Laban notation)
b.
Linguists are interested in how motion is
encoded in the lexicon and the language system more generally. (e.g. labeling
path vs. manner when describing types of motion verbs) Include sources
c.
Linguists also study the movements involved in
the production of language.
i. Including
sign language, e.g. the parameters of sign are handshape, movement of the sign,
location of the sign with respect to the body, orientation of the palm,
non-manual markers such as eyebrow raising or shoulder lifting
1.
How might non-manual markers in sign correlate
with choreography involving the face?
2.
Could handshape notation function as a tool for
choreographers?
6)
Choreographers and linguists share vocabulary
across their disciplines:
a.
Phrase
b.
Form (shape)
c.
Vocabulary
d.
movement
e.
narrative (non-narrative narrative)
f.
communicate
g.
embodiment
h.
motivation
i.
Intent
7)
Language is used as a metaphor for examining
choreographic structure. Movement is
used in describing syntactic structure.
8)
Choreography is an art; linguistics is a
science. What does one learn from the other?
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