Body posture as signifier Doris Schps TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY BERLIN - PDF document

Body posture as signifier Doris Schöps TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY BERLIN

Body postures as behaviour Body posture is a human behaviour consisting of a specific position of the human body in space and a specific spatial configuration of the body parts. In contrast to body movements, seen as a spatial movement from a point A to a point B, body postures are static conditions of the human body (but including movements of certain body parts). 2

Body posture as an interdisciplinary field of research • communication studies (a ‘channel’ in multimodal communication) • psychology (e.g. expression of internal emotional states) • behavioural biology, ethology (e.g. signal function in the phylogenetics of human behaviour) • anthropology (e.g. cultural practices, taboos) • sociology (e.g. power relationships) • industrial medicine (e.g. ergonomic aspects of sitting) 3

The human body as a multimodal [communicative] sign 4 system (cfr. Poggi 2007)

A semiotic perspective: Sign functions of body postures regularities on expression and content plane (considering body posture signs as types) • rules of combination (“syntax”) • conventional meaning (“semantics”) • usage and situation-dependent components of meaning (“pragmatics”) 5

Basic categories of anatomic positions We can distinguish 5 holistic shapes (“Gestalten”) of body postures : • standing • squatting • lying down • sitting • kneeing 6

Rules of combination for positions in space Each position in space (and thus the 5 basic categories of body posture , too) can be described as 1. orientation in space 2. configuration of joint position 3. movements which are possible within a certain anatomic basic category („Gestalt“) 7

Orientation in space From an anatomic point of view, the skeleton with its symmetrical structure allows an intersection in three axes which include three spatial dimensions of the human body: up – down left – right front side – back side The location of a certain basic category and of a body part within a given basic category can be described by this 8 “coordinate plane”

Joint positions of body parts The segments of the skeleton form a specific morphological structure of body postures, including the following body parts: 1. head (+neck / throat area) 2. trunk (spinal column+ pelvis/hips) 3. upper extremities 3.1 shoulder + shoulder joint 3.2 arms + elbows 3.3 hands + wrists 4. lower extremities 4.1 legs + knee 4.2 feeds + ankles 9

Joints and possible movements Possibly movements of joints: flection – extension adduction – abduction exo-rotation – endo-rotation � Possible movements of body parts: lifting – lowering rotate inwards – rotate outwards Inflecting – stretching Swinging forwards – swinging backwards adduction – abduction rotating 10

The principle of phenomenological simplification: Only the body parts which are salient for our visual perception can function as a sign. Therefore, only they are of interest concerning a syntagmatic (‘grammatical’) description of a certain position of the body in space. Thus, for example, someone who recognizes a person “hanging his/her head”, don’t need to recognize that the observed person has a shoulder blade, to understand, that the observed person is tired, sad or depressed. Someone receives information about the physiological or psychological state of the observed person by decoding the position of her or his shoulders, the position of her or his head and maybe of her or his arms and elbows in a certain joint configuration. 11

Body movements which are possible within a static anatomic basic category („Gestalt“) • Basic category: sitting • + artefact: e.g. on a chair • movable body parts: e.g. position of legs 12

Questions • Can we assume a limited anatomic set of postural parameters which stand in certain relations, forming, in other words, the “syntactic” or “grammatical” base of spatial position-taking as signifier? • And if we can, how many positions are possible or can be distinguished within a certain basic category? • What kind of semantic content can be signified by a certain position- taking in space? Which role plays the situational context? • What indicates a certain body posture for a receiver? • What kind of message intends a person to transmit by taking a certain spatial position (performing a certain posture) in a given situation? • Are there body posture types which form a whole „speech act“? • Which role play the other modalities of the human body (e.g. gaze) by transmitting a certain semantic content? 13

Methodic approach Iconic or symbolic representations of body postures as signifiers („poses“) can be found, e. g., in films, product foto ( Tableaux vivants, inszenierte Fotografie ) or in verbal language. With regard to the historical background, cultural and social praxis, in which these meanings of body posture signs has emerged, it can be analyzed what kind of conventional semantic content is expressed by a certain configuration of spatial positions. 14

15 Examples of iconic and symbolic based sign representations of body posture („Poses“)

Furthermore, the existent symbolic or iconic representations of body posture signs demonstrate the epistemic status of body posture signs as a sign system in its own right. That also means that we can focus on analysing body posture signs independently from, for example, body movements or hand gestures. My analysis deals with conventional postures in so far as they have a holistic gestalt. They are supposed to be a result of a process of ritualization which consists of semiotic shifts like symbolization or metaphorization concerning the expression as well as the content of the postural sign. Certainly, also the interplay of body movements and body postures as human behaviour are relevant to my project. This interplay can be considered as basically in what concerns the development of postural signs in culture. 16

Example: ‚to stay in the saddle‘ (a position of the human body depending on an artefact) We can frame a certain body posture sign, represented in a sequence of a movie, drawing its anatomic joint configurations and the spatial plan of its whole shape (gestalt) Furthermore we can confront the framed posture with another, which belongs to the same postural basic category (e.g. sitting), to find out in which aspects the sequence of their appearance differs one from the other in a given 17 film.

Example: ‚to stay in the saddle‘ (a position of the human body depending on an artefact) In what different ways can humans sit on the saddle of a motorbike? [behaviour] Which of these anatomically based ‚saddle positions‘ are salient, so that they convey a certain meaning / transport a certain message within the film sequence? [behaviour as sign] 18

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