The Body Speaks: nonverbal communication & semiotics

MEDIA CULTURES 1 :: BODY LANGUAGES

THE BODY SPEAKS...

SHIRALEE SAUL : 2010
Tom Friedman http://kemperartmuseum.wustl.edu/friedman.html http://forums.eidosgames.com/showthread.php?t=88881&page=2


Media is an
extension of our bodies
and a means of
interacting with the
world.



To survive, all entities ‘read’ their
environment and react to the information
they get from it. Everything communicates
(i.e transmits information), including
material objects, physical space, and time
systems.

Research suggests that many more
feelings and intentions are sent and
received nonverbally than verbally.

Mehrabian and Wienerfollowing suggest
that only 7% of a message is conveyed
through words, with remaining 93%
received from nonverbal expressions.



Humans use nonverbal communication because:

• Words have limitations: There are numerous
areas where nonverbal communication is more
effective than verbal

• Nonverbal signal are powerful: Nonverbal cues
express inner feelings.

• Nonverbal message are likely to be more
genuine: because nonverbal behaviors cannot be
controlled as easily as spoken words.

• Nonverbal signals can express what is
inappropriate to articulate: Social etiquette
limits what can be said, but nonverbal cues can
communicate thoughts.

• A separate communication channel is necessary
to help send complex messages: A speaker can
add enormously to the complexity of the verbal
message through simple nonverbal signals.


Nonverbal communication can be communicated
through

• Gesture

• Touch (Haptic communication);

• Body language, posture and attitude;

• Proxemics (personal space, etc);

• Facial expression and eye contact;

• Object communication such as clothing,
hairstyles and accessories;

• Voice quality, emotion and speaking style;

• Prosodic features such as rhythm,
intonation and stress.


WHEN ROBOTS TAKE OVER THE PLANET, AT LEAST
THEY’LL BE ABLE TO UNDERSTAND OUR NON-
VERBAL LANGUAGE...

“When Nao is sad, he hunches his shoulders forward
and looks down. When he’s happy, he raises his arms,
angling for a hug. When frightened, Nao cowers, and
he stays like that until he is soothed with some gentle
strokes on his head.

We’re modelling the first years of life,” said Lola
Cañamero, a computer scientist at the University
of Hertforshire who led the project to create Nao’s
emotions. “We are working on non-verbal cues and
the emotions are revealed through physical postures,
gestures and movements of the body rather than facial
or verbal expression.

In future, say the scientists, robots are likely to act as
companions or integrate with the web to order groceries
online. They could also provide support for the elderly.
In these uses some form of emotional display will be
important in making those interactions more natural
and more comfortable, Cañamero said.”

First robot able to develop and show emotions is unveiled, The
Guardian, Aug. 9, 2010.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/aug/09/nao-robot-
develop-display-emotions


THE TAKE-HOME
MESSAGES?

Nonverbal communication can be read and is
meaningful even when it isn’t consciously
intended.

EVERYTHING (I.E ALL
HUMAN ARTIFACTS) IS A
TEXT ::
EVERYTHING CAN BE

READ
aroundthemall.smithsonianmag.com/


THE MEANING OF THE TEXT CHANGES DEPENDING
UPON THE CONTEXT

Ron Mueck (born 1958) www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/24338 CONTEXT = the particular social, physical or
historical environment in which texts function (eg

the difference between looking at a painting in an
art gallery, on someone’s wall, and as an
illustration in a book).


www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=12102.0


flickr.com/photos/brooklyn_museum/284990568/



uknowbigsean.wordpress.com/2008/12/28/ron-mueck/



http://blogs.ya.com/tepatoken/files/ronmueck1.jpg www.bbc.co.uk/dna/collective/A1015354



http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=12102.0



SEMIOTICS
The general study of signs or of whatever conveys meaning

Signs are all the ways that we communicate meaning in society, not just language.


Semiotics, a term taken from the work of American
philosopher Charles S. Peirce, deals with
communication as the science of signs and meanings,
and their production and exchange.
Tom Friedman

Semiotics is a form of Structuralism and produces the
understanding that all culture is structured like a
language.

Structuralism is a series of theories about how
meaning is produced.

According to Structuralism, our knowledge of ‘reality’
is not only coded but also conventional, that is,
structured by and through conventions, made up of
signs and signifying practices.

This is known as “the social construction of

reality.”


It is this cultural perspective, combined with
linguistic analysis pioneered by Ferdinand de
Saussure and subsequently developed by followers
such as Roland Barthes, that makes this branch of
communication theory so useful.

Because semioticians believe that ALL cultural
behavior can be systematically analyzed, analysis
can be focused on such codes of dress, music,
advertising, and other forms of communication.

“...’reality’ is always encoded, or rather the
only way we can perceive and make sense
of reality is by the codes of our culture.
There may be an objective, empiricist
reality out there, but there is no universal,
objective way of perceiving and making
sense of it. What passes for reality in any
culture is the product of the culture’s codes,

so ‘reality’ is always already encoded, it is
never ‘raw’.” Fiske (1987 pp 4-5)


SIGNS
Semiotics is firstly the study of signs. It
analyses communication as the
production and exchange of meaning. It
is a tool that enables us to analyse and
understand our own social environment
and world picture.

A sign is a union of signifier and signified,
and is anything that stands for anything
else (or, as Umberto Eco put it, a sign is
anything that can be used to lie).

Some signs carry with them larger
cultural meanings, usually very general;
these are called, by Roland Barthes,
“myths”, or second-order signifiers.

Anything can be a myth. For example,

pillars supporting the portico of a house
are a mythic signifier of wealth and
elegance.


SIGNS
A sign has a physical form (words,
either in the form of of marks on
the paper [R - O - S - E] or sounds
in the air; a haircut; a fingerprint;
a photo

This is the signifier.

A sign must be understood as
referring to something other than
itself.

This is the signified and is a
concept, not a thing in the real
world.

Tom Friedman www.thecityreview.com/f06pcon1.htm


SIGNS
Three ways of understanding signs

• Iconicity: resemble what they signify.
E.G a photo of a rose compared to a
‘real’ rose.

• Indexical: act as a kind of evidence
or a symptom of a sign.
E.G The crown = monarchy.

• Symbolic: visual signs that are only
arbitrarily or symbolically linked to
referents by convention.

E.G a statue of a blindfolded woman
with scales and a sword = Justice.

CODES

Signs are arranged into systems, called
codes, in which they are interpreted in
relation to one another.

These codes are conventions for
interpretation and understanding.

Some formal examples

• Genre
• Narrative (morphology)
• Binaries (oppositional definition)



CONSTRUCTED
We don’t just interpret signs and sign systems; we
actively create them.

We construct sign systems as ways of “making
sense”of the world around us, i.e., giving it meaning
-- in fact, generating meaning. In order to do this,
we, as members of a common culture:

• divide up the world of objects “out there” into
arbitrary categories (e.g., dogs, cats, men, wom-
en, blacks, whites, Arabs)

• turn these categories into systems (or structures)
of meaning within which we select and categorize
particular objects in relation to other objects

• learn from each other how to “read” similar
meanings into the sign systems we have created.


In “The Analytical Language of John Wilkins,” Borges describes ‘a certain Chinese Encyclopedia,’
the Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge, in which it is written that animals are divided
into:

1. those that belong to the Emperor,
2. embalmed ones,
3. those that are trained,
4. suckling pigs,
5. mermaids,
6. fabulous ones,
7. stray dogs,
8. those included in the present classification,
9. those that tremble as if they were mad,
10. innumerable ones,
11. those drawn with a very fine camelhair brush,
12. others,
13. those that have just broken a flower vase,
14. those that from a long way off look like flies.

This classification has been used by many writers. It “shattered all the familiar landmarks of his

thought” for Michel Foucault. Anthropologists and ethnographers, German teachers, postmodern
feminists, Australian museum curators, and artists quote it. The list of people influenced by the
list has the same heterogeneous character as the list itself.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQrTN1urcZI&eurl=http%3A%
2F%2Ftheinspirationroom.com%2Fdaily%2F2006%2Flynx-billions-
of-bikinis%2F&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4f9vqrpHRk8


The Body Speaks: nonverbal communication & semiotics

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