Re: [xmca] Body expression as sign.

[Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com>]

Joseph, Jack, Rod and Christine

I would like to explore the topic of *body expression AS signs* [the topic
of the thread]

The term *signs* and how it links to two other terms *gesture* and *symbols*

This is not to put in question the focus of this thread to open up and
explore questions of *energy* *movement* *emotion* and *attunement*.  The
overall general term *expression* and how expression is an *aesthetic
REACTION* [Vygotsky's term] or an *aesthetic RESPONSE* [Gadamer's term]
I seems to be  central to our understanding bodily expression

Within this general notion of expression my question is if the following
 statements are equivalent, different, or ambivalent?
* Body expression AS gesture
* Body expression AS sign
* Body expression as symbol

My understanding of the relation of *signs* to what they signify is that
the relation is ESSENTIALLY arbitrary. One sign can replace another sign
and either sign can equally represent the signified.

Symbols, by contrast have a relation of RESEMBLANCE to the signified.  We
cannot merely transfer one symbol to be replaced by another symbol
without this change radically changing the meaning.

Both signs and symbols are implicated in conceptual understanding.

Body expression as *gesture* moves into the realm of *showing* and
*perceiving* ACTUAL physical bodily movement. Some traditions assume this
level of bodily expression is pre-conceptual.  However other traditions
asumme bodily gesture is expressing cultural-historical conventionalized
movements.

My question is: When we are exploring aesthetic REACTION or aesthetic
RESPONSE  to bodily *expression* [as a general term] are we *understanding*
this bodily expression at the level of gesture, symbol, or sign
expressions? Do the adjectives used to modify *expression* change the
meaning of our understanding of expression as a general term?

Larry
On Wed, May 23, 2012 at 9:24 AM, Joseph Gilbert <joeg4us@roadrunner.com>wrote:

> Let us remember that spoken-word language is composed of sounds made by
> the body, sounds that issue forth as expressions of emotions and that cause
> hearers bodies to assume patterns of motion analogous to those in the
> generators of the sounds. Thereby motion and emotion are transferred from
> originators to receivers. It is that sense of emotion, that we experience
> by our spoken words, that provides us with a sense of meaning. Our own
> emotion is the bottom line of our sense of meaning. Things have meaning
> only in as much, and in how, they affect us. And our emotions are the way
> we experience effects. Our words deal in the currency of meaning - our
> emotions - , and they refer to things. Because of this dual nature, words -
> the very things that identify things - inform us of the meaning of our
> world simply by affecting our emotions with their sounds. Since we are
> normally preoccupied with the referential aspect of words, it is
> subconsciously that we experience their emotional effects.
>
>                Joseph Gilbert
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