The Significance of Body Signals in Literary Works

This paper attempts to prove the importance of body signals in literary works .In order to accomplish that, the author shows how analyzing and decoding the nonverbal language in literary works helps the reader to have a better understanding of the characters and their relationship. This paper decodes a short story by analyzing the communicative and realistic functions of the body signals in it.

Burgoon and Saine (1990: 9) defined non-verbal communication(NVC) as a group of human attributes or actions in which words are not involved, but which have a social shared meaning. They are intentionally sent or interpreted as intentional, and consciously sent or consciously received. They can provide the receiver with feedback. Other authors such as Ekman and Friesen (1981) also consider that NVC is intentional and conscious (as cited by Padrón, 2000).

However, since NVC is part of the communicative process in general we communicate even if our behavior is unconscious or unintentional (Porter and Samovar (1985: 19)). Therefore, Burgoon and Saine"s definition eliminates the possibility of the existence of unconscious NVC, as it occurs when there is a contradiction between words and facial expressions. It only analyzes the external manifestation of the phenomenon, and eliminates involuntary non-verbal elements that provide information, like sweat, pupils" expansion, blinks, blush, etc. Then, Padrón"s definition of NVC is one of the most accurate in our opinion. Padrón states that NVC is "a group of face-to-face human automatic socially – significant actions that occur in a communicative act based on body movements not on words" (2000: 10).

The criteria on the components of NVC also varied, it encompassed all kinds of non-verbal elements ranging from body signals to architecture. We concentrated our attention on those elements that can be more regularly studied and focused on what Argyle (1990) called "body signals": facial expressions, gaze, gestures and bodily movements, postures, body contact and spatial behavior.

Argyle calls "signals" to those elements of the behavior, appearance, etc. of one organism that are received by the sense of the organs of a second organism and affect its behavior. These elements have goal-directed meaning, which does not mean that they are always conscious. They can be unconscious, but they are part of a goal-directed evolutionary process. He sets an example, "a person may indicate that he has come to the end of a sentence by looking up, and returning his hand to rest, or indicate that he wants to go on speaking by keeping a hand in midgesture. In none of these cases the involved are usually aware of the signals being used or of what they mean" (1990: 5-6). Argyle"s taxonomy for body signals comprises face expressions, gaze, gestures, body movements, posture, bodily contact and spatial behavior (proximity, orientation, height and movement of the physical setting).

However, does analyzing and decoding non-verbal language (NVL) in literary works helps the reader to have a better understanding of the characters and their relationship? This is the area under discussion in our research which holds the purpose of attesting that in order to have a complete understanding of the situation presented in a literary work; the reader should pay attention not only to verbal language, but also to nonverbal language.

Imaginative Literature

Michael Meyer in the book The Bedford Introduction to Literature describes literature "…as a fiction consisting of carefully arranged words designed to stir the imagination. Stories, poems, and plays are fictional. They are made up -imagined- even when based upon actual historic events" (1993:3).According to this author such imaginative writing is different from other kinds of writing since its main purpose is to transmit facts or ideas. Imaginative literature should be considered as a source more of pleasure than a source of facts or information. Readers get involved with this kind of literature for the sake of enjoyment, delight and contentment. The same way other art manifestations do, imaginative literature usually tries to express a perspective, moods, feelings, or experiences and writers have the miraculous task of converting the facts the world provides -people, places, and objects- into these experiences that at the same time will suggest meanings.

The importance of the presence of body signals in imaginative literature

In the same way -since imaginative literature constitutes a reflection of real life, and people use nonverbal language when they communicate- writers use nonverbal language to create a more realistic world. When it comes to understanding a piece of writing so intricate as a novel , we should remind ourselves of Fernando Poyatos"s words when he stated: "A cursory reading of a page in a novel where both the characters and the writer speak… shows that if we were to rely exclusively on what words those characters say… and on a few punctuation marks, plus some instances of extralinguistic communicative features, a good part (perhaps the most important one) of the total human message would be simply lost, even though not so in the mind of the novelist". (1981: 107).

Communicative functions and realistic functions

According to Finocchiaro and Brumfit (1989), communicative functions are related to the purpose for which language is used. In the book The Functional-Notional Approach. From Theory to Practice, they refer to the communicative functions of verbal language and its categories. However, both of them can be also applied to non-verbal language since it is closely related to verbal language. It has already been stated that in most cases NVC co-exists with verbal communication.

In their book, Finocchiaro and Brumfit (1989:61-68) provide the different categories of communicative functions according to different authors. They show the eight categories under which Wilkins grouped communicative functions (Finocchiaro and Brumfit (1989:63), the six categories proposed by van Ek (Finocchiaro and Brumfit 1989: 64), and they also provide the five categories under which they preferred to group communicative functions (Finocchiaro and Brumfit 1989:65-66). But most of these categories overlap. For example, two of Wilkins" categories, "Emotional Relations" and "Interpersonal Relations" (1989:63) have many points in common with van Ek"s sixth category, "Socializing", and also with Finocchiaro"s second category("Interpersonal" category)(1989:65)

In order to simplify the work, since most of the categories proposed by those three authors overlapped and since the number of communicative functions is so great, the two broad categories suggested in the Professional Handbook "Teaching English in a World at Peace" were adopted for this research(Terroux,1991: 29).

Communicative situations

It must be taken into account that the communicative functions of body signals are necessarily related to the context in which communication takes place, that is to say, to the communicative situation. Finocchiaro and Brumfit (1989: 66-68) also provide the categories of situation according to Richterich and van Ek. They should be kept in mind when analyzing the excerpts from which body signals will be taken because that helps the reader to visualize the context.

CATEGORIES OF COMMUNICATIVE SITUATIONS

Richterich (1989: 67-68)

(Many of his examples are omitted or condensed)

1. Agents

A. Identification ( occupation, age, sex, name, place of residence, civil status)

B. Number in the situation (one, two, three to five, etc.)

C. Roles:

a. Social: old/young, parent/child, asker/giver, friend/friend, stranger/stranger, etc.

b. Psychological: respect, obedience, admiration, antipathy, disdain, etc.

c. Language: one single speaker; one speaker + one addressee, etc.

2. Time

Time of day

Duration of the speech act

Frequency-first time, occasionally, regularly

Events-prior (to the) meeting, present, subsequent

3. Place

A. Geographical location (country, region, locality)

B. Place-outdoors (square, street, beach, building site), indoors: private life (flat, villa, room); public life (shop, hotel, school, station, theater, office); work (office, workshop)

C. Means of transportation (car, bus, train, plane, subway, boat)

D. Surroundings (family, friends, acquaintances, learning, anonymous)

E. Environment (relevant to the language act)

Van Ek (1989: 68)

1. Social roles (strange/ stranger, friend/friend, private person/official, patient/doctor, etc.)

2. Psychological roles (neutrality, equality, sympathy, antipathy)

3. Settings

A. Geographical location (foreign country where the target language is the native language, foreign country where the target language is not the native language, one"s own country)

B. Place

a. outdoors (park, street, seaside)

b. indoors: private life (house, apartment, room, kitchen); public life (purchases, eating and drinking), accommodation (hotel, camping site, etc.), transport (gas station, lost and found), religion, physical services (hospital, pharmacy or chemist"s), learning site, displays (museum, art gallery), entertainment, communication, finances, work, means of transport

4. Surroundings (human) family, friends, acquaintances, strangers

It is obvious that they are very similar. However, Richterich' categories are more suitable to the present paper. Richterich includes "Time" as a category, while van Ek does not. "Time" is an element to take into account when studying gestures' communicative functions. For example, if a speech act has a long duration, a person can make a gesture expressing boredom or else.

Realistic functions

Fernando Poyatos devoted a great part of his time to study nonverbal communication, and in his paper "Forms and Functions of Nonverbal Communication in the Novel: A New Perspective of the Author-Character-Reader Relationship" (1981) he stated clearly the importance of the nonverbal elements in imaginative literature and how it contributes to an effective relationship between the work, the writer and the audience. We considered appropriate to present Poyatos" criteria on the realistic functions of nonverbal communication in literature.

Physical realism, as differentiated from the psychological one, conveys the sensorial perception of people's behavior and, therefore, their intended authenticity.

As a variety within physical realism, it is interesting how the description of task-performing behaviors contribute to what have been classified as documentary or historical realism.

Distorting realism, that is the literary, or artistic, expressionistic rendering of psychological reality, meant to ridicule, to offer a caricature of reality, to gratuitously exaggerate it, or, truly to show what the eyes cannot see.

Individualizing realism, which shows a conscious effort to differentiate the characters, as to their physical and psychological characteristics, by means of their verbal repertoires and, in the best cases, by their nonverbal ones as well.

Psychological realism is, of course, the conscious ultimate aim … individualizing realism, and includes also the sensorial world (as the… perception of it may let us probe deeper into subtle inner reactions…)

Interactive realism is always a thoughtful depiction of the mechanism of conversation, mainly in face to-face encounters, and its study offers and interesting socio-psychological angle of narration, as we observe whether that mechanism reflects reality or seems rather improbable.

Documentary realism (or historical realism) through non-verbal behavior, finally, is a logical result of physical realism, mostly, and another rich source of research material.

About Flannery O"Connor

When Flannery O'Connor died of lupus in 1964, before her fortieth birthday, her work was cruelly cut short. Nevertheless, she had completed two novels, Wise Blood (1952) and The Violent Bear It Away (1960), as well as thirty-one short stories. Despite her short life and relatively modest output, her work is regarded among the most distinguished American fiction of the mid-twentieth century. Her two collections of short stories, A Good Man Is Hard to Find (1955) and Everything That Rises Must Converge (1965), were included in The Complete Stories of Flannery O'Connor (1971), which won the National Book Award.

O'Connor's fiction is related to living a spiritual life in a secular world. Although this major concern is worked into each of her stories, she takes a broad approach to spiritual issues by providing moral, social, and psychological contexts that offer a wealth of insights and passion that her readers have found both startling and absorbing. Her stories are challenging because her characters, who initially seem radically different from people we know, turn out to be, by the end of each story, somehow familiar- somehow connected to us.

Although her personal life was largely uneventful, O'Connor inhabited simultaneously two radically different worlds. The world she created in her stories is populated with bratty children, malcontents, incompetents, pious frauds, bewildered intellectuals, deformed cynics, rednecks, hucksters, racists, perverts and murderers who experience dramatically intense moments that surprise and shock readers.

Method

Materials

A number of 23 excerpts where taken from the short story Revelation (year) by Flannery O"Connor. Each excerpt represents a given communicative situation in which the main or one of the secondary characters is involved. In the process of analyzing and decoding the non-verbal language of the characters, the communicative functions (Finocchiaro & Brumfit, 1989) they express and the realistic functions (Poyatos, 1981) they are related to were taken into consideration as well. The target excerpts were selected from a large sample of communicative situations that manifest different types of body signals according to Argyle"s categorization (1990).

Procedure

The 23 excerpts were analysed and decoded in a chart were they were set according to the body signal each of them represented. For each communicative situation, the communicative function they embodied was shown (explaining which subcategory was being represented specifically) as well as the realistic function they belonged to.

In terms of what type of excerpts we took from the short story, we decided to vary among examples of gestures, gaze, body movements, facial expressions and body contact. As we explained before our classification for body signals is based on Argyle"s (1990). In the case of communicative functions and realistic functions taxonomies we followed Finocchiaro & Brumfit"s (1989) and Poyatos"s (1981) respectively.

The following constitutes a resume of the short story we worked with while decoding and analyzing the different body signals.

Revelation (1964)

Mrs. Turpin enters a crowded doctor"s waiting room accompanied by her husband Claud. She immediately starts labeling and analyzing the other patients based on their physical appearance and behavior, particularly a young girl named Mary Grace. She establishes a conversation with a well-dressed, pleasant lady, Mary Grace's mother, and her thoughts reveal that she thinks of herself as a superior, grateful, lucky, Christian woman. In her head she constantly thanks Jesus Christ for not making her neither a black nor a "white trashy" woman, but a middle class, white, decent, married woman. She is proud of her charity work and her "love" for white people. However, when all of a sudden Mary Grace hurls a book right to her face without apparent reason, Mrs. Turpin begins questioning her own attitude towards life and faith.)

Results

From the 23 excerpts analyzed and decoded, among all the body signals facial expressions was the most frequent one with 11 cases and in one case it was combined with gestures. The body signal of gestures as such was the second one most found through the all the excerpts with three cases and it came together in three occasions with body movements. The third body signal most found was body contact with 4 cases. Finally, only three cases of gaze were found through all the excerpts.

As to the communicative functions it is marked the presence of the personal category with 19 cases; more specifically 14 belong to the subcategories of expressing emotions (despair, resignation, anger, emotional pain, discomfort, sympathy, dislike, embarrassment, among others) and the other 5 cases to the act of expressing social interaction (give moral support, call someone"s attention, way of farewell or greeting). The category of rational was relegated to a second level with 4 cases distributed among the subcategories of suasion (1 case: having someone do something), judgment and evaluation (2 cases: condemn, deplore) and argument (1 case: agreeing with a statement).

The fact that the expression of emotions was a relevant outcome of the analysis illustrates that nonverbal communication is a powerful instrument for a writer. By decoding the characters NVL, we are able to figure out the characters' personality traits and their roles when establishing a relationship. For example, once we analyze Mrs. Turpin's body signals, we

learn that she is a strong, determined, confident woman who is accustomed to taking the lead and being always right (i.e. 1. "[Mrs. Turpin] put a firm hand on Claud"s shoulder… and gave him a push down"). Based on that we can totally understand why she gets so upset when Mary Grace shows clear signs of disliking her. We can also realize that Mrs. Turpin thinks of herself as a superior person and that she is very fond of people like her (i.e. 2. "Her gaze settled agreeably on a well dressed…lady…").

We also notice that Claud Turpin likes to please and obey her wife (i.e. 5. "Claud only grinned…"). Likewise, Mary Grace's facial expressions and gazes constitute a prediction of what is going to happen. Her non-verbal behavior reveals that she despises Mrs. Turpin (i.e. 12. "Her lower lip turned downward and inside out… as if she has known and dislike her all life…" 14. "Her eyes fixed like two drills on Mrs. Turpin").

In the same way, we can enter the other characters" personal worlds if we, besides reading what the author write about their personalities and actions in an explicit way, interpret their non-verbal behavior.

Bibliography

-Argyle, Michael. Bodily Communication. London: Routledge, 1990

-Armstrong, David F., William C. Stokoe, and Sherman E. Wilcox (1995) Gesture and the Nature of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

-Finocchiaro, M. and Brumfit, Ch. The functional-notional approach. From theory to practice. La Habana: Edición Revolucionaria, 1989.

-Meyer, Michael. The Bedford Introduction to Literature. Boston: Bedford Books of St. Martin's Press, 1993

-Nguyen, Duong. A system of exercises for Teaching American Non-Verbal Elements in the Beginning Stages at FLEX. (Diploma Paper) Havana: FLEX-UH, 2006

-Padrón, C. and Ayala, I. M. A First Approach to Nonverbal Communication in Literature. In the Sixth Annual Convention of GELI, 1981

-Padrón, Concepción. Comunicación No Verbal. Enseñanza de los gestos culturales en la clase de lenguas extranjeras. (Tesis presentada en opción al grado científico de Doctor en Ciencias Pedagógicas) La Habana: FLEX-UH, 2000

-Poyatos, F. "Forms and functions of nonverbal communication in the novel: A new perspectives of the author-character-reader relationship". In T. A. Sebeok, J. U. Sebeok , J.U Sebeok y A. Kendon (Eds), Nonverbal Communication Interaction and gesture. Selections from Semiotics (pp 107-150). The Hague. Mounton,1981.

-Kendon. A. (Eds.), Nonverbal communication, interaction and gesture. Selections from semiotica (pp.107-150). The Hague: Mouton, 1981

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-Terroux, W., Woods, H. Teaching English in a world at peace. Professional handbook.

Canada: McGill University, Faculty of Education, 1991

Autor:

Arlen Herrera Rodríguez

Department of English Language

School of Foreign Languages. University of Havana