LANGUAGE AND COMMUNICATIVE MOVEMENT: DANCE, DISCOURSE REPRESENTATION, AND ILLOCUTIONS
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.29121/shodhkosh.v4.i1.2023.274Keywords:
Meaning, Dance, Illocutions, Semantic Reference, Narrative, Discourse Representation TheoryAbstract [English]
This paper endeavors to open up the domain of narrative dance to formal semantico-pragmatic inquiry, taking case studies from Indian dance drama and classical Ballet. It thus posits narrative dance as a richly promising domain of research and analysis in its analogues to, and interfaces with, discourse based on language. The communicative intent of narrative dance – alongside its aesthetic-cultural semiosis – is typically directed at the audience’s (re)cognition of discourse referents and their actions in the dance space. It therefore lends itself to the scrutiny of Discourse Representation Theory or, more broadly, dynamic semantics, which are recognized frameworks for the formal linguistic analysis of narrative, and more rarely non-narrative, discourse. This intent in dance, however, differs from those of ordinary-language communications, in that it allows for creative play to convey shifting discourse-referent identities. Such creative play is brought into focus in the very different treatments of “stage” versus “individual”-level identities of the respective central characters within two case studies, viz., the (North-)Eastern Indian dance drama Chitrāngadā, on the one hand, and Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, on the other. While illocutions are conveyed through hand-gestures and (facial and corporeal) mime in these different traditions, they crucially play a complementary role in discourse representation as this latter pertains to narrative dance. The paper concludes by highlighting this mode of analysis as a means of achieving greater insight into viewers’ / connoisseurs’ responses to narrative and non-narrative dance subtypes as possible clues as to how meanings are construed out of these dance genres.
Downloads
References
Allanbrook, W. J. (1983). Rhythmic Gesture in Mozart : Le Nozze di Figaro and Don Giovanni. Chicago : University of Chicago Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226437712.001.0001
Austin, J. L. (1962). How to Do Things with Words : The William James Lectures Delivered at Harvard University in 1955. Oxford : Clarendon Press.
Bagchi, T. (1999). Generic Sentences, Social Kinds, and Stereotypes. In Multiculturalism, Liberalism and Democracy, eds. Rajeev Bhargava, A. K. Bagchi, and R. Sudarshan. New York & New Delhi : Oxford University Press, 308-322.
Bagchi, T. (2008). The Sentence in Language and Cognition. Lanham MD : Lexington Books, Rowman & Littlefield.
Bagchi, T. (2010). The Signing System of Mudra in Traditional Indian Dance. Paragrana : Internationale Zeitschrift für Historische Anthropologie [deGruyter] 19(1), 259-266. https://doi.org/10.1524/para.2010.0017. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1524/para.2010.0017
Bagchi, T. (2014). Sign Language and Signing in the Traditions of Performance in India. In People’s Linguistic Survey of India, 38 : Indian Sign Languages, eds. G. N. Devy (Editor-in-Chief), Tanmoy Bhattacharya, Nisha Grover and Surinder P. K. Randhawa, 118-127. Hyderabad & New Delhi : Orient BlackSwan.
Bagchi, T. (2018). “Mudrā [Dance Gesture], Abhinaya [Facial Mime], and Specific Issues in Pragmatics”. Presentation Made at the International Workshop on “Dance as Gesture” with Participation from the University of Delhi, Jawaharlal Nehru University (New Delhi), and Shiv Nadar University (NCR-Delhi), Hosted by the Center for Gesture, Sign, and Language (University of Chicago) at the University of Chicago Delhi Center, January 29-30.
Berwick, R. C., & Chomsky, N. (2013). Birdsong, Speech, and Language : Exploring the Evolution of Mind and Brain. Cambridge, MA : MIT Press. https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/9322.001.0001. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/9322.001.0001
Bharata-Muni, ed. & trans. Ghosh, M. (C. 4th century B.C.E., trans. 1951). Nāṭyaśāstra (‘Dance/Performance scripture’) with English Translations. Calcutta (now Kolkata) : The Asiatic Society of Bengal.
Bresnahan, A. (2015/2020). The Philosophy of Dance. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Edward N. Zalta (ed.).
Calvo-Merino, B., Jola, C., Glaser, D. E., and Haggard, P. (2008). Towards a Sensorimotor Aesthetics of Performing Art. Consciousness and Cognition 17(3), 911-922. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2007.11.003. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2007.11.003
Carlson, G. N. (1977, pub. 1980). Reference to Kinds in English. Ph.D. Thesis, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Published 1980. New York : Garland.
Charnavel, I. (2016). Steps Towards a Generative Theory of Dance Cognition. Manuscript, June 2016, Harvard University. (Retrieved 17, April 2021).
Chattopadhyay, R., and Goswami, B. (2016). Encyclopaedia of Ancient Indian Dramaturgy. [In English and Sanskrit.] Kolkata : Sanskrit Pustak Bhandar.
Chaudhuri, S. (2016). Bichitra : The Making of an Online Tagore Variorum. [Series : Quantitative Methods in the Humanities and Social Sciences.] Basel, Switzerland : Springer. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-23678-0
Choubineh, N. (2020). Ancient Greek Dance. World History Encyclopedia. (Retrieved 2021, April 6).
Danto, A. C. (1981). The Transfiguration of the Commonplace. Cambridge MA : Harvard University Press.
Foster, S. L. (1996). Choreography and Narrative : Ballet’s Staging of Story and Desire. Bloomington IN : Indiana University Press.
Goswami, B. (2002). Meaning and Interpretation in Ancient India. Calcutta : Sanskrit Pustak Bhandar.
Green, M. S. (2008). Self-Expression. New York : Oxford University Press.
Groenendijk, J., and Stokhof, M. (1991). Dynamic Predicate Logic. Linguistics & Philosophy, 14(1), 39-100. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00628304
Hanna, J. L. (1979, repr. 1987). To Dance is Human : A Theory of Nonverbal Communication. Austin, TX : University of Texas Press. Reprinted with a New Preface, Chicago and London : The University of Chicago Press, 1987.
Harrold, R. (1980). Ballet. Poole, Dorset [UK] : Blandford Press.
Heim, I. R. (1982, published 1988). The Semantics of Definite and Indefinite Noun Phrases. University of Massachusetts-Amherst Ph.D. Dissertation, Published in the Outstanding Dissertations Series. New York : Garland.
Kamp, H. (1981). A Theory of Truth and Semantic Representation. In Formal Methods in the Study of Language (Mathematical Centre Tracts 135), J. A. G. Groenendijk, T. M. V. Janssen, and M. B. J. Stokhof (eds.), 277-322. Amsterdam : Mathematisch Centrum.
Kamp, H., and Reyle, U. (1993). From Discourse to Logic. Dordrecht : Kluwer. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-1616-1
Kearns, K. (2011). Semantics, Ed. 2nd. London : Macmillan. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-230-35609-2
Kratzer, A. (1995). Stage Level and Individual Level Predicates. In The Generic Book, Greg Carlson and Francis J. Pelletier (eds.). Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 125-175.
Milsark, G. (1974). Existential Sentences in English. Ph.D. thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315856728. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315856728
Nandikeśvara. (C. 4th-3rd century B.C.E. ? ed. And trans. 1917). Abhinaya-darpaṇam. Translated into English as the Mirror of Gesture, Being the Abhinaya Darpana of Nandikeśvara, by Ananda K. Coomaraswamy (1917). Cambridge MA : Harvard University Press.
Nandikeśvara. (C. 4th-3rd century B.C.E. ? ed. And trans., 2nd edition 1957). Abhinayadarpaṇam : A Manual of Gesture and Posture Used in Hindu Dance and Drama. Translated into English by Manomohan Ghosh. Calcutta : Firma K. L. Mukhopadhyay.
Napoli, D. J., and Kraus, L. (2015/2017). Suggestions for a Parametric Typology of Dance. Leonardo 50(5), 468-476. https://doi.org/10.1162/LEON_a_01079. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1162/LEON_a_01079
Nouwen, R., Brasoveanu, A., van Eijck, J., and Visser, A. (2016). Dynamic Semantics. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2016 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.).
Patel-Grosz, P., Grosz, P. G., Kelkar, T., and Jensenius, A. R. (2018). Coreference and Disjoint Reference in the Semantics of Narrative Dance. Conference Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 22, 2, ZASPiL 61. DOI: https://doi.org/10.21248/zaspil.61.2018.492
Puri, R. (1986). Elementary Units of an Action Sign System : The Hasta or Hand Positions of Indian Classical Dance. Semiotica 62(3-4), 247–277. https://doi.org/10.1515/semi.1986.62.3-4.247. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/semi.1986.62.3-4.247
Sadock, J. M. (1974). Toward a Linguistic Theory of Speech Acts. New York : Academic Press.
School of Cultural Texts and Records (2011-2013). Bichitra : Online Tagore Variorum, hosted by the SCTR, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, in collaboration with Rabindra-Bhavana, Visva-Bharati University, Santiniketan, and sponsored by the Ministry of Culture, Government of India.
Seeley, W. P. (2020). Attentional Engines : A Perceptual Theory of the Arts. New York : Oxford University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190662158.001.0001
Sheets-Johnstone, M., and Cunningham, M. (1966, repr. 2015). The Phenomenology of Dance. Philadelphia : Temple University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvrf88jc
Sparshott, F. (1995). A Measured Pace : Toward a Philosophical Understanding of the Arts of Dance. Toronto : University of Toronto Press. https://doi.org/10.3138/9781442677159. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3138/9781442677159
Valéry, P. (1976). Philosophy of the Dance. Salmagundi 33/34, 65-75.
Vatsyayan, K. (1974). Indian Classical Dance. Lucknow and New Delhi : Sangeet Natak Akademi.
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2023 Tista Bagchi
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
With the licence CC-BY, authors retain the copyright, allowing anyone to download, reuse, re-print, modify, distribute, and/or copy their contribution. The work must be properly attributed to its author.
It is not necessary to ask for further permission from the author or journal board.
This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.