The Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften: Events

Thursday, 07 December 2023, 11:00
Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften, Am Wingertsberg 4, 61348 Bad Homburg

Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften of Goethe University
Fellow colloquium

Wim Pouw (Radboud University Nijmegen)
»Significant movements«

Abstract
It is not uncommon for researchers in my field to understand communicative bodily movements such as gestures as »windows into the mind«. While this has emancipated the study of language as it is used in spoken and signed interaction – deviating from the study of language as a static system enshrined in text – in my view we are still left with a persistent sentiment that the body is passing pre-formed messages from the mind. Such sentiments implicitly engender different kinds of dualisms (mind vs. body, categorical vs. continuous, nature vs. culture) that I challenge in the research that I will overview in this colloquium. If one looks closely at the literal body in languaging entanglements form on multiple levels. I will overview research showing how the pulse-quality of gesture produces forces through acceleration, thereby physically and functionally interacting with speaking and singing. I will show that speaking a new language means moving your whole body in alignment with the melodic regime of the language. I will overview how infants only 9 months old learn what is an appropriate way to move, and that this process is akin to how other animals who have evolved to move and vocalize at the same time. The empirical overview will be concluded with computational research on evolving gesture languages in the lab. I will then broaden out and discuss the broader theoretical implications and open challenges for an understanding of significant movements and languaging.

The speaker
Wim Pouw is a cognitive scientist at the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behaviour at Radboud University Nijmegen studying sound production and its coordination with body movements. In November/December 2023 he is a Fellow at the Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften, working together with Cornelia Ebert, who is professor of linguistics/semantics, Goethe University, and Goethe Fellow at the Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften.

Participation
Closed event. Contact: Beate Sutterlüty; email: b.sutterluety@forschungskolleg-humanwissenschaften.de).