Review 2
Guidelines:
Write a 2-page review of commenting on the article assigned to you this week. A review is a critical summary in which the reviewer presents the main argument of the paper, the claims that support the main argument and the conclusions reached by the author. The review ends with a critical assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the papers reviewed. The references cited should be included in the two pages. The reviews will be posted below.
Make the post by midnight on Friday and write a reaction before Sunday by midnight. You need to react to the two posts from your classmates.
Make your posts meaningful and don´t be afraid to disagree with your classmate's take on the issues found in the readings. Post should be around 300 words or more.
Let me know if you have any questions!!
Dear all,
ReplyDeleteHere is the link for the article review Zylko (2001):
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ErRGShMn_BtDvSB4_y9DfjBWE220b8h2/view?usp=sharing
Looking forward to reading your comments
Kind regards!
Dear Andres:
DeleteI really appreciated your insights of Zylko's article, "Notes on Lotman's Conception of Culture." It amazes me to contemplate how you wrote such outstanding and practical critical review. I totally agree with the author in the assumption of the significance of studying communities’ relationships, cultures and language phenomena as a result of communication to improve practices in the cultural context. It is interesting the fact that the author corrects its same postulate on culture, first as a static entity, then as a dynamic entity. On the other hand, I would like to understand better the word “Semiosphere” from different fields and authors, it is sounds completely connected with the world of “Semiotics”. I really appreciate your acumens on “Explosions” as the evolution of the unpredictable entity called “Culture”. Thanks for such incredible job as usual.
Andrés and All,
DeleteGood summary of Zylko's review of Lotman's work. Lotma's major contribution was to think of culture as a semiotic system and the study of texts as connected to extratextual semiotic systems (society, culture, politics etc.). His concept of semiosphere is central because it points at the fact that all human inhabited spaces are semiotic spaces. What makes it more interesting is that the encounter of individuals with their own semiospheres enlarges or recreates other types of semiospheres. By doing this, Lotman evokes Pierce who states the signs are infinite because every interpretamen becomes a representamen, beginning a chain of signs. Well, talk more about this in class.
Thank you very much Professor,
DeleteLooking forward to broadening these topics, sharing and exchanging ideas in our next class.
Regards,
Dear all,
ReplyDeleteHope your week is going well.
The following is the link to my critical review.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/15ZLrHtBXgTTkHY-QmhSmZppsjj-fvAsf/view
Have a lovely weekend
Dear all,
DeleteThe above is the link to Yi-Fen's critical review on Larusso, A.M.
(2015).I used another computer, I guess that's why it didn't show my name.
Dear Yi-Fen,
DeleteThis is a very clear review on Eco and Lotman’s perspectives on culture and semiotics. As we have noticed in other authors, there is a tendency to shift the way communication and culture have conventionally being studied. The static traditional approach has shifted towards a more dynamic and diverse one. You did a great job by exemplifying the outdated binary nature of code (a = b, regardless of context). Signs are necessarily related to the cultural context and thus they cannot be thought as structural and predictable, the experience you had with the way people addressed your husband is an accurate example of how unpredictable and unstructured signs are (and so culture). I agree with the part that highlights the importance of knowing one’s own culture and its uniqueness in order to access meaning intercultural negotiation. However, a concern that I consider interesting to discuss is: what should the teacher do when knowledge of students’ own culture is absent or affected by other cultures thanks to media information/networks? How should students’ own identity be developed so as to successfully negotiate meanings with other cultures?
Best,
Yi-Fen, you point at some concepts of the lengthy article you were assigned to review. I like that you are always looking for connection to your research interest. The argument that meaning should be considered as a cultural unit is central in Eco's proposal. I would have liked you to dig into it more, especially the role communication plays in studying cultural practices. Eco explains that culture should be studied as a communication phenomenon. This has paramount ramifications because it implicitly proposes to move from language-centered views (like Lotman's) to a communication-centered view. I am not sure I totally agree with this view. Communication is a meaning-making process that materializes culture, however, since the act of communicating is a cultural practice, it is culture as well. So it performs a two-fold function, it facilitates the expression of culture and it is culture at the same time. So the meanings we create are cultural because they are historical and are taken from the big semiotic encyclopedia Eco talks about or semiosphere that Lotman proposes or what I call repertoire of cultural semiotic resources. In this sense, one can say that meaning could be considered a cultural unit, but so could socio-cultural practices be. Perhaps given the dynamic nature of the sign, the unit should be meaning-making as a process rather than meaning alone.
DeleteI did not understand very well the part were you introduce Pierce's triangle. It lack more explanation.
Argyle, M. (1972). Verbal and nonverbal communication. In The psychology of interpersonal behavior (pp. 36-58). England: Pelican Books.
ReplyDeleteIn this paper, I will discuss Argyle’s article ‘Verbal and nonverbal communication’ (1972). Argyle’s article is a practical explanation of ‘Social Techniques’ which lead us to appreciate verbal and nonverbal communication and its influence in the social encounters. In particular, he argues the social techniques’ purpose, the different acts of social acts, the roles of nonverbal communication, the styles on social behaviors as well as the sources of social techniques. After summarizing Argyle’s main points, I shall be claiming that there is a huge influence of the aforementioned social techniques with the act of communication along with conveying messages; in particular, I reflect upon my teaching practice and how these social acts would possible affect, in one way or another the effectiveness of the classroom affiliations. On the other hand, I connected my views and experiences with the author’s perspectives. In concluding, I shall show that the repertoire presented by the author is quintessential to acknowledge cultures’ features and how to negotiate to facilitate the cultural encounters.
The theme of this well researched and powerfully argued article is that ‘Social Techniques’ influence the social encounters. They present a high range of communication levels such as: body contact, gestures and speech; this displays that the message could be conveyed in several levels. Besides, the ‘styles of behavior’ from those verbal and nonverbal could provide a desirable ‘intimacy’ or adversely a ‘dominance’ in the communication act. Significantly, the article shows the definition of different kinds of social act for moving towards a scientific analysis of social behavior: Bodily contact, Physical proximity, orientation signals, bodily posture, gestures, head nods, facial expressions eye movements, appearance, non-linguistic aspects of speech and speech, which I am going to summarize as follows:
ReplyDeletea. Bodily contact: As the most primitive social act, this reflects diversity in the manners of bodily contact according to the cross-cultural differences. It usually conveys ‘Intimacy’, this term is an enlightening form to see close and affectionate personal relationship with another person or group, with the basis of having the specific knowledge, deep understanding of a place, culture or person.
ReplyDeleteb. Physical proximity: It is the relation between ‘Intimacy’ and ‘dominance’. The degree of proximity varies with cultures and also animal species. Personally speaking, I have read about classroom management strategies for EFL classrooms and they remark the ‘proximity’ as the successful ones; I completely differ on this, due to the fact that the teacher and students’ encounters must be based on the balance of ‘firmness’ and ‘compassion’ rather a trait of dominance over learning. Alternatively, the author claims the differences on proximity considering the genders’ encounters and how is the experience in each one of them.
c. Orientation signals: They are defined as the interpersonal attitudes, the author demonstrates how the position in a specific social encounters determines their interest, competition and even the motivation for discussion of the participants. Especially, the author remarks how the physical characteristics of a person can lead to a dominant position in the communication act. For instance, a tall person represents dominance towards a short one.
d. Bodily posture: The involuntary signals are defined as sources of communication, this means your posture determines what you want to convey. Indeed, the article states that ‘standing erect’ or ‘putting the hand on the hips’ is a dominant sign, but they are also less hostile postures. Taking this into consideration, most of the teachers present themselves towards the students as a dominant figure in the learning process, I ponder that it is meaningful to make teachers reconsider their own body postures to facilitate the classroom learning environment. On the other hand, there must be acknowledged the fact of other cultures expressive behaviors and the respectful encounters that must be promoted. Likewise, the psychological effect on postures is explained by the author when the posture is a source of self-image, self-confidence and emotional state.
Luz Mary:
DeleteThanks for your meaningful definitions on "authority" and "authoritarianism", I will reconsider them, and to read more about this concern, I have just used the information on the article to reflect upon my praxis and how my students see me in the classroom. I will be delighted the day I could establish a balance between being strict and kind at the same time, but as human being I am learning from my social expetiences with my kids.
e. Gestures: The movements of different body parts are ways to communicate messages. These social cues communicate emotions by presenting particular gestures ‘fist clenching’ (aggression), ‘face-touching’ (anxiety), and ‘Scratching’ (self-blame) among others. For instance, some cultures as the ‘Italian’ have as a signature the ‘gestures connected with speech’ in order to make more meaningful the conveyed message, thus; to say ‘Delicious’ (Delizioso, deliziosa and deliziosi) it is relevant to put your finger in your cheek to indicate that the food was incredible, or the pinched fingers famous to describe the expression ‘Are you serious?’ and other meanings. Indeed, the combination of gestures and speech is the main constituent for several cultures when performing acts of communication.
ReplyDeletef. Head-nods: It is a specific kind of gesture, the author presented them as ‘reinforcers’ of communication. Therefore, they can control the synchronization of speech. For example: they can be used to make another person to explain more a subject or to give permission to the other to talk. Notably, they need to be used carefully to avoid misunderstandings in the act of expressing ideas.
g. Facial expression: It is reduced to the transformations on eyes features, brows, mouths and others. The author classified them into two categories, pleasant and unpleasant facial expressions for expressing emotions. Also, it was explained by the ‘Dimensions of facial expressions’ (Schlosberg, 1952) in which you can acknowledge the degrees of emotional tension: Love, happiness, mirth, surprise, fear, suffering, anger, determination, disgust and contempt. In the case of the eyebrows, they can provide different messages (disbelief, surprise, no comment, puzzled, angry, pleasure and displeasure) considering their positions; having said that, the facial expressions are also elements for providing feedback of what other is saying.
h. Eye movement: The author posited that the eye movements play an important part in sustaining the flow of interaction. For instance, the eye contact reveals a sense of ‘intimacy’ and interpersonal emotions. In my opinion, some cultures avoid the eye contact for considering it disrespectful in many situations, so the author must take into consideration this topic.
ReplyDeletei. Appearance: These aspects are under voluntary control by the person; in other words, the author sustained that the person can control and even modify them. Nowadays, I have experienced some cultures with a great emphasis on the physical perfection as their pinnacle of success in life; in particular, the Korean, American and even the Colombian, following patterns of perfection imposed by worldwide trends, disregarding the dangers on the medical plastic procedures to achieve that claimed ‘perfection’.
j. Non-linguistic aspects of speech: The same words can convey different meanings. The article claims that one method could be used to train the sensitivity, the author discovered how people are good at making judgements and how the voice aspects and quality determine ways of being. Non-linguistic aspects and ‘Speech and Silence’ display emotional states as depression, aggressiveness and more. Above all, this part of the article caught my attention as a meaningful object of study to be researched in linguistics.
k. Speech: The most complex human means of communication. The author asserts that the human speech can convey information on external situations and it has a grammatical structure. The difference in the skills are determined by the intelligence, education, social class and training of the person. However, I would argue with the author that it is also essential the experience. The article presents a higher importance of the use of questions in speech, and those questions vary from open-ended to closed, but the author remarks that the best way to make someone to talk is by using open-ended questions. As far I am concerned, it is an excellent view towards the understanding of the human being by letting them be when answering these type of questions, there is a special freedom rather than a dominance.
ReplyDeleteAt the end of the article, the author explains the ‘three roles of nonverbal communication’ in which he remarks the primitive relation (Animals) when talking about ‘Communicating inter-personal attitudes and emotions’. Also, he presents the relation on facial expressions, postures, gestures and other to carry out a social life. Whereas, the human social behavior uses those attitudes as elements for negotiation ‘interpersonal attitudes’ thus conveying information. On the other hand, the second role ‘Supporting verbal communication’, provides to the linguists the integral meaning of utterances such as ‘punctuation’. In the article it was mentioned that the gestural and vocal signals add meaning to the communication. Therefore, the strategies to do it are illustrating, pointing, and displaying structure and more. Finally, the author shows the third role: Replacing speech, in this case when speech is impossible then gestures have a preponderant position.
ReplyDeleteThe authors’ preference is unequivocal: Social performance is a series of elements of very kinds, thus, there are ‘General styles of Social Behavior’. When it comes to those styles, the article provides a detailed description of each one; ‘The affiliative style’, the manner of establishing relationships by joining several number of elements: physical proximity, kinds of bodily contact, eye-contact, smiling, a friendly tone of voice and a conversation of personal topics. To develop this type of style, it is necessary a skilled sequence of social responses. Nevertheless, in the ‘dominant technique’, the author remarks the natural characteristics on this technique, for instance in the teaching field how teachers leave the profession due to their lack of dominance on the situations, or ended up talking loud, fast, controlling the time, interrupting other to show dominance. My own view on this matter is the balance of our postures, gestures and tone to make a friendly and respectful classroom environment; on account of this, the author describes how the combination of dominant and affiliative techniques could balance the relation of dominance and dependency towards the claimed ‘Agency’.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteWhat is more, other styles are displayed in the article such as ‘Patterns of Interaction’ and ‘Strategies of behavior’. The first refers to the harmonious integration of verbal and nonverbal signs and the second, explains that the particular responses may be conscious and deliberate. Also, the author defines how to influence behavior by considering their ‘motivations’. In my view, I disagree with the fact of satisfying the motivation to achieve the desirable goal, it sounds like a ‘Manipulation’ strategy.
ReplyDeleteThe article takes different sides of the argument on verbal and nonverbal communication to finish with the description of ‘Source of Social Techniques’. It is mentioned the fact that each person has its individual set of social techniques, the human being has its own repertoire of interchangeably techniques to apply in any specific moment. However, the main factor to produce those techniques is the ‘Motivation’. In the same way, the social behaviors change according to age and life cycle and they are learnt.
As a conclusion, the strengths of this article are the practical description of all factors that involved social acts with the detailed demonstration of verbal and nonverbal communication techniques to convey meaning. As it is clear, the main purpose of the article is the understanding of social techniques for improved interactions among cultures, groups and even commoners. In my perspective, this article is a meaningful product for teachers and linguists. As a matter of fact, the teacher would understand the social acts as something natural but it can be enhanced for harmonious learning encounters; on the other hand, the linguists could explore the nonverbal communication as a researchable territory and object of study. The weakness I found was the lack of strategies to advance towards a more affiliative technique rather than a dominant one, as a teacher I am curious on this part of the article, so I consider it would be meaningful to show as in other parts of the chapter how to accomplish that desirable level of social interactions.
Ivonne, Yi-fen and Luz Mary,
DeleteThis is a fine review with very compelling questions and insights arising from Ivonne's own teaching experiences. These questions and reflection show more engagement with Argyle's argument. There is so much that is communicated through nonverbal semiotic resources. It is hard to monitor how people's naturalized gestures, postures, voice tone, pitch, silences and pauses convey meaning and portray an individual, like a teacher. Some of these resources can be modelled though, although I am not sure if you can change some, like changing the way you laugh or sneeze. They are almost like fingerprints. Yi-Fen's perspective as a transnational citizen is rich. We may not be cognizant of our communication patterns, plus nonverbal semiotic resources vary from region to region within Colombia. However, intercultural encounters help us develop this awareness.
Dear Luz Mary:
ReplyDeleteI certainly remark on the way you report the information of the article in a critical view and also based on your wide experience in the field. I agree that the authors’ main purpose is to present the preponderant position of Communicative and cultural fluency in the foreign language user. On top of that, the incredible idea of including ‘paralinguistic’ and ‘kinesic’ systems sounds indeed promising.
On the other hand, your invitation of reconsidering the “verbocentric” language in the EFL classroom and the idea of pioneering with other communication systems, it is suitable for a possible “semiotics” research to apply in public education and I am delighted with the idea.
In essence, the awareness of using nonverbal communication, kinetic practices, and theories on postures, represents a breakthrough concept for EFL teaching, the more teachers’ understanding on new ways of learning a language, the more active and engaged learners would have in the classroom.
We live in an age when many of us believed in the “native” dream of language, so the author distorted the theory with a challenging “acquisition of the triple language-paralanguage-kinesic complex system”, becoming the speaker not only that, but also an actor, they must be included in the EFL curriculum as a constituent of the lesson planning.
Dear Luz Mary,
ReplyDeleteThe article you review is somehow related to several we have read for the seminar in the way they recognize communication as more than verbal language. I would like to praise your review as it is very clear in the way the ideas are presented. I concur with the invitation to rethink the verbocentric approach to teach English, however, I think this practice is rather difficult to modify since most teachers were taught that way and may have very complicated beliefs and attitudes regarding teaching in a traditional, instrumental and verbocentric way. Another issue that may be problematic to fulfill this invitation is the fact that standardized tests at the secondary school in Colombia do not assess communication in terms of metalanguage, kinesis or any other component but the linguistic written competence.
As you point out we communicate using much more than just structural linguistic resources, diversity in the voice tone, stress, phrase utterances etc. can convey meaning without even being complete or perfect grammar structures, this variety of sounds and utterances combined with gestures and movements make communication even richer. I agree on the point you highlight, it seems by the time there was a focus on cultural issues rather than intercultural ones, nevertheless, I believe the integration of the triple complex system in ELT entails a degree of intercultural competence as the integration between language, paralanguage and kinesis require a recognition of the individual’s identity in order to recognize the “other’s” complex system, for me, this recognition process requires basic intercultural competence (although not explicitly exposed) since the semiotic repertoire used from one language to another changes and this chance is related to the cultural linguistic context. I agree on the part that suggests teachers to systematically teach nonverbal elements. In my opinion, nonverbal communication cannot be taught through an instrumental way exclusively, instead, awareness should be raised in students so as to identify semiotic nonverbal features which are also related to the culture in which they are used.
Regards,
Dear Ivonne,
ReplyDeleteI like the fact that you are detail oriented and always try your best to provide a thorough review. I think It’ll be better to post it all in one document rather than in sections on the blog. I also like how you connected the concepts to EFL classroom with your own stance. I enjoyed reading your review and learning about the fundamental elements and effects in verbal /non-verbal communication and social acts that vary from culture to culture intricately stated in the paper by Argyle (1972).
The author remarked upon bodily contact, physical proximity and the styles of behavior as those verbal and nonverbal could provide a desirable ‘intimacy’ or adversely a ‘dominance’ in the communication act. To bring the theory alive in practice, I think it’ll be interesting to connect it to my cross-cultural experiences:
Latin cultures are considered as “hot cultures”, bodily contact is used as non-verbal social communication to show affection. Moreover, there are so many terms of endearment in Spanish such as mi amor, mi cariño, mi cielo, mi reina, mi princesa, mi tesorito, mi corazon, just to name a few. Coming from Chinese linguistic and cultural background, I found these terms of endearment very pleasant to the ear, but I feel unnatural and awkward using them. Of course, these verbal terms and non -verbal body contact provide a desirable intimacy, and people in Colombia often end their telephone conversation with "un beso, un abrazo, te quiero mucho" ect…… which make Colombian people sound very loving and warm, and it is the norm and common social acts in Latin American countries. However, these verbal and non-verbal actions might have adverse effects in Asia. In my culture, if someone uses the sweet talks like terms of endearment on a daily basis, he/she will be considered as insincere and his/her words can not be taken seriously. In Chinese culture, one should use expressions like ‘te amo or te quiero mucho’ in special occasions to make them memorable, overusing of these terms will sound like cliché.
Furthermore, Argyle pointed out the degree of proximity varies with cultures. In oriental cultures, we value and respect personal space, so people seem to be colder and more distant in social /interpersonal encounters in comparison to Latin cultures. This is reflected in classroom practice as well, the relationship between teacher and students is distant and hierarchical. From our education tradition, it is very important to maintain the boundary as a way of showing respect, it is considered unacceptable and disrespectful to place yourself in the same position as your teachers by calling them by their first names or talking to them in a tone as if they are your friends. After 8 years of living in Colombia, I still feel awkward when students sometimes greet me with a hug and a kiss on the cheek or male students come to shake my hands at the end of the class, I guess they expect me to perform the same social acts as “When in Colombia, do as the Colombians do”. Perhaps it is part of the acculturation process for transnational teachers.
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ReplyDeleteDear Luz Mary, Ivonne and Andrés,
ReplyDeleteyes, indeed including the three elements that Poyatos proposes in his view of communication is challenging. Yes, the verbocentric and typographic era has dominated view of language and communication, but this is increasingly being questioned. The reason these three elements are not part of textbook contents and standardized tests is because they have not been developed in systematic ways such as language, on the one hand. On the second hand, because it maybe a daunting task teaching every single gesture or paralanguage is idiosyncratic, for example, yet again, we could say the same about language: it maybe a daunting task to teach every aspect of the language because it is used in very idiosyncratic ways. However, it has been done. So, my guess is that these are systems that are considered of lower value to communication and thus little effort has been put on designing descriptive grammars of paralanguage and kinetic behavior. Given this situation, we are left with the option of having students do ethnographic work on aspects such as space management, touch, gaze and so on. Perhaps reflecting upon these variables and making students aware that miscommunication or conflict may take place due to these aspects of communication in intercultural encounters.
Good job, Luz Mary. Please include the reference on top of your review.
Dear Ivonne,
ReplyDeleteI have to say reading your review was a pleasant exercise, you described in detail a remarkable number the aspects related to non-verbal communication and I it made understand several experiences I have had in different social encounters and how communication takes place with plethora of signs that most of the time are ignored. At this point I think we all agree on the fact that effective communication includes a great deal of resources that transcend the exclusive linguistic aspect. Understanding the importance of body language, facial gestures and nonverbal communication is of paramount importance for efficient interactions and as language teachers we need to be aware of it since we could be portraying a rather dominant position that may create an obstacle with students instead of generating rapport. We also need to be aware of all the affordances that favour communication, take advantage of all the audio-visual, physical and kinaesthetic elements that facilitate interactions and include them in our class activities, assignments and subject projects. Now more than ever, students are aware of the countless opportunities and possibilities the internet and technological devices offer for conveying meanings. Cartoons, comics, memes, short messages are examples of the great deal of possibilities for communication. As teachers, we should take advantage of these multimodal platforms and tools instead of ignoring them or focusing on strictly verb-centric methodologies.
Looking forward to sharing more ideas in our next class.
Regards,