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| 25th Biennial Conference of ICKL | |
| Escuela
Nacional de Danza Clásica y Contemporánea, Mexico July 29 (Arrival Day) - August 5 (Departure Day) 2007 |
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SESSIONS Paper Dynamic Qualities of Motion Events: Crosslinguistic Semantics through Laban Movement Analysis LISTENBEE, Jimmyle - USA While linguists generally agree on spatial parameters in motion description, qualitative elements, known as “manner of motion”, remain poorly defined and grossly differentiated. This presentation includes video examples from both methodology and data to describe a recent study in which selected parameters of Laban Movement Analysis (LMA) were used to identify and compare semantic elements of motion descriptions in 3 typologically diverse languages. Nine subjects, native speakers of English, Spanish, and American Sign Language (ASL), were videotaped describing brief movement sequences in six stimulus video clips. Semantic elements present in the crosslinguistic data thus obtained were then analyzed and compared with elements precoded on motif notation scores by certified Laban Movement Analysts. Results show that the same semantic manner-of-motion elements occur crosslinguistically in these three languages more frequently and consistently than expected, but often encoded by forms other than words, and suggest that LMA can function usefully as a tool for bridging linguistic and nonlinguistic comparisons. Jimmyle Listenbee, MA dance (Teachers College, Columbia University, 1965), MA linguistics (San José State University, 2006), CMA (New York, 1980) and Language of Dance® Specialist, (USA, 2005).Ms. Listenbee is a professor emeritus at San José City College, CA, where she served as faculty and chair of the dance department for 32 years. In partnership with her husband, hornist/composter, Kevin Frey, she currently co-directs LedaSwan, Inc., a non-profit dance and music company based in Oxford, Mississippi, where she teaches modern dance at the University of Mississippi.
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