Kinesics Working Title Summary

721 Words2 Pages

Daniel Connolly
Prof. Accardi-Goldberger
ENG 128
Nov 8th 2016

The Working Title That is Not a Working Title

The cultivation of understanding and age-old exercise of the principle concepts of the study of Kinesics is a main pillar of human communication and an active agent for cohesion amongst individuals as well as societies as evidenced by early studies of its use as a communicatory tool, the broad variety and richness of topics covered by Kinesics involved in human communication processes, and the ubiquitous practice of nonverbal communication throughout human civilization. The inquiry of movement, gestures, and facial expressions as a form of communication is no modern phenomenon. Francis Warner wrote “Physical Expressions: its modes …show more content…

Founded by American anthropologist Ray Birdwhistell, his concepts debuted in his first publication on the subject titled Introduction to Kinesics: An annotation system for the analysis of body motion and gesture, where Birdwhistell explained several principles key to his theories. In what he describes as a “preliminary research manual”, he presents his theories “with the hope that it will stimulate research in this almost-neglected area of human interaction”. Neatly summarizing his observations in the text, Birdwhistell provides us with this summary of the principles guiding his …show more content…

Social Kinesics is the area of Kinesics primarily concerned with the social purposes of body language. Birdwhistell argued that the majority of nonverbal communication devices are behaviors learned as children. He considers this fact demonstrative of the “patterned interdependence of human beings” and the critical role such communications play in human socialization. (Birdwhistell Kinetics and Context 5). In addition to these areas of focus in the field of Kinesics, there have been numerous works in specified subfields established by peers and students of Birdwhistell’s work. These subfields include Oculesis, Proxemics, and Haptics. The innumerable contributions to communication studied by Kinesics are a testament to the relevance of its analysis and importance in social

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