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.It could be used by therapiststo 'score' therapy sessions and refer back to what thepatient said with his body as well as with his mouth.Itcould be used by actors and entertainers and even bybusinessmen.In fact, when you begin to think about it, there arevery few situations where such a notational system wouldnot come in handy.Whether Dr Birdwhistell's systemwill catch on or not remains to be seen, but eventuallysome such system will be needed.167CHAPTER ELEVENBody Language: Use and AbuseLet's Talk to the AnimalsA sign of the antiquity of body language and its suprem-acy over the spoken word has come from the studies ofa husband and wife team of researchers, R.Allen andBeatrice T.Gardner of the University of Nevada.Pondering the many failures of psychologists to teachthe anthropoid apes to speak, the Gardners decided to trygestures instead.Body language is a natural part of allanimal behaviour, they reasoned, and apes are familiarenough with body language to learn to use gestures forcommunication.This is particularly true of anthropoidapes, because they are imitative and manually dextrous.The Gardners decided to teach a young femalechimpanzee named Washoe the sign language used by thedeaf in North America.The chimp was given the freedomof the Gardner house along with toys and large doses oftender loving care, and she was surrounded by humanswho used only sign language to communicate.Washoe, in true chimp fashion, very quickly imitatedher human friends' sign-language gestures, but it tookmonths of patient work before she could reproduce themon command.She was urged to ' speak up' by touchingher hand, and any 'faulty diction' was improved by168BODY LANGUAGE: USE AND ABUSErepeating the sign in an exaggerated way.When Washoelearned a sign correctly she was rewarded with tickling.If she was forced to work too hard, she would rebel byrunning away or throwing a tantrum or by biting herteacher's hand.After two years of patient work, Washoe learnedabout thirty signs.She was judged to have learned a signif she used it of her own accord in a proper fashion atleast once each day for fifteen days.Washoe learned tobring her fingertips over her head to signal 'more', toshake her open hand at the wrist for 'hurry' and to drawher palm across her chest for 'please'.She also learned the signs for hat, shoes, trousers andother articles of clothing, and the signs for baby, dog andcat.Surprisingly enough, she used these latter signs fornew babies, dogs or cats when she met them.Once sheeven used the sign for dog when she heard a bark.Shehas also invented some simple sentences: 'Go sweet'when she wants to be carried to a raspberry bush, and'Open food drink' when she wants something from therefrigerator.The experiment is still continuing, and Washoe islearning new gestures and putting them into new sen-tences.The old Dr Dolittle idea of talking to the animalsmay yet be possible with body language.However, some blase naturalists point out that bodylanguage among animals is no new thing.Birds signalsexual willingness by elaborate courtship dances, beessignal the direction of a honey supply by involved flightpatterns and dogs will indulge in a host of signals fromrolling over and playing dead to sitting up and beggingfor food.What is new in the case of Washoe is the teaching of alanguage to an animal, and the animal's initiation of signs169BODY LANGUAGEin that language.It is logical that the deaf sign languageshould have succeeded where a spoken language failed.Loss of hearing and the cutting off of the world of soundapparently make an individual much more sensitive to theworld of gestures and motions.If this is so, then someonewho is deaf should have a more sensitive understanding ofbody language.Symbols in a World Without SoundWith this in mind, Dr Norman Kagan of Michigan StateUniversity conducted a study among deaf people.Theywere shown films of men and women in various situationsand asked to guess at the emotional state of these peopleand describe what body-language clues they used toconvey this state.Because of technical difficulties theywere unable to use lip reading [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]