PART ONE
INTRODUCTION
Scope and Purpose
Communication is the thread that
makes culture possible. An understanding of communication and the behavior
and circumstances which surround it is
essential to understanding cultural processes. Through an analysis of
selected Super
8 movie footage, this text explores certain aspects of non-verbal communication
and attempts to more clearly define their nature and significance. The
importance of non-verbal communication lies in the fact that it is a part of
the
process of human interaction to which we generally give little thought.
In
the United States we tend to think of communication primarily as a verbal
process in which meaning is derived from the content of the words used.
As a result, we are fairly conscious of our use of words and our culture
provides
deliberate, if not always successful, training in the use of words. On
the other hand, we think little of the nonverbal aspects of communication;
practically no formal recognition is made of them. Consequently, we learn
our non-verbal system informally and on a low level of awareness.
This
low level of non-verbal awareness causes us little difficulty as long as
we operate within the non-verbal system we have learned; when
we step
outside it, we are in trouble. Our emphasis on verbal content and on
spoken language
has led to intensive study of other verbal systems. We are sensitive
to the potential for misunderstanding when we cross language lines.
However, we
are unprepared for the additional difficulties we may find in the non-verbal
arena. These difficulties may occur even when, strictly speaking, there
is no language difficulty. Our low awareness of non-verbal signals
and behavior
related to communication makes us ill-equipped to deal with differences
of this sort. Indeed, we are often unaware that the differences exist.
In these
circumstances, communication can become a frustrating maze of misunderstandings
of unknown origin. This study looks at some of these aspects of non-verbal
behavior which may cause us difficulty.
In the descriptions and discussion
that follow, two common words are used with particular meanings which need
definition. The words are “pace” and “flow.” They
are used to name the aspects of non-verbal communication which are
the central focus of this study.
Pace refers to the rate of movements, actions
and events in communications and interactions. It is concerned with change
over time. In the study
of communication and culture, its importance lies in the fact that
it varies
from culture to
culture and affects the meaning and course of communication, both
directly and indirectly. People’s use of time is one aspect of pace,
as is how fast people move. While pace is related to the quantity and quality
of communication,
the precise interrelationship will vary depending on the specific
circumstances.
Flow is a more complex and qualitative aspect of
non-verbal communication. It refers to the interrelatedness of the movements
of people
who
are interacting or attempting to interact. The development of
synchronization of movements
by participants in an interaction creates a sensation of a flowing
current of motion without discontinuity. High flow would then
refer to situations
in which the movements of the people interacting are interrelated
and
not occurring
at random without relationship to each other’s movements.
Low flow would be the reverse.
The possible significance of these
aspects of non-verbal behavior in the communication process is
a major subject of this study.
In general,
I believe
that their
primary purpose lies in facilitating the process and defining
the nature of a given interaction among people. They both reflect
and
affect all
other aspects
of the process as well, supporting it and on occasion, as will
be described, destroying it. In particular, study of flow may
be a significant
source
of qualitative statements about the nature of communications
and interactions.
A Brief Discussion of Related Work
In the field of
non-verbal aspects of communication and culture, previous work has touched
somewhat on these aspects of human
interactions. Of
particular relevance to this study is the work of Edward
T. Hall. In working on the
problem
of training American governmental and business personnel
for jobs in other cultural settings, he found a differing conception
of
time, its
significance
and its organization, to be one of the critical sources of
difficulties in cross-cultural circumstances. Social processes, such
as business
transactions or meetings, had regular patterns with regard
to time allocated to waiting,
preliminaries, immediate business and so on. These patterns
were distinctly different in different cultural settings and misunderstandings
often
resulted when people of differing patterns attempted to interact
with each other.
In some cases, the meaning of communications could be totally
altered by differences
in the timing of social processes that were part of the context
of interactions (Hall, 1967).
Similarly, he found distinct
cultural patterns in the use of space, particularly in social interactions.
In studying
the
way people
use space (which Hall
called “proxemics”)
he found that, as in the case of the use of time, alterations
in space relationships among people could often alter the
nature of interactions and the meaning derived
from those interactions by the participants. As with the
organization of time, these patterns of space usage were
culturally specific. Conflict and misunderstanding
in cross-cultural interactions resulting from differing
uses of space were quite common (Hall, 1967, 1969).
While
these finding are quite interesting in themselves,
they are important to this study because they have led
Hall to look
at what
people did
relative to each other as they organized the timing of
activities and their use
of space in interactions. As before, he found distinct,
culturally specific patterns
in the way that people moved. These movements tended to
be coordinated among
people who were involved in some kind of social interaction
with each other. Film taken by Hall at a fiesta in New
Mexico showed
mixed crowds
of Indians,
Anglos, and Spanish Americans, each group with its own
characteristic pacing of iiovements and smooth interrelationships
of movements
within groups.
The Anglos moved briskly, with linear movements directed
ahead and well spaced
from each other. A group of Pueblo Indians, probably a
family, moved down the street in a more compact mass. Their
softer
and more rounded
movements
were
synchronized through the group, not directed ahead but
all around. Two girls talked to each other while they moved
around
a post.
Their movements
were
so carefully timed and synchronized that when the sequence
was projected in slow
motion, their actions gave the appearance of a dance (Hall,
1968, private communication and viewing).
Hall’s work
stimulated the film study on which this study draws and
also led to further related work by Hall. In a recent publication,
he suggested
that the meaning of communication or interaction is produced
by an interrelationship of information and context. The
relative significance of either information
or context in determining meaning is a culturally defined
pattern that varied from culture to culture. Nonverbal
systems tended to be highly contextual
in nature. Symbolic systems such as spoken language, and
even more so written language, tended to be highly informational
and low in context. Some cultures
heavily emphasized context while others stressed information.
When people with these different emphases tried to communicate
with each other, they often experienced
great difficulty (Hall, 1974: 18-20). In effect, this suggested
that some cultures placed more emphasis on non-verbal aspects
of interactions than others. Hall
suggested that modern Western cultures, particularly the
academic subcultures, tended to be low in context and high
in information in their orientation (Hall,
1974: 18). This model of context, information, and meaning
is used in a somewhat altered form in this study.
While
Hall’s work is the most closely related to the concerns of this
study, there have been others whose works have touched
on related phenomena. While studying their photographs during the production
of their work on Balinese
character, Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson noted that
movements of participants in various activities involved complementary movements,
mirrored movements,
and parallel movements (Bateson and Mead, 1942). Similarly,
in a study of small group conferences that Mead made together with Paul Byers,
a distinct
interrelationship of movements among interacting people
was evident in the still photographs on which the study was based (Mead and
Byers, 1968: 70-105).
In a film study of a kindergarten class, Byers later
discovered dramatic differences in the pace of Black children compared to
Caucasian children
as well as to
the Caucasian teacher. Significantly, these differences
clearly made communication between the Caucasian teacher and the Black children
very difficult. Neither
was able to adjust their pace to the other. Their motions
were oppositional and out of sync. Frustration on the part of teacher and
child was evident in
the footage. On the other hand, although the White children
had somewhat different pace and movement patterns from the teacher, they
both modified their
movements when they got together so that motions became
interrelated and smooth, with no obvious frustration (Byers, private film
viewing and communication).
In discussing types of non-verbal behavior related
to the
communication process, Ray L. Birdwhistell mentions
what he calls “interactional
behavior,” referring to the movements of whole
bodies or parts of bodies among participants in an
interaction. In addition to briefly discussing the
work of Hall, Mead, and Bateson already mentioned,
Birdwhistell reports a private communication from William
Condon with
regard to “synchrony and dissynchrony” in
interactions. This refers to a very close coordination
of movements of people who are conversing. Birdwhistell
suggests that it may supply a measure of “interactional
communicative signals,” by which I assume he
means the general quality of communication (Birdwhistell,
1970:
232-233). In his own studies of kinesics,
Birdwhistell emphasizes the important function of context
in the total meaning of communication and includes
in his discussion of communication the idea that
it is a continuous process that takes place on several
levels or channels. These are the olfactory channel,
the auditory channel, the kinesthetic-visual
channel, and the tactile channel. In an interaction,
one or more of the channels is always in operation,
and communication in general can only be understood
by examining all the channels (Birdwhistell, 2970:
69-71).
The phenomena of interrelated movements on the
part
of people in social interactions has shown up in several
ethnographic films, including a very interesting
sequence in a portion of film made by John Marshall
in
the
Kalahari Desert. In this
particular case, the film shows two men conversing
with each other.
The listener’s
motions are closely timed and coordinated with the
speaker’s. When one
man stops talking, the person who was listening precisely
mirrors the last portion of movements made by the first
speaker while the listener begins to
speak (John Marshall, 1971).
All the anthropologists
and film makers mentioned have peripherally touched
on certain aspects of what I call
pace and flow;
they have developed
viewpoints on communication which are used in this
study. None focused directly on
these phenomena which remain “crudely understood” (Birdwhistell,
1970: 232). In any case, pace and flow were chosen
as focal points for this study
because my own experience in visual research has shown
them to perhaps be the key to understanding communications
and interactions as fluid processes. At
the same time, they remain difficult and elusive concepts
which are particularly difficult to communicate to
people unfamiliar with the film or with the
circumstances to which the concepts were applied. It
seemed time to try to define the significance of pace
and flow and to develop some procedures for
obtaining information about them. I know that any discussion
of such non-verbal phenomena would be impossible without
specific case examples and descriptions.
For this reason, a large portion of this study is devoted
to a specific case study which provides a context for
more general discussion.
The Data and Procedure Used
in Analysis
The film used for analysis was made by John
Collier, Jr., as part of a study of Native American education
in Alaska
in 1969.
However,
the
more
general
statements of this study are based on both the analysis
of that film and also on a variety
of additional sources. The primary sources of this
study include my own experience in cross-cultural
situations and work with
film and
video
tape studies
of cross-cultural education. In addition to present
and
earlier analytic work with the Alaskan footage, the
experience includes
video taping
and analysis for a teacher training program at a
Navajo-run community school
in Arizona,
a yet-to-be-finished film study of a bilingual program
in San Francisco, and film which I have made of several
ESL
(English
as a Second
Language) and elementary
classes in the Bay Area.
These involvements resulted
from and led to discussions with other people in the same general field of
interest.
These
interchanges, particularly with Edward
T. Hall and, of course, with my father, John Collier,
Jr., have been an important source of information
and ideas.
Whenever possible,
I have
attempted
to provide
appropriate published references; however, since
most of these contacts
have been informal conversations, this has not
always been possible.
Discussion of non-verbal phenomena in a verbal
format is at best difficult. Without specific examples,
reference points or shared
experience, discussion
becomes almost impossible. This fact is one of
the
reasons for devoting a portion of this study to
the analysis
and
discussion
of a specific
body of
film. I
hope that the analysis of the Alaska footage will
serve as a
reference point for my more general discussion.
In addition, the analysis
of the Alaska footage
serves several other purposes. It represents the
first time I have tried to research a body of film
specifically
in terms
of
pace
and flow. The
film provides
an opportunity to discover the kinds of information
that can result from such an approach. Finally,
the film and
the analysis
provide
illustrations and examples
with which to communicate more precisely what pace
and flow are and what
their significance may be in human interactions.
The
Alaska film footage was chosen for a variety of reasons. I was already familiar
with it from
previous work. I
knew it had
usable
material for
exploration of the pace and flow concepts. Since
the
film had already been studied for
other reasons and with different concerns, I
had supplementary material to draw on which might serve
to qualify findings
I made. However,
the main reason
for using the Alaska footage was that it was
available. Some of my own film and video material, which was
shot with a
growing awareness
of pace,
flow
and related matters may well have been richer
and more readable; however, the circumstances
under which they were shot made their usage,
for the time being, impossible.
As mentioned previously, the film used for analysis
is part of a larger body of film shot in 1969
by John Collier,
Jr.,
in Alaska.
The film
was made in
support of the National Study of American Indian
Education for the
U.S. Office of Education. The hope was that the
film study would provide insight
and information that the more standardized methods
of evaluation could not. The bulk of the film
was shot in
the Kuskokwim
River region of
West Central
Alaska, covering two isolated villages, a Christian
mission, and a regional center of some 2,000
people. Additional
film was shot
in the
schools
of Anchorage and in an Indian fishing village
in southern Alaska, although this last footage
was not used in the report to Washington. The
major
portion of the footage is of classrooms with
supplementary coverage
of village
and
family scenes.
Audio tapes were made in the classrooms but the
films themselves are silent.
The total film file amounted to some twenty hours
of film. I did not analyze all the footage for
this study,
but instead
selected
portions
of it. The
manner in which I made these selections is described
shortly.
The original film was shot with the goal
of obtaining a sample of grade levels, school
situations and
communities. In the
villages, this meant
that the whole
school was filmed. In the regional center of
Bethel and in Anchorage, only a sample of classes
from
kindergarten through
high school
was
filmed with
selection dependent largely on the willingness
of the teachers
to be filmed. The goal
was to “chart the human and educational
behavior of Eskimo children on three curves:
an ecological-geographic curve, a cultural-ethnic
distribution
curve and an age cycle curve” (Collier,
1973: 50). The village schools were 100 percent
Native. The regional center had a small percentage
of non-Native
students. The city of Anchorage had an overwhelmingly
non-Native student population, with the Native
students accounting for less than eight per cent
of the school
enrollment. With three exceptions, all teachers
in the film sample were Anglo, although two Eskimo
aides and an Eskimo mother were filmed working
in the classrooms
(Collier, 1973).
I started my analysis of the
film with the advantage that I had taken part
in the earlier analysis
of the footage
which led to
a report
to the U.S.
Office of Education and to the publication referred
to above. However, the earlier
work was involved with somewhat different issues
than the present
analysis. The question at that time was, “What
can these films tell us about the education provided
Native children in Alaska”? Pace and flow
received only passing attention. These concepts
were only shadows in the background.
The present analysis also includes material from
film footage of home and village studies which
were not used to any large degree in the earlier
work.
I decided to concentrate on a core portion
of the footage rather than attempt analysis of
the
full
twenty hours
of film. Several
considerations were
involved: time, wide variation in the readability
of the footage in
terms of pace and flow, and above all, a belief
that concentration on portions
of the
footage that were interrelated would produce
qualitatively better results. The rest of the
footage would always
be there if it
were needed.
The main criteria used in selecting
a core of film for analysis were that the footage be interrelated
in terms
of content
and locale and
that it
contain a high proportion of material believed
to be readable. Since I wanted to
include
material from non-school settings, I decided
to
use all the footage from the villages and several
rolls
of film
from
the regional
center. This
core footage
included film of twelve classrooms, three church
services, four family studies, daily life at
the Moravian Mission
Home, an advisory
school
board meeting
and assorted footage of scenes around the villages
and the regional center. The
total running time of this footage was approximately
5 1/2 hours.
I had at my disposal audio tapes
made in conjunction with the filming in Alaska. The primary use
of these was to
define the
content of
curriculum in the classroom
situation. This analysis is concerned with
what can be seen, and I did not attempt to
analyze
the audio
records
nor to
examine, to any
significant
degree,
the relationship of verbal behavior to the
non-verbal behavior seen in the films. Neither
would have
been possible with
the available
data. There
remains
the question of the relationship of verbalizations
to non-verbal behavior--a relationship about
which very
little is known.
In this study, I operated
on the assumption that, generally, people’s
non-verbal behavior both reflects and affects
verbal behavior as well as other aspects
of the interaction.
These interrelationships are discussed in
somewhat more detail in the main body of
the text.
It might be mentioned in this context
that
photographic records in general and movie
film in particular
are qualitatively and quantitatively different
from other forms of data. The amount of information
to be
found in
even a very short segment of film is immense,
and its quality, though subject
to
the way
it was gathered, is often very good (Collier,
private communication).
The analysis fell
into several stages: early survey and searching, detailed viewing and
description, selection of significant
sections for illustration,
and an attempt at an over-all conclusion,
both descriptive and theoretical. The basic
procedure
in this analysis
was to look
at the film again
and again. The main difference between
one stage of analysis
and another was in the
focus of the observation process and the
manner of recording these observations.
The first stage involved survey and logging.
It
was a process of becoming acquainted
with the footage in terms of pace and flow
without attempting detail or depth. Each
reel of film
was viewed from the
beginning to the
end without
stopping,
while a rough log of it was made. This
log was concerned primarily with two things:
(1) the
rough content
of the film organized
by minutes, and
(2) the
rough notation of pace and flow patterns
with focus on identifying the sections
of footage
which might
be profitably
examined
in more detail
and depth. This information was reduced
to both sides of a sheet of typing paper, generally
one sheet for each reel. Several classes
and reels had two sheets because of significant
content
changes
which
occurred
within
the reel.
The information was used to plan
more detailed viewing of the footage. A
small portion
was set aside as
containing little
usable data
and the remaining
footage
was reexamined. This detailed reexamination
was focused around
questions which an overview of the survey
results suggested. These questions
were:
