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Letters

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2012

Judith Lynne Hanna
Affiliation:
Department of Dance, University of Maryland
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Abstract

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Type
Letters
Copyright
Copyright © Congress on Research in Dance 2010

References

1. Hanna, Judith Lynne, To Dance Is Human: A Theory of Nonverbal Communication (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1979; revised edition, Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1987).Google Scholar The transition of dance as a sign system to choreographing of relations is also discussed that year in “Toward Semantic Analysis of Movement Behavior: Concepts and Problems,” Semiotica”; “Movements toward Understanding Humans through the Anthropological Study of Dance,” Current Anthropology. Elaboration occurred in Hanna's later publications (see http://www.judithhanna.com).

2. “Speech refers to the oral/auditory medium that we use to convey the sounds associated with human languages. Language, on the other hand, is the method of conveying complex concepts and ideas with or without recourse to sound” (Clegg, Margaret, “Modern Approaches to the Evolution of Speech and Language,” General Anthropology (October 2004): 8.Google Scholar Dance meets the criteria of language articulated in Galaburda, Albert M., Kosslyn, Stephen M., and Christen, Yves, eds., The Languages of the Brain, Harvard University Press (2002): 1, 200Google Scholar, in being a method of conveying, complex ideas, representing information, and having rules for how representations can be combined. These all vary according to the genre of dance. Researchers argue that there are multiple possible languages of thought that play different roles in life of the mind but nonetheless work together.

3. “A Nonverbal Language for Imagining and Learning,” Educational Researcher (2008), summarizes current knowledge about dance in light of findings from neuroscience and neurolinguistics.

4. Geary, Daniel, C. Wright Mills, the Left and American Social Theory (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009).Google Scholar

5. Gleach, Frederic W. and Santiago-Irizarry, Vilma, “On Fame, Worship and Sharing: Self Promotion,” Anthropology News (January 2008): 64.CrossRefGoogle ScholarMacmillan, Margaret, in Dangerous Games: The Uses and Abuses of History (New York: Modern Library, 2009)Google Scholar, raises some relevant issues.