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Ann Arbor, MI 48106 MOVEMENT AND DISCOURSE IN EDUCATIONAL PRACTICE DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Charles Scott Duncanson, A.B. The Ohio State University 1991 Approved by Dissertation Committee: . Seymour Kleinman . Philip Smith Advis 999 . Richard Garner School/of Health, Physical Education, and Recreation Copyright by Charles Scott Duncanson 1991 To my parents Charles L. Duncanson and Helen M. Duncanson and my children Abraham Surratt-Duncanson and Zoe Surratt-Duncanson ACKNOWLEDGMENTS To my wife, Gwendolyn Dawn Surratt; to my advisor, Prof. Seymour Kleinman; to my teachers, Prof. Philip Smith, Prof. Richard Garner, Prof. Barbara Nelson, and Prof. Melvin Adelman; to my friend and colleague, Dr. Robert Roth; to my undergraduate advisor, Prof. Ruth Brunner; and to all the coaches and teachers who gave their time and encouragement, I give my gratitude and appreciation. VITA January 29, 1951 ..................Born, Spring Grove, Minnesota 1 9 8 1..........................................A.B., Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio 1981-82 ................................... New Garden Friends School, Greensboro, North Carolina 1982-86 ................................... Recreation Department, Georgia State University, Atlanta, Georgia 1989-90................................... Teacher Education Department, University of Dayton, Dayton, Ohio PUBLICATIONS "Iconology: Image, Text, Ideology," Review Essay, with Philip L. Smith, The Arts Education Review of Books, 4:3 (1989). "Unity of Knowledge and Action: The Thoughts of Wang Yang-ming," in Mind and Bodv: East Meets West, Seymour Kleinman, editor, (Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics Publishers, 1986). FIELD OF STUDY Major Field: Health, Physical Education, and Recreation Studies: Humanistic Studies of Sport iv TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE DEDICATION ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS iii VITA iv LIST OF FIGURES vii CHAPTER I - Introduction 1 Purpose of the Study: A Re-interpretation 4 Philosophical Background in Pragmatism 8 Method of Inquiry: Hermeneutics 22 Significance of the Study in Education 31 CHAPTER II - Movement as Discourse 36 Laban Movement Analysis 40 Efforts, Affinities, and Habits 50 Shape, Trace-Forms, and Dialogue 64 Mutual Simultaneous Shaping 76 Tasks and Messages 85 Summary 99 v CHAPTER III - Discourse as Movement 102 Discourse as a Practice 106 Discourse as Negotiation 116 Discourse as Language Game 124 Finite and Infinite Language Games 137 Discourse as Kinesthesis 146 Summary 158 CHAPTER IV - Conclusion 160 Learning to Play and Playing to Learn 165 'Knowledge' and 'Action' in Education 172 REFERENCES 181 vi LIST OF FIGURES FIGURES PAGE 1. The Dimensional Cross. 48 2. The Effort Cube. 52 3. The Eight Trigrams in Three Dimensions. 57 4. Effort Cube Variations. 82 5. The Defense Scale. 78 6. The Pushing Hands Scale. 79 CHAPTER I Introduction This work is a study of the symbolic, expressive, and discursive qualities of bodily movement juxtaposed with the active, functional, and mobile qualities of linguistic discourse. Hermeneutic inquiry into verbal and nonverbal texts will demonstrate that human learners use both bodily movement and linguistic discourse both instrumentally and expressively. Observation and description of dance, sport, and everyday movement as well as spoken and written language will show varying degrees and kinds of similarity. In Ludwig Wittgenstein's phrase, these "family resemblances" between the medium of movement and the medium of discourse enable practitioners freely to translate across the boundary between actions of the body and actions in the language. The uses of movement and discourse in the context of social practices is the major focus of this study of their integrated somatic functions as communicative texts, as effective actions, or as a combination of text and action. 1 2 To treat discourse as action that moves an audience or oneself to think, feel, or act in a particular way is to identify language use with practical conduct. Conversely, to treat movement as a medium of articulating purposes, emotions, and habits of thinking is an attempt to integrate physicality with intelligent conduct. The belief that knowing and acting are complementary functions in both everyday and specialized human affairs underlies this attem pt to integrate language and movement teaching. This study seeks to broaden and heighten understanding of this integration of movement and discourse in educational practice. This juxtaposition of the terms ‘movement' and ‘discourse’ as comparable social practices is an instance of using words to bring into question certain philosophical issues of reference, meaning, and signs, and thereby to come to a different understanding of their use. This process of hermeneutic questioning will not take for granted, for example, that propositions refer to states of affairs, or that words refer to things. Nor is it assumed that actions, being intentional, have reasons, and movements, being mechanical, have causes. These philosophical distinctions comprise aspects of the problem to be investigated in the present inquiry. Rather than taking these definitions as given a priori, the observation, description, and interpretation of the practical relationship of movement and discourse will help to shape our working definitions of these terms. The educational rationale for this approach to language and conduct is both personal and professional, emotional and 3 intellectual, private and public. It affirms ordinary language, common endowments, and everyday experience as adequate and worthwhile instruments of learning. This study takes a naturalistic approach to education that is in accord with John Dewey’s (1916) view of education as gaining practical skill and intellectual power through intelligent problem-solving. "A being who, in order to use his eyes, ears, hands, and legs, has to experiment in making varied combinations of their reactions, achieves a control that is flexible and varied," Dewey writes. ". .He learns to learn." (p. 45) The conceptual dichotomy frequently made in education between linguistic discourse and bodily movement will be challenged here by the force of their continuity as ends and means, as process and product, in the educational experience of individuals and social groups. Dewey explains: Informational statements about things can be acquired in relative isolation by anyone who previously has had enough intercourse with others to learn language. But realization of the meaning of the linguistic signs is quite another matter. That involves a context of work and play in association with others, (p. 358) This difference between a formal knowledge of language and a functional capacity to use language in active discourse is central to this study. For Dewey, formal knowledge is contingent on 4 practical use. Language learning and movement learning alike occur in a context of practical inquiry by human agents in a changing environment. Purpose of the Study; A Fte-Interpretation The purpose of the research is twofold. First, a pragmatic philosophical interpretation of movement and discourse will discern the ways in which they are similar and dissimilar. Second, an edifying application of their family resemblances will demonstrate the usefulness and importance of exploring this relationship in educational settings. The proposition that these endeavors form a single family of practices, rather than two inherently separate categories of being, will be asserted, explained, and evaluated in the course of the study. However, a disclaimer is in order here. To discern similarities between gestures and words, for example, is not to claim that such similarities are true irrespective of our aims as theorists and points of view as

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