| While linguists generally agree on spatial parameters in motion description, qualitative elements, known as "manner of motion," remain poorly defined and grossly differentiated. This study applies an extensive, finely grained taxonomy for the systematic observation and description of human motion known as Laban Movement Analysis (LMA) to identify and compare semantic elements of motion descriptions in three typologically diverse languages.;Nine subjects, native speakers of English, Spanish, and American Sign Language (ASL), were videotaped describing brief movement sequences in 6 stimulus video clips. Semantic elements present in the crosslinguistic data thus obtained were then analyzed and compared with elements precoded by certified Laban Movement Analysts. Results show that the same semantic manner-of-motion elements occur crosslinguistically in these three languages more frequently and consistently than expected, but often encoded by forms other than words, and suggest that LMA can function usefully as a tool for bridging linguistic and nonlinguistic comparisons. |
