After studying hundreds of hours of interactions between infants and mothers from many different cultures, Ms. Dissanayake and her collaborators have identified universal operations that characterize the mother-infant bond. They are visual, gestural and vocal cues that arise spontaneously and unconsciously between mothers and infants, but that nevertheless abide by a formalized code: the calls and responses, the swooping bell tones of motherese, the widening of the eyes, the exaggerated smile, the repetitions and variations, the laughter of the baby met by the mother’s emphatic refrain. The rules of engagement have a pace and a set of expected responses, and should the rules be violated, the pitch prove too jarring, the delays between coos and head waggles too long or too short, mother or baby may grow fretful or bored.
To Ms. Dissanayake, the tightly choreographed rituals that bond mother and child look a lot like the techniques and constructs at the heart of much of our art. “These operations of ritualization, these affiliative signals between mother and infant, are aesthetic operations, too,” she said in an interview. “And aesthetic operations are what artists do. Knowingly or not, when you are choreographing a dance or composing a piece of music, you are formalizing, exaggerating, repeating, manipulating expectation and dynamically varying your theme.” You are using the tools that mothers everywhere have used for hundreds of thousands of generations. In art, as in love, as in dancing the hora, if you don’t know the moves, you really can’t fake them.
So communication is art, as much as art is communication. But furthermore, communication is biological ritualization. And, the aesthetics of that communication matter. What do you think? And particularly, what does the line "if you don't know the moves, you really can't fake them" means, do you think?
1 comment:
I found this article very interesting, from both a biological and communication standpoint. I think Ms. Dissanayake's theory is interesting, and possibly somewhat true. The way I understand it, the interactions of mother and child are unconsciously universally standardized and if that "formalized code" is broken, the interaction is unsuccessful, either because it is frightening or boring. Ms. Dissanayake says this communication is an art.
Extending this idea to communication at large makes sense. But I think the difference is that in mother-infant interaction there is little opinion involved because of the unconditional love and biological bond so there is a strong case for "bioligical ritualization." In dance, or music or writing, in addition to the rhythm and dynamic variation that we find naturally pleasing, in understanding art that we like or dislike, we take into consideration things we have learned, socially, culturally and academically.
To answer Sue's question, I think that the aesthetics of communication matter: the tone and order of information is as important as the content itself. If the tone or order are confusing or unpleasant, the message is ineffective.
I think what Dissanayake means by "if you don't know the moves, you really can't fake them" is that the audience will be able to detect if you don't understand the rules of how to present what you have to say, either through music, dance, poetry, prose, etcetera. They will know because something will be a little "off." It's not something you can force, but if you "know the moves" you will be able to communicate effectively and in a way that your audience pleases.
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