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Show CHAPTER IV / ACTION "Gesture prepares the way, in fact, for language and thought: it goes before them and foretells their coming: it accentuates them. Gesture is the direct agent of the heart. 'It is the reuealer of thought and the commentator of speech. It is the elliptical expression of language: it is the justification of the additional meaning of speech. -FRAN<;OIs DELSARTE. educators, and even teachers of speech, misconceive the word "gesture" as meaning a "movement of the body, usually a movement of the arms. Gesture is thought The teacher to be a movement of the body, tacked on to speech. definite clear and of interpretation should have a understanding of The notions. such old communicative behavior, and throwaway in first bodily reaction, impulse to communicate manifests itself through pantomime and then by articulate language. Both are the result of muscular action. We speak instinctively with the entire body. Instead of gesture being superfluous action hitched on to language-an arm movement, or a movement of any kind to make one look at ease-gesture should always precede the spoken word. Common Misconception. Most Noone reads well who does not create a spntaneous reaction from the printed page to the extent of his whole being. Noone impresses others' unless he himself is moved to his big toe. For the purpose of analytic study we will separate speech into These elements are its fundamental elements, action and voice. segregated in human behavior. Just as time, force, pitch, and quality, the elements of voice, are always found together in any phonation, so voice and action are merely the manifestation of one and the same impulse and reaction. Process. All speech springs from a stimulus which causes an emotional reaction, to which, through willed control, the motor centers respond-and we speak with the entire body, with voice and with action; indeed, phonation is action. Overt action precedes vocal manifestation since it is a response through the reflex adjustors never so 27 |
