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Kenneth Pike, Cap 1
Kenneth Pike, Cap 1
Kenneth Pike, Cap 1
LANGUAGE AS BEHAVIOR
In a certain party game people start by singing a stanza which begins Under the spread-
ing chestnut tree... Then they repeat the stanza to the same tune but replace the word
spreading with a quick gesture in which the arms are extended rapidly outward,
leaving a vocal silence during the length of time which would otherwise have been
filled by singing. On the next repetition the word spreading gives place to the gesture,
as before, and in addition the syllable chest is omitted and the gap is filled with a
gesture of thumping the chest. On the succeeding repetition the head is slapped
instead of the syllable nut being uttered. In another round the arms may be extended
upward as a gesture to replace tree. Finally, after further repetitions and replace-
ments, there may be left only a few connecting words like the, and a sequence of
gestures performed in unison to the original timing of the song.
This gesture song constitutes a single complex unit, a total experience which is
perceived by the participants as beginning, as ending, and as constituting a unified
whole — a single game. After it is finished a different unit of the party — the next
game — may begin. Certainly the gesture-song game is in some way a single unit of
activity, an event which must be studied as a cohesive set of actions.
Yet the structural analysis of the event as a single unit may be difficult or impossible
under a fractionated approach to the analysis of behavior. If a language analyst has
set up his tape recorder and captured the sounds emitted during the game he can
make good progress on analyzing and describing the first verse; it resolves itself into
sentences, clauses, words, stems, affixes, vocal sounds, and so on. But for the second
verse the language analyst, as such, is unable to 'make sense' out of the data. Since
language analysis by itself contains no techniques which provide ways of analyzing
and describing bodily actions other than the articulating movements of the vocal
apparatus, nor ways of symbolizing the relevant length of time elapsed during the
gesture, nor a unified theory to allow for or to explain the structural replacement of
words by non-vocal movements, it cannot handle such data. By the time the language
analyst comes to the last verse, he is able to find no organization — scattered words
are spaced far apart, unconnected, unstructured.
Persons using theories and field techniques adequate for describing nonlinguistic
behavior, but discontinuous with linguistic theory and practice, would, on the other
hand, face problems complementary to those just described for the linguist. Starting
with a moving-picture record of the game, with supporting data, the sociologist or
anthropologist could give an over-all description of the social situation in which the game
occurred and could in detail describe the gestures. Yet except for the general statements
of the kind given in the first paragraph of this chapter, it would be difficult or impossible
for him to give for the total event, as a unit, aunified description which—with no change
of outlook or procedure—would simultaneously analyze and describe the nonlinguistic
behavior as well as the smallest and most intricate elements of linguistic structure.
A musician, similarly, might give an adequate account of the musical elements of the
first verse, and even record satisfactorily the first gap or two, but by the time he had
reached the almost total lack of vocalization at the end of the game his record would
be unsatisfactory. If, furthermore, he did in some way manage to record the words,
gestures, timing, and tune whenever present, these might be reported in reference to a
theory which had not been correlated in detail with those linguistic concepts necessary
to analyze the structure of the sentences as the linguist has come to see that structure;
in addition, these verbal and nonverbal elements probably would be labelled by terms
which are different from and not correlated with those of linguistics.
In this chapter, therefore, it is suggested (1) that there is needed a theory which will
not be discontinuous, and which will not cause a severe jar as one passes from non-
verbal to verbal activity. There is needed a unified theory, a unified set of terms, and
a unified methodology which can start from any kind of complex human activity with
various sub-types of activity included, and analyze it without sharp theoretical or
methodological discontinuities.
It is concluded (2) that language is behavior, i.e., a phase of human activity which
must not be treated in essence as structurally divorced from the structure of nonverbal
human activity. The activity of man constitutes a structural whole, in such a way
that it cannot be subdivided into neat 'parts' or 'levels' or 'compartments' with lan-
guage in a behavioral compartment insulated in character, content, and organization
from other behavior. Verbal and nonverbal activity is a unified whole, and theory and
methodology should be organized or created to treat it as such.
Succeeding chapters in this book outline an initial attempt at the development of
such a theory and procedure. First, however, the balance of this chapter illustrates
further the fact that language must be treated as human behavior, as a phase of an
integrated whole, by showing (1) that language behavior and nonlanguage behavior
are fused in single events, and (2) that verbal and nonverbal elements may at times
substitute structurally for one another in function.
Since means of communication and description of events for archives are largely
meaning of 'boos' and 'catcalls' or 'whistles' (meaning approval in USA, the opposite,
I am told, in some European areas) following a vocal number during a concert; or the
presence and meaning of a 'wolf whistle' in a street scene, and so on.
This last instance leads to the mention of an elaborate cultural situation in the
Mazatec language of Mexico, where conversation, buying, selling, and bargaining is
sometimes carried on entirely by means of whistles. Here there are no known limits
to the length or type of conversation which can be carried on by whistles without
words (Cowan, 1948). Conversations may begin at a distance with whistles (rather
than with shouts, as in our culture), and may be continued in words as the participants
come closer together; or boys may be carrying on a conversation in quiet whistles so
as not to disturb their elders who are having a regular conversation in the same room.
The whistling would not ordinarily be called speech, so presumably in a fractionated
approach to behavior it would have to be analyzed by nonlinguistic techniques. Such
an approach would be impossible without overlapping on language matters, however,
since the 'tune' whistled comprises the abstracted tones which are normally a part
of the words of the language and which would have been used had the conversation
been spoken instead of being whistled. Mazatec is a "tone language" with four pitch
levels (high or low relative to the norm of the voice of the speaker at that moment),
one of which accompanies each syllable of the spoken sentence, and these same
pitches are retained without the consonants and vowels in the whistle speech. Hence
in the analysis of the whistle speech the description of the structure of the pitch se-
quences must often parallel the analysis of the sequences of words in spoken speech —
yet this is impossible if the theory and techniques of analyzing speech are discontinuous
with the analysis of whistles.
Just as nonlanguage reports must often have language reports added, if they are to
have significance and if they are to be analyzable, so language reports must often have
nonlanguage reports given, or they too will be unintelligible.
If, for example, one has a tape recording of the word No /, with silence for a long
period on either side, the incident in which it occurred would not be structurally
significant; one needs to know, as well, through a moving picture or a verbal report
about the incident, that a child has just reached for a fragile article on a table and his
mother has called No! to him. Similarly, a tape recording of the phrase Why, Mom-
mie? needs an accompanying verbal or pictographic record of the mother gesturing
for the child to come, before the incident emerges as a significant behavioral entity.
Recently I heard two people talking, and during the conversation one of them said
quietly, No thank you. This phrase did not fit culturally into the rest of the conver-
sation. The total conversation as a unit therefore is meaningless — culturally unana-
lyzable in any way which would treat this bit of vocal material as an integrated part
1.3 Verbal and Nonverbal Elements Substituting for One Another in Function
also without a word, raised his hand, thumb downward, thumb and forefinger ex-
tended slightly apart, as if measuring half an inch (i.e., Just a little while, patience!).
In situations in which only one person is involved such substitutions may also
occur. A man who hits his fingernail with a hammer or hurts himself in some other
way, for example, may on occasion either silently, with a grimace, throw the hammer,
or he may vocally exclaim, or he may merely draw in his breath sharply to produce a
culturally specified kind of hissing sound without more violent reaction.
In thinking through a mechanical problem, one can use trial and error by actually
placing two pieces together to see if they belong thus, or the action can be omitted
and the person can, as he looks at them, say aloud to himself (or silently): Now let's
see, if I put this piece there, and that one here, they would not fit.
Even the analysis of thinking, therefore, cannot in this broad structural sense be
handled discontinuously from the analysis of the mechanical movements of problem
solving: mechanical movements and thinking are structurally mixed together in events,
not haphazardly so. To use a chemical figure of speech, they form compound mole-
cules which can be analyzed as structured; they are not mere physical mixtures.
From this point of view, we see that it is not enough that language behavior and
overt physical activity be handled by one approach. All psychological processes, all
internal structured responses to sensations, all of thinking and feeling, must also be
considered as parts of human behavior which will become structurally intelligible
only when a theory, a set of terms, and an analytical procedure are provided which
deal simultaneously and without sharp discontinuities with all human overt and covert
activity. Language is but one structured phase of that activity.
One of the points of view suggested by this chapter — that language events and non-
language events may constitute structurally equivalent members of classes of events
which may constitute interchangeable parts within larger unit events — has been anti-
cipated by Sapir, without development of its structural implications: "If one says to
me 'Lend me a dollar', I may hand over the money without a word or I may give it
with an accompanying 'Here it is' or I may say 4I haven't got it' or 'I'll give it to you
tomorrow'. Each of these responses is structurally equivalent, if one thinks of the
larger behavior patterns" (1933, in his Selected Writings: 12; see also Hjelmslev,
1953 : 66).
Sapir early suggested that linguistics might help in "the interpretation of human
conduct in general" (in his Selected Writings, 1949 [1929] :166).
He also treated language itself as behavior, though more specifically 'purely linguis-
tic facts may be seen as specialized forms of symbolic behavior' (1929, in his Selected
Writings: 163). For Kluckhohn 'language is just one kind of cultural behavior'
(1949:148); similar opinions of various other authors are to be found in Kroeber and
for example, Voegelin and Harris seemed to imply that the attempt to find such equi-
valents was hopeless, since linguistic approaches were unique to language: "It became
clear that anthropologists and others working with languages had in their hands a tool
[i.e. phonemics] which simplified the description of languages, and proved to be
uniquely fitted to language [i.e., not applicable to nonlanguage activity], since all
attempts to extend this phonemic tool to the analysis of culture have been in vain."
And: "Like the phonemic method, so also the combinatorial method [i.e., descriptive
techniques, such as morphemics, applied to grammatical analysis] proved to be
uniquely fitted to the data of language, rather than to culture in general" (1952:325).
Nevertheless, in that same year, also, two widely different studies appeared which
made some progress in this direction. Birdwhistell, building on a considerable tra-
dition of the study and symbolization of gesture and of other bodily movements,
carried forward these studies and, under stimulus from Trager and Smith, pointed out
numerous parallels in theory and technique between the study of such motions and the
principles of linguistics, even though it stopped short of an integrated theory of the
type for which we have felt the need. (A later study by E. T. Hall and Trager, 1953, is
excessively compartmentalized, with an attempt at an a priori classification of systems
of behavior, but actual behavior events — with all their integrated complexities —
receive little attention. See now, however, E. T. Hall's extensive and elegant studies on
the structuring of space — proxemics — 1963.)
The second study was one by Fries, on the English sentence; it was developed
purely as a linguistic analysis of a body of mechanically recorded utterances, but as a
matter of fact it made, in addition, a most important contribution to the study of the
relationship between verbal structure and nonverbal events, by founding a classifi-
cation of basic sentence types on linguistic data combined with nonverbal data —
the kinds of responses, which included 'action' responses (characteristic of type II) in
contradistinction to 'oral' responses (characteristic of type I) (1952:53). Compare,
also, Hoijer: "Language may no longer be viewed as something entirely distinct from
other cultural systems but must rather be viewed as part of the whole and functionally
related to it" (in Kroeber, 1953:554).
Robins, on the contrary, has stated that he considers my suggestion of structural
inter-relations of language and behavior as being 'intrinsically improbable' (1959b:2);
and for an extensive discussion which insists on 'an initial sharp separation' between
verbal and nonverbal units, and so is 'exactly contrary' to Pike's, see M. Harris
(1964:136).
My own attitude toward the relation of language to nonlanguage behavior grew out
of three kinds of experience: (1) When I was first learning Mixtec, of Mexico, by a
monolingual approach (i.e., without an interpreter), I was forced in 1935 to consider
language and other activity together. The next year at the Summer Institute of Lin-
guistics I developed a method for demonstrating to students — many of whom could
not be certain of finding interpreters in the areas to which they were heading — the
way in which they could learn a language by gesture, that is, by demonstrating a