Dr' Danica kara UNIVERSITY OF ZADAR email: dskaraunizd'hr

1
Dr. Danica karaUNIVERSITY OF ZADARe-mail
dskara_at_unizd.hr
Lecture 3 THE BODY IN MIND THE HUMAN SHAPE OF
MODERN SOCIETY
2
Aims

• Issues to be considered
• include
• What is a human body?
• The historical review of the most prominent
  representations of the human body
• What are the dominant body metaphors ?

3
What is a human body?

• FUZZY CONCEPT
• From Egyptian and Sumerian depictions of the
  ideal human form,
• Greek and Roman balanced and symmetrical human
  body,
• medievalists images of the body functioning as a
  confinement to the soul
• renaissance body
• 'modern body'

4
The historical review of the most prominent
representations of the human body

• In pre-modern societies, the body, both male and
  female, was an important site on which cultural
  and social values were inscribed through
  painting, scarification, piercing and tattooing.
• These bodily markings carried a wide range of
  different meanings referring to social status,
  gender, identity, etc.

5
male or female

• As soon as we are born, we are designated as male
  or female. This dualism has been reflected in
  different treatment of men and women, in cultural
  practices and in metaphorical projections.
• womens identity sinful, mortal, irrational
  body
• mens identity mind, immortality and reason.

6

• Concepts that were considered masculine, such as
  light, straight, good, reason, mind, spirit,
  power, and the public sphere,
• Concepts associated with femmininity darkness,
  left, bad, irrationality, body, emotion,
  passivity, inferiority, and the private sphere.
• Deeds are man, words are woman.
• Long hair, short wit.

7
The mind /body dualism

• The human body is universally perceived as a
  composite of the physical body and the mind/soul.
  
• The body was conceived as a prison of the
  soul and mind. This concept can be traced back
  in Plato, Aristotle and in the Christian
  tradition.
• Plato The body is the tomb of the soul.
  (Cratylus, XVII.).
• W. Shakespeare My heart, all mad with misery,
  Beats in this hollow prison of my flesh. (Titus
  Andronicus, Act 3.).

8

• On the contrary, the Eastern perception of the
  body, as expressed in Taoism and Zen Buddhism,
  advocates the non-dualistic nature of the human
  body.
• This concept makes human being a union of body
  and mind working together.

9
Renaissance body

• By the late fifteenth and early sixteenth
  century, more naturalistic images of the human
  body resulted from the growing interest in the
  human form gt Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo
  Buonarroti. (perfection through harmonious
  proportion).
• Sound body, sound mind.
• Men is the measure of all things

10
universal/generic body

• Until the end of the eighteenth century, the
  human body was mainly perceived as an ungendered,
  universal, generic body.
• The male body/man was considered the norm, and
  female characteristics have been conceptualized
  on the basis of masculine parameters.
• e.g. All men are equal in the eyes of law.
  (manall people, both male and female) the
  evolution of man, etc.
• D. Spander (1980, p. 20) believes that in some
  areas semantic space does not exist for women
  because it is occupied by the male sex.

11
sexual differenecs

• During the nineteenth century, a revolutionary
  reconceptualization of sexual difference emerged.
  The discourse on the body shifts from the
  man-made language to the neutral naming.
• In the same time the linguistic landscape of the
  female body is changed, e.g. postal workergtpost
  officergtpostwoman.

12
The body in modern society

• In modern society, the form of the human body
  changes through practices such as bodybuilding,
  cross-dressing, cosmetic surgery, etc.
• There is also an emerging vocabulary referring to
  new identities gay, lesbian, bisexual,
  heterosexual, etc.
• Virtual reality and its vocabulary disseminate
  the image of a new body robots, android,
  cyborgs, cyber terrorists, computer nerds,
  netizens, etc.
• D. Haraway (1991) claims that the cyborg serves
  as a metaphorical projection of the
  disintegration of traditional boundaries.

13

• New technologies have changed categories birth
  mother, sperm donor, egg donor, etc.
• With the appearance of each new word, a new
  threshold is crossed in the perception and social
  construction of the human body.
• The conceptualization of the human body changes
  in visible ways with changes in society and in
  sexual awareness.

14

• There is quite an extensive expansion of the
  human-body domain which is used to describe new
  tecnical devices. Computers have memory, brains,
  intelligence, languages, viruses, keys, windows,
  architecture, etc. They are intelligent, smart
  they can be infected by virus.
• Computers become human beings and human beings
  act like computers.
• This attitude sets the stage for an
  exceptionally powerful process of remapping and
  reimagining the boundaries of human bodies.

15
Body metaphorsMan is the measure of all things
(proverb)

• When the body is mentioned in literature,
  philosophy or similar disciplines, it is often
  conceptualized as a plant, an animal, a cage or
  confinement of the soul, a machine, a container
  of emotions, a computer, a communication network,
  etc.
• Plato describes humankind as a heavenly plant.
  (family tree, the root of the tooth...). Women
  are often perceived as fragile flowers.
• The human body is often addressed as a metaphor
  for society (e.g. the head of the state, the face
  of the law, a legislative body, etc.)

16

• the body parts have individual functions. They
  can become symbolic models of stable meanings in
  different parts of ones experience, e.g.
• headgt the seat of the intellect director,
  leader a container of thoughts, ideas, memories.
  
• heart gtthe seat of emotion (sadness, fear, and
  love) and the center of bravery
• hand gt power/control, e.g. to have someone in
  ones hands

17
heart

• Metaphorically, it refers to a persons
  character, or the place within a person where
  their feelings or emotions (sadness, surprise,
  fear, love) are considered to come. It is also
  the center of bravery/courage
• You are doing really well-dont lose heart now.
  (courage),
• to break someones heart (to cause emotional
  pain)
• In some languages heart is considered as the
  centre of the soul (heartsoul), e.g. Croatian
  On je prava dusa ( soul). gt She is all heart.

18

• Body parts have been widely used to conceptualize
  inanimate world. Accordingly, many languages use
  body parts terms to describe non-corporeal
  entities, e.g.
• leg of a table,
• arm of a chair
• foot of the bed
• ----------------------
• head of the salad,
• heart of the lettuce
• ear (grain part of corn)
• --------------------------
• shoulder of a hill
• foot of the mountain
• Finger Lakes
• mouth of a river
• Some physical units are derived from dimensions
  of the body
• a foot ( the length of an adult foot)
• a yard ( a single stride)
• Digital system is based on the Latin word
  DIGITUSfinger.
• plants and animals are named after body parts
  prstaci
• body parts eye teeth

19
Basic image schemata of the body

• The view of the body as a physical object
  presupposes its 3-dimensional form (container,
  box) in space and time. A container schema has
  its structure an inside, a boundary, and an
  outside.
• This spatial conception of the body as physical
  object, generates many metaphors based on the
  form of the following image schemata LEFT-RIGHt,
  IN-OUT, FRONT-BACK, UP-DOWN

20

• Symmetry and balance
• The human body is perfectly symmetrical and
  balanced. It can be folded over in the middle
  into left and right halves (vertical axis).
  Vitruvian man is a symbol of the ideal and
  symmetrical human body
• The experience of balanced posture gives rise to
  following metaphors balanced personalities,
  balanced views, the balance of power, justice,
  inner balance. balanced news, etc.

21
left-right

• Metaphors generated by LEFT-RIGHT experience of
  the body posture support the view that left is
  clumsy, awkward, insincere, e.g. left handed
  compliment.
• Metaphorically, right means suitable, morally
  acceptable, correct, true, authentic,
  conservative, prominent side of an, object, e.g.
  to get off on the right foot , right
  conduct(being in accordance with what is just,
  good, correct), upright ( honest and just)

22

• Interior-exterior
• In the majority of metaphorical projections, the
  body functions as a container box. It consists of
  many entities mind, soul, words, emotions,
  thoughts, etc. In proverbial speech, people reach
  their inner part through their eyes Eyes are the
  window of the soul.
• The enterior of the body is percieved as physical
  environment and the exterior of the body as a
  field of cultural representations.

23

• Up-down
• The posture we regard as typical of the human
  body is upright. Accordingly, activities viewed
  positively are expressed as up ( a higher value,
  an improvement). Metaphorically, if someone is
  down it means a weak, desperate position, e.g.
  Tim has been feeling down.
• Due to the backbone or spine, we can achieve
  upright position. Such an experience generates
  the view that the backbone is conceptualized as
  strength, bravery, e.g. They have been the
  backbone of the local golf club for years.

24

• Front-back
• The posture of the human body is such that its
  senses are dominantly directed forward (eyes,
  nose, and mouth). This experience generates the
  view that front part is equal to progress,
  dignity, knowledge, e.g. Seeing is believing.
• In the back of ones mind means the remote part
  of ones brain where thoughts are stored and
  forgotten.
• - to stab someone in the back. ( to betray)
• - to have ones back to the wall ( to be in
  defensive position)
• - behind ones back ( without ones knowledge,
  in secret)

25

• European speakers project truths into the future,
  progress. In the same time some non-Western
  languages put the past in front and the future
  behind. So the past time is defined as eye year
  or front year.
• Obviously, their metaphorical projections are
  different and based on their own cultural values.
  
• Evidently, the structure of the human body does
  not necesserily produce universal metaphors.

26
CONCLUSION

• 1. Linguistic categorization of the body reveals
  that all human beings have a common set of
  conceptual metaphors (universal/generic level
  metaphors) that are based on the following
• common body structure
• basic sensory experiences
• common features of social organization and
  behaviourgtcommon cultural environment
• common features of the natural environment
• Globalization

27

• 2. specific metaphors
• The body and its individual parts are used in
  metaphorical projections as symbols of specific
  cultural and social values.
• Specific cultural and social environment
• Sensory experience? Not all information is
  registered selective attention or economical
  perceptiongt diversity/specific level metaphors
• Through the development of new technologies
  human environment has been radically modified.
  Accordingly, the human body has evolved to adapt
  to its environment. New metaphorical projections
  are introduced.

28
(No Transcript)