Image theory and body langage of the 17th and 18th Centuries in France

2019 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 19K20774
• Project/Area Number (Other): 18H05564 (2018)
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Research Activity Start-up
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund (2019); Single-year Grants (2018)
• Review Section: 0101:Philosophy, art, and related fields
• Research Institution: Osaka University
• Principal Investigator: Kawano Keiko 大阪大学, 文学研究科, 招へい研究員 (40639853)
• Project Period (FY): 2018-08-24 – 2020-03-31
• Keywords: 身体言語 / 像理論 / 感性的認識 / ディドロ / メネトリエ/メネストリエ / 視覚言語 / 演劇 / ヒエログリフ

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Body language in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century French drama arose within two major contexts: the revival of the ancient rhetoric and theories on the origin of language. This study attempts to shed light on another aspect of its background by examining the theories on image by Menestrier and Diderot. Although rarely discussed together, it is in their pursuit of the image that they share the lead in theorizing dramatic body language.
As shown by Menestrier’s concept of “figure” and by Diderot’s “hieroglyph,” both their image theories commonly focus on the viewer as an active participant. That is, according to their theories, the image prompts viewers to find the difference between the original and the copy or to sense themselves as the object itself represented by the image. Their interest in the theories of body language is, therefore, based on the pursuit of an increasingly mutual communication between the speaker and receiver.

Free Research Field

美学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

17-18世紀フランス演劇における身体言語興隆について、同時代の言語起源論や古代修辞学復興などのこれまで指摘されてきた思想的背景に加え、本研究は演劇領域それ自体において身体言語の問題に取り組んだメネトリエとディドロという二人の思想家の理論を検討することで、言語コミュニケーションにおける話者と受け手の相互性の追求という新たな文脈を指摘した。以上の成果は、ダンスによって物語ること、あるいは創造性と開かれた解釈に価値を置く芸術作品に特異な言語活動について解明する一助となる。