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Volume 3 Number 1
Fall 2008
| Liminal
Spaces and
Narratives of Voice and Body in Infant Vocal Internchange (Commentary
on Morioka) Maya Gratier Université Paris X – Nanterre, France |
pp. 143-154 |
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ABSTRACT. This paper explores the
heuristic value of the Japanese
concepts utushi and ma,
as they are described by Masayoshi
Morioka (2008), for the study of vocal interaction between young
infants and
adults. Intersubjective engagement between infants and communicative
partners
is thought to be based on a subtle attunement of temporally organised
gesture
and vocal expression. Voice is seen as a fundamental matrix for
cultural
belonging rooted in biological motives for sharing experience before
and beyond
the symbolic meanings of language-based communication. The process of
everyday
spontaneous vocal interchange between infants and close others,
situated within
increasingly familiar social and cultural frames, thickens
intersubjective
experience. The infant voice acquires a ‘grain’ and polyphonic cultural
overtones. It is proposed that the semiotic processes of cultural
grounding in
early infancy are based on a ‘communicative musicality’ (Malloch, 1999)
that
supports nonverbal narrative meaning-making involving well-coordinated
expression of voice and body in playful motivated exchange. |
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Keywords:
Mother-infant interaction, voice, narrative, intersubjectivity,
musicality |
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