Putting Some Flesh on Sensory Language: An Experiential Approach to Style

Embodied learning techniques may be used in language education to process the sensorimotor imagery contained in literary discourse. In the proposed “physical reading” scenario, students are invited to develop collective forms of sensing, moving and imagining. Their analysis of style, meaning, and imagery thus acquires a marked enactive and phenomenological character. In this chapter, we look at ways in which dynamic interpretation spaces may be set up and special experiential sessions designed that engage the “phenomenal body” (Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception. Translated from the French by Colin Smith. London: Routledge, 2000). We show how “moments” of being and sensing may be orchestrated; how group “scenes” using the tableau vivant technique may be staged; how the powerful mechanisms of “intersemiotic translation” (Jakobson, On Linguistic Aspects of Translation. In On Translation, ed. Reuben A. Brower, 232–239. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1959) and “ception” (Talmy, Toward a Cognitive Semantic. Vol. 1. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2000) may be consciously activated to create a transformative reading experience for all. The proposed verbal and kinetic activities are based on authentic stylistic material taken from the source text. The “reader-performer” engages in coordinated interactions with fellow participants, and symbolically interacts with virtual entities—abstract or concrete, proximal or distant. Illustrations include a sample of performative reworkings of novels, short stories, and autobiographical writings by Virginia Woolf.