Micropolitics: Signs of interpersonal hierarchy and solidarity in everyday conversation
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Norman Markel
Norman Markel (b. 1929) is Professor Emeritus at the University of Florida 〈normmarkel@gmail.com〉. His research interests include semiotic psychology, the politics of conversation, and nonverbal behavior. His publications includePsycholinguistics: An introduction to speech and personality (1969);Semiotic psychology: Speech as an index of attitudes and emotions (1998); andThe five vital signs of conversation (2009).
Abstract
Micropolitics examines how the signs of everyday conversation reinforce capitalist relations of production and the interests of the capitalist class. Review and assessment of published research indicate that Address, Self-Disclosure, Seating, Eye-Contact, and Touch are reliable and valid indexes of interpersonal hierarchy and solidarity. The claim is that high hierarchy/low solidarity messages establish an unconscious acceptance of the idea that social inequality and alienation are necessary, that is, the result of human nature. On the other hand, low hierarchy/high solidarity messages establish the foundation for a predisposition to respond to equality and compassion as socially acceptable ways to organize society. Cross-cultural research supports the claim that the signs of interpersonal hierarchy and solidarity in everyday conversation are learned behaviors, that is, the result of nurture.
About the author
Norman Markel (b. 1929) is Professor Emeritus at the University of Florida 〈normmarkel@gmail.com〉. His research interests include semiotic psychology, the politics of conversation, and nonverbal behavior. His publications include Psycholinguistics: An introduction to speech and personality (1969); Semiotic psychology: Speech as an index of attitudes and emotions (1998); and The five vital signs of conversation (2009).
©2014 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- A life for images: Homage to Omar Calabrese
- Semiotic entanglement: The concepts of environment, Umwelt, and Lebenswelt in semiotic perspective
- Passage à l'écrit et production du sensfictionnel : Deux cas du berbère
- The role of symbolism in adolescent gang membership: Results of a pilot study
- What can a philosophy and ethics of communication look like in the context of documentary filmmaking?
- Micropolitics: Signs of interpersonal hierarchy and solidarity in everyday conversation
- Boris Uspenskij and the semiotics of communication: An essay and an interview
- The (non-)random distribution of formational parameters in the established lexicon of Israeli Sign Language (ISL)
- Consumer satisfaction and confirmation of habits of comprehension: The effect of inductive print advertisements – Peircean comments
- Hegemonic signification from perspective of visual rhetoric
- Measuring the luxurious in advertisements: On the popularization of the luxury perfume market
- Environmental issues in unconventional social advertising: A semiotic perspective
- Jim and Bonnie's telephone conversation revisited: A meaning-based approach to talk in interactive events
- Political semiotics of national campaign posters and pictorial representation: Thailand's 2011 general elections
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- A life for images: Homage to Omar Calabrese
- Semiotic entanglement: The concepts of environment, Umwelt, and Lebenswelt in semiotic perspective
- Passage à l'écrit et production du sensfictionnel : Deux cas du berbère
- The role of symbolism in adolescent gang membership: Results of a pilot study
- What can a philosophy and ethics of communication look like in the context of documentary filmmaking?
- Micropolitics: Signs of interpersonal hierarchy and solidarity in everyday conversation
- Boris Uspenskij and the semiotics of communication: An essay and an interview
- The (non-)random distribution of formational parameters in the established lexicon of Israeli Sign Language (ISL)
- Consumer satisfaction and confirmation of habits of comprehension: The effect of inductive print advertisements – Peircean comments
- Hegemonic signification from perspective of visual rhetoric
- Measuring the luxurious in advertisements: On the popularization of the luxury perfume market
- Environmental issues in unconventional social advertising: A semiotic perspective
- Jim and Bonnie's telephone conversation revisited: A meaning-based approach to talk in interactive events
- Political semiotics of national campaign posters and pictorial representation: Thailand's 2011 general elections
