Living speech – or the bodily life of language

Résumé En

Unlike English, Romance languages routinely refer to “foreign” or “modern” languages as “living” languages: langes vivantes (French), lingue vive (Italian), lenguas vivas (Spanish), llengües vives (Catalan), línguas vivas (Portuguese), limbi vii (Romanian). Dutch and German speakers occasionally use similar phrases emphasizing the “living” quality of language: levende talen, lebende Sprachen. The title chosen for the original lecture-performance186 was a pun on the “life” or “vitality” of language187: Langues vivantes en vie (lit. “Living languages are alive / have a life”). The underlying logic was the following: language, whether spoken or written, is rooted in bodily motion. Movement is a sign of life. Language relies on movement. Language is life. The present English version contains video captures from the original French lecture-performance. The script was written and translated by myself. The performance was choreographed by Jean Magnard, assisted by Mélissa Blanc. All the illustrations given during the performance are taken from a corpus of authentic co-speech gestures made by native English speakers during interviews: talk show hosts, writers, film actors, and linguists.