Nonverbal Elements in War Poems across Cultures: A Case Study of English and Croatian

Abstract

building on extensive study on nonverbal communication, this paper focuses on the presence of culturally referenced representations of nonverbal behaviour in poetry, specifically looking at the presence of culturally referenced nonverbal elements in war poems written during and after World War I. Written representations of such nonverbal elements are seen either as vocalnonverbal (paralanguage) or as nonvocal-nonverbal (kinesics). As a poem's theme derives from the actual event(s), it can be expected to contain culturally bound nonverbal elements. Analysis shows that nonverbal elements are mostly represented via descriptions of spatial signs, body adaptors and bodily characteristics, and that the presence of culturally referenced nonverbal elements is almost non-existent. Neverbalne prvine, izražene prek pisnega jezika, delimo na vokalno-neverbalne (parajezik) in nevokalnoneverbalne (kinezika). Ker tematika obravnavanih pesmi temelji na konkretnih dogodkih, je pričakovati, da bo vsebovala tudi kulturno pogojene neverbalne prvine. Analiza razkrije, da so neverbalne prvine prisotne predvsem v opisih prostorskih znakov, telesnih adaptorjev in telesnih značilnosti ter da kulturno pogojenih neverbalnih prvin skoraj ni zaznati.