The Big and the Small: Toward a Paleontology of Gesture

SLS 51 Summer 1986 THE BIG AND THE SMALL: TOWARD A PALEONTOLOGY OF GESTURE David B. Givens Ye big-buzzing little-bodied Gnats. -- John Marston It may be true that every language distinguishes big from small. Indeed, so fundamental is that semantic contrast that the words "big" and "small" appear on Swadesh's condensed, 100-item glottochronologic list as primitive vocabulary items. These simple one-word labels for size, Swadesh (1955) suggested, could belong to an archaic lexicon, a primordial "basic vocabulary" common to all the world's spoken languages. But the conceptual roots of big and small run deeper than linguistic expression. As a binary opposition, big:small precedes speech, and indeed may be as elementary to the primate mind as other prelanguage antonyms such as infant : adult, weak : strong, and male female. Just as one need not actually say, "I am a woman" or "I am a man," because the secondary sexual traits and cultural elaboration of these natural signs speak for themselves, neither need one utter "I am big" or "I am small" to communicate what already has been clarified apart from words. (Q 1986 by Linstok Press, Inc. See inside front cover. ISSN 0302-1475 145 Givens : 146 Spoken language has not supplanted the evolutionary iconic signals for big and small -- gestures such as squared vs. shrugged shoulders, or extended vs. flexed limbs -- because the latter signs are still needed to express fundamental contrasts made face-to-face in "social size." Nor, as Bateson (1968) holds, is a linguistic replacement for nonverbal big:small likely in human communication, because "digital" words are less suitable than "analogical" body movements for conveying subtle gradations in status and rank. Countless nonlinguistic signs that express the contingencies of deference and demeanor have been identified, both in the archaeological record and in the ethnographic present. Of these, most signal "high" vs. "low" status through nonverbal contrasts that derive, mutatis mutandis, from iconic oppositions implicit in big:small. Egyptian pyramids, for example, give iconic testimony to a pharaoh's superior status; while the Japanese bow (from the waist) bespeaks humility through feigned shortness. Those who "stand tall" seem big, visually as well as socially; while others who "cave in" seem small. Gestures and spatial metaphors of the big:small genre are so frequently noted and so thoroughly explored in the ethnographic literature that the binary contrast itself might be considered a constant of the human mind, as a "common denominator of man" (Hockett 1973), or perhaps even as a human universal. At the very least this nonverbal opposition is one of humankind's primeval categories. Moreover, big:small itself may derive from a "vertebrate universal"; i.e. from a very primal antithesis between two contrasting "prototype postures," summer 1986 SLS 51 Givens : 147 loom and crouch. Multiform bodily expressions of looming and crouching are well documented in fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. Big:small, therefore, may be one of mankind's oldest binary oppositions, a contrast so ancient as to transcend culture and exist, figuratively at least, in collective representations of our "animal mind" (cf. the recent "triune brain" model of MacLean, 1973, especially its paleomammalian and reptilian aspects). Loom & crouch. Absolute size -- physical bulk itself -- is a key biological variable in social status and in relations of dominance and submission. Within a given species, as a rule, bigness correlates with stronger, and smallness with weaker, status. In fish such as gobies, for example, status and rank vary directly in proportion to gross body dimension, with the big dominating the small. Yet gobies and other piscines may appear larger (or smaller) than they actually are through an array of deceptive movements, postures, and displays. Utilizing an astonishing range of kinesic illusions, little fish may seem big, and big fish may seem small. To loom large, a goby stiffens and raises its fins, lifts its head, puffs out its throat, and flares its gill covers. Cichlid fish erect vertical fins and turn their bodies to display "broadsides." Puffer fish inflate with air like balloons and seem to grow. Cod fish bulge their heads, jut out their pelvic fins, and make sudden approaches to threaten rivals (Marshall 1965). To dominate, in other words...