Drawing: courtesy of Emma Kadraoui, Bordeaux 

Date: Saturday 25th February 2023

Time: 11.00 am - 1.00pm

Venue: Arts Building, Room 3105, Trinity College Dublin

This is a free event but places are limited.

Please RSVP before February 17th to Erika.Piazzoli@tcd.ie

We live our lives as social beings, and have an irrepressible urge to interact with fellow humans while sharing our thoughts, feelings and judgements. It is grammar that makes both the interaction and the sharing possible. Grammar allows the conversion of bare thoughts, raw emotions and unarticulated world experience into brief utterances or well-formed sentences. This means that most of the cognitive or social events that take place during out lives end up being "grammaticized", i.e. transformed into spoken or written discourse. When speech is the chosen medium for expression, we unconsciously find ourselves gazing, moving, raising or lowering our voices. The sensing, moving and speaking body is thus instrumental in shaping, enacting and displaying meanings, simple or complex, lexical or grammatical.

In this workshop, we will scan through the grammatical notions and processes that typically lend themselves to bodily expression. We will explore the dynamics of grammar-related moves in assertions, questions, hypothetical constructions. We will also examine common options for time reference, logical connection, comparison and quantification. Authentic gestural forms will be used to internalize structures and get a grasp on formal processes. We will discover simple strategies for choreographing useful and enjoyable "kinetic action" that helps learners understand and memorize grammatical constructions and mechanisms. No expert knowledge of grammar or linguistics needed. No previous training in drama, dance or bodily expression required.