Bodily Quoting in Dance Correction

Abstract

Building on research into reported speech and enactments, this study explores a new aspect of quoting by looking at how dance teachers ascribe body movements to students. Whether words or movements are quoted depends on the activity the participants are engaged in and what they aim to accomplish. Within corrective teaching sequences at dance classes bodily quotes serve to contrast incorrect performance with the correct one and display features such as decomposition, highlighting, and exaggeration. They afford simultaneous production of demonstration and description. The article argues that a quote can only be understood as such within the local context and, even in the case of bodily quoting, with adequate ascription. Quoting other bodies is an inherently multimodal achievement, where vocal as well as bodily resources are implemented to construct a coherent course of action. The study is based on video-recorded data in 3 languages: Swedish, Estonian, and English.