ABSTRACT
Asharp break w i t h the intr insic-meaning posi t ion was made by the linguistic anthropologist Birdwhistel l (1952,1970), w h o m a y b e con-sidered one of the originators of the cultural school. Birdwhistel l was struck by the fact that the sets of movements used by speakers of different languages are as distinctively different as are the spoken words. H e formulated the idea that body movement and nonverbal communicat ion are coded-learned as language itself is-and therefore i n meaning and form are socially determined rather than innate or biologically endowed. Cal led "context analysis," his approach spawned a great deal of research.
