Ray Birdwhistell | Academic Influence

Ray Birdwhistell's AcademicInfluence.com Rankings

Ray Birdwhistell

Anthropology

#75

World Rank

#123

Historical Rank

#42

USA Rank

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Anthropology

Ray Birdwhistell's Degrees

PhD Anthropology University of Chicago

Why Is Ray Birdwhistell Influential?

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According to Wikipedia, Ray L. Birdwhistell was an American anthropologist who founded kinesics as a field of inquiry and research. Birdwhistell coined the term kinesics, meaning "facial expression, gestures, posture and gait, and visible arm and body movements". He estimated that "no more than 30 to 35 percent of the social meaning of a conversation or an interaction is carried by the words." Stated more broadly, he argued that "words are not the only containers of social knowledge." He proposed other technical terms, including kineme, and many others less frequently used today. Birdwhistell had at least as much impact on the study of language and social interaction generally as just nonverbal communication because he was interested in the study of communication more broadly than is often recognized. Birdwhistell understood body movements to be culturally patterned rather than universal. His students were required to read widely, sources not only in communication but also anthropology and linguistics. Collaborations with others, including initially Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson, and later, Erving Goffman and Dell Hymes had huge influence on his work. For example, the book he is best known for, Kinesics and Context, "would not have appeared if it had not been envisaged by Erving Goffman" and he explicitly stated "the paramount and sustaining influence upon my work has been that of anthropological linguistics", a tradition most directly represented at the University of Pennsylvania by Hymes.

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Ray Birdwhistell's Published Works

Number of citations in a given year to any of this author's works

Total number of citations to an author for the works they published in a given year. This highlights publication of the most important work(s) by the author

Published Works

Kinesics and Context: Essays on Body Motion Communication (1971) (843)
Kinesics and context (1970) (744)
Proxemics [and Comments and Replies] (1968) (478)
Introduction to kinesics : an annotation system for analysis of body motion and gesture (1952) (211)
The Human Revolution [and Comments and Reply] (1964) (143)
The First Five Minutes. (1961) (77)
An Approach to Communication (1962) (69)
Background to kinesics. (1983) (60)
Field Methods and Techniques: Body Motion Research and Interviewing (1952) (45)
The Idealized Model of the American Family (1970) (11)
The American family: Some perspectives. (1966) (10)
Kinesics : Inter- and intra-channel communication research (1968) (9)
Nonverbal Communication: A Research Guide and Bibliography:Nonverbal Communication: A Research Guide and Bibliography. (1978) (6)
RESEARCH IN THE STRUCTURE OF GROUP PSYCHOTHERAPY. (1963) (5)
A Looking‐Glass Conversation in the Rare Languages of Sez and Pique. EDWARD ROSE (1968) (5)
SOME META-COMMUNICATIONAL THOUGHTS ABOUT COMMUNICATIONAL STUDIES (1970) (3)
Key: Nonverbal Communication: A Research Guide and Bibliography (1978) (3)
Research in exceptional phenomena. (1966) (2)
The American Family: Some Perspectives †. (1966) (1)
Uncomfortable room at the top. (1968) (1)
In Memoriam: Margaret Mead (1901-1978) (1980) (1)
Some Deterrents to Interdisciplinary Research (1952) (1)
GENERAL AND THEORETICAL:Science and Human Behavior. B. F. Skinner (1954) (1)
Verbal Interaction in a Young Married Couple. William S. Soskin (1964) (0)
ETHNOLOGY AND ETHNOGRAPHY: Five Families: Mexican Case Studies in the Culture of Poverty. Oscar Lewis (1960) (0)
Comparative Psycholinguistic Analysis of Two Psychotherapeutic Interviews Edited by Louis A. Gottschalk (1962) (0)
LINGUISTICS: Pathological and Normal Language. Julius Laffal (1966) (0)
Invisible Walls. Written, directed, and produced in 1969 by Richard A. Cowan. 16 mm., black and white, sound, 12 minutes (1970) (0)
PART I. Learning to Be a Human Body (1971) (0)
The Natural Superiority of Women. M. F. Ashley Montagu (1954) (0)
Book Review: The Family in Search of a Future: Alternate Models for Moderns (1971) (0)
PART III. Approaching Behavior (1971) (0)
TEACHING OF PSYCHOTHERAPY. COMMUNICATIONAL ANALYSIS IN THE RESIDENCY SETTING. (1964) (0)
Anthropology and Skills Research: A Tentative Statement (1951) (0)
Linguistics:The Language of Gestures. WILHELM WUNDT. Approaches to Semiotics Paperback Series (1975) (0)
PART V. Research on An Interview (1971) (0)
PART IV. Collecting Data: Observing, Filming, and Interviewing (1971) (0)
OTHER: The Psychology of Laughter: A Study in Social Adaptation. Ralph Piddington (1964) (0)
The Study of Child Behavior and Development in Primitive Cultures: A Research Archive for Ethnopediatric Film Investigations of Styles in the Patterning of the Nervous System E. RICHARD SORENSON and D. CARLETON GAJDUSEK (1967) (0)
Man in the Primitive World . An introduction to anthropology. E. Adamson Hoebel. McGraw-Hill, New York, ed. 2, 1958. xvi + 678 pp. Illus. $9; text ed., $6.75. (1958) (0)
PART II. Isolating Behavior (1971) (0)
SECTION OF ANTHROPOLOGY: FAMILY STRUCTURE AND SOCIAL MOBILITY* (1958) (0)
GENERAL AND THEORETICAL: Proxemic Behavior. O. MICHAEL WATSON (1972) (0)
LINGUISTICS: Power of Words, Stuart Chase, in collaboration with Marion Tyler Chase (1955) (0)

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