scholarly journals Making Meaning Together: Embodied narratives in a case of severe autism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Delafield-Butt ◽  
Suzanne Zeedyk ◽  
Susanne Harder ◽  
Mette Vaever ◽  
Phoebe Caldwell
Keyword(s):  
Social Interactions ◽  
Young Woman ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Shared Understanding ◽  
Narrative Development ◽  
Making Meaning ◽  
Part Structure ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Severe Autism

Human narrative understanding is co-created in imaginative projects and experiences displayed in serially organised expressions of gesture and voice. Shared timing of reciprocal actions develop between two or more persons in narrative events that build over cycles in a four-part structure of ‘introduction’, ‘development’, ‘climax’, and ‘conclusion’. Pre-linguistic narrative establishes the foundation of later, linguistic intelligence. Yet, participating in social interactions that give rise to narrative development is a central problem of autism spectrum disorder. In this paper, we examine the rapid growth of narrative meaning-making between a non-verbal young woman with severe autism and her new therapist. Episodes of embodied, shared understanding were enabled through a basic therapeutic mode of reciprocal, creative mirroring of expressive gesture. These developed through reciprocal cycles and as the relationship progressed, complete co-created narratives were formed resulting in shared joy and the mutual interest and trust of companionship. These small, embodied stories enabled moments of co-regulated arousal that the young woman had previous difficulty with. These data provide evidence for an intact capacity for non-verbal narrative meaning-making in autism.

scholarly journals Shared communicative acts in theatre texts in performance

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Anne Furlong
Keyword(s):  
Meaning Making ◽  
Relevance Theory ◽  
Theoretic Approach ◽  
Audience Member ◽  
Making Meaning ◽  
Communicative Acts ◽  
Theatrical Performances ◽  
Multiple Audiences ◽  
Heiner Müller ◽  
The Relationship

This paper adopts a relevance theoretic approach to meaning making in theatrical texts and performances. Text-based theatrical performances are collaborative creative events, many of whose participants may never engage directly with an audience member, but all of whom are engaged in making and conveying meaning. Such texts communicate immediately to multiple audiences: readers, actors, directors, producers, and designers. They communicate less directly to the writer’s ultimate audience – the playgoer or spectator – through the medium of performance. But playgoers are not passive receptacles for interpretations distilled in rehearsal, enacted through performance, or developed in study and reflection. Rather, in the framework of communication postulated by relevance theory, the audience is an active participant in making meaning. I will briefly review a range of approaches to meaning making in theatre, and then outline my view of a relevance theoretic account of theatre texts and performances as related but distinct communicative acts. For Weimann (1992), discussing the German playwright, Heiner Müller, “language is first and foremost material with which the audience is expected to work so as to make and explore their own ‘experiences’” (p. 958). By contrast, T. S. Eliot characterised performances as ‘interruptions’ of the relationship between writer and audience; in ‘a true acting play’, he asserted, the actor added nothing (Eliot, 1924, p. 96). Campbell (1981) argues that “the theatre cannot gear its production to actual audiences”, as only the “finest and most appreciative of abstract audiences for that play” (p. 152) can properly grasp its meaning. For him, the disparate capacities, views, and expectations of a given audience present a profound challenge to theatre as communication. Connor (1999) addresses the same issue, pointing out that if readers can disagree about the meaning of a text, then spectators are even less likely to agree on what a given performance means (p. 417). Unlike Campbell, however, she regards this diversity as enriching, concluding that meanings “develop from co-production with spectators as subjects” (p. 426). Relevance theory provides a framework in which to begin to disentangle the overlapping and interacting, but equally vital, contributions of writer, company, and audience in making meanings.  

scholarly journals Investigating the Relationship Between Event Knowledge, Autistic Traits, and Social Ability Using Graph Theory

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kara Elise Hannah ◽  
Kevin Brown ◽  
Mikayla Hall-Bruce ◽  
Ryan A Stevenson ◽  
Ken McRae
Keyword(s):  
Social Interactions ◽  
Autistic Traits ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Social Ability ◽  
Event Knowledge ◽  
Communication Problems ◽  
Social Nature ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Abilities ◽  
The Relationship

Event knowledge, a person’s understanding of patterns of activities in the world, is crucial for everyday social interactions. Atypical event knowledge could contribute to social communication problems, which are prominent in autism spectrum disorder. Previous research has found atypical event knowledge in autistic individuals; however, research is minimal. In two studies, the relationship between event knowledge and autistic traits, namely social abilities, was investigated. We predicted associations between atypical event knowledge and poorer social abilities. In Study 1, lower social ability correlated with more atypical ordering of event activities. In Study 2, for atypical activity ordering, a relationship was found between social ability and the social nature of events. No significant results were found for other measures of event knowledge. These findings suggest a relationship exists between autistic traits, namely social abilities, and event activity ordering, but does not exist for other areas of event knowledge in the general population.

The relationship between active coping and hope during the COVID-19 pandemic: The mediating role of meaning in life

2021 ◽  
pp. 135910532110623
Author(s):  
Shuai Jin ◽  
Lei Zheng ◽  
Jie Wen ◽  
Miao Miao
Keyword(s):  
Meaning In Life ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Underlying Mechanism ◽  
Active Coping ◽  
Personal Hygiene ◽  
Making Meaning ◽  
Mediating Role ◽  
Support Seeking ◽  
The Relationship

This study aims to examine the relationship between active coping and hope during the COVID-19 pandemic and investigate the underlying mechanism based on meaning making theory. We conducted a two-wave survey and recruited 521 Chinese adults (aged 18–65). Results show that all three active coping strategies (personal hygiene practice, support seeking, and positive reappraisal) at T1 was positively associated with T2 hope. Importantly, T2 meaning in life serves as a mediator between T1 active coping and T2 hope. Our findings suggest that active coping could be an effective approach to maintain mental health by making meaning and promoting hope.

On Antigone’s Suffering

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 214-231
Author(s):  
Ankhi Mukherjee
Keyword(s):  
Young Woman ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Personal Loss ◽  
The Relationship

Examining the contestation of interpretations around this work, I argue that the proliferation of exegetical material on Sophocles’s Antigone is related to a noncomprehension of the human motives behind her transgressive action. Did she ever love, and is there any suffering in her piety? If she didn’t love (her brother), could she have suffered? I read the play alongside Kamila Shamsie’s postcolonial rewriting of it in Home Fire to elaborate on the relationship between personal loss and collective (and communal) suffering, particularly as it is focalized in the novel by the figure of a young woman who is both a bereaved twin and a vengeful fury.

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