Communicating: The Multiple Modes of Human Communication

Treatments of human communication mostly draw on cognitive and word-centred models to present it as predominantly a matter of words. This, Finnegan argues, seriously underestimates the far-reaching multi-modal qualities of human interconnecting and the senses of touch, olfaction, and, above all, audition and vision that we draw on.

In an authoritative and readable account, Ruth Finnegan brings together research from linguistic and sensory anthropology, material culture, non-verbal communicat...