Vygotskiy. [About influence of speech rhythm on breath]

Abstract:
The respiratory movement system is the primary mechanism of the speech system, and therefore speech reactions determine the respiratory movements. The syntactic structure of phrases, intonations, pauses, punctuation marks, the pace of speech, the course of sentences and the alternation of tones — all this gets its implementation through the appropriate modulation of breathing. In 1922—23, psychological experiments were carried out in Gomel. They gave reason to talk about psychic mechanisms of poetry, which can be described by three points: 1) the speech rhythm of the work establishes its rhythm and the nature of breathing; 2. each breathing system and its rhythm corresponds to a certain system of emotions that create an emotional background for the perception of poetry, special for each work, 3. this emotional background of poetic experience is similar to that experienced by the author at the time of creation, since in his speech he hardened the rhythm of his breathing. Hence is poetry "infectiousness". Each poem or prose passage has its own breathing system by virtue of the direct adaptation of breathing to speech. The writer creates not only the rhythms of words, but also the rhythms of breaths. Reading Dostoevsky, we breathe differently than reading Chekhov. Forcing us to breathe calmly and evenly during the perception of tragic moments, or to breathe anxiously and impetuously with comic nonsense, the poet provokes a complex game of reaction and creates a chain of unexpected attitudes. Both of them make us «experience» the subject differently than in reality. This conceals, in part, the psychological mystery of style.