ABSTRACT
The Columbia University Cross-Cultural Survey of Expressive Style (1962 to 1982) employed techniques from social anthropology, linguistics, and ethnomusicology to describe, map, classify, and interpret the social and cultural history of the non-verbal and orally transmitted performance traditions of song, dance, and speech. The project began with a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation in 1961 and received generous support from the National Institute for Mental Health, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ford Foundation, and the Rock Foundation. Its scientific goal was to devise ways of analyzing and comparing recorded and filmed performances cross-culturally. The humanistic goal was to slow the rapid shrinking of human cultural resources, brought about by the centralization of communication and education. Links were discovered between the taxonomies of several modes of performance style and of social structure. The combination of the song-style system and social structure measures produced a family of culture areas that corresponded to the views of historians of culture.
