Walburga von Raffler-Engel

Background

Walburga von Raffler-Engel was born in Munich, Germany, on September 25, 1920, and was raised partly in Italy. Her parents had lived in Nuremberg; her father was trained as an engineer specializing in early X-ray technology, and her mother was a housewife. After her parents divorced, she spent a year with her maternal grandparents in Nuremberg. The persecution of people regarded as Jewish, including members of her extended family, shaped her early life. During World War II, much of her family was killed in concentration camps. She escaped to northern Italy, joined the partisan resistance, and carried messages, food, and weapons. When German forces intensified their search, she fled to Switzerland and concealed intelligence by transcribing it onto pieces of silk sewn into couriers’ clothing. Her wartime experiences were later documented in the archives of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. She spoke eight languages and moved to the United States in 1949.

Education

Von Raffler-Engel earned a Doctor of Letters in Classics from the University of Turin in 1947 and completed postdoctoral work at the Italian Institute of Archaeology at the University of Rome. After moving to the United States, she received a Master of Science in library science from Columbia University in 1951 and a Ph.D. in linguistics from Indiana University in 1953. Her education combined classical scholarship, archaeology, library science, and linguistics, a breadth reflected in her later interdisciplinary work on language acquisition, communication, psychology, sociology, and nonverbal behavior.

Career

After arriving in the United States in 1949, von Raffler-Engel worked as a freelance journalist and began her academic career at Bennett College in Greensboro, North Carolina, where she held a succession of faculty appointments between 1953 and 1961. She later taught at Morris Harvey College, now the University of Charleston, where she headed the Department of Modern Languages. She also worked as an accredited guide-interpreter for the United States Department of State in French and Italian and taught in Italy at the University of Florence and at the Johns Hopkins Center in Bologna. In 1965 she joined Vanderbilt University, where she became an associate professor and later a professor of linguistics. She directed the linguistics program, chaired the Committee on Linguistics of the Nashville University Center from 1978 to 1985, and became one of the university’s earliest women professors. Her Vanderbilt research addressed first-language acquisition, prenatal learning, child language, kinesics, paralinguistics, discourse, and intercultural communication. She coined “developmental kinesics” for the study of how children acquire nonverbal behavior and helped establish the field through research, teaching, international conferences, and publications in several languages. She retired from Vanderbilt in 1986 with the title Professor of Linguistics Emerita and continued as a senior research associate at the Institute for Public Policy Studies. She served as a professor with the Italian National Science Foundation at the Psychological Institute of the University of Florence in 1986–1987, taught at a NATO Advanced Study Institute in 1988, and remained president of Kinesics International, an international consulting firm, before retiring from that organization. She moved to San Antonio in 1999 to be near her son and his family.

Achievements

• Coined the term “developmental kinesics” and pioneered the study of how children acquire nonverbal behavior.

• Was instrumental in forcing Vanderbilt University to enroll women on an equal basis with men.

• Organized the first international congress on child language, held in 1972 at the Tuscan Academy of Sciences in Florence, Italy.

• Published 13 books and more than 500 articles on language acquisition, nonverbal behavior, and cross-cultural communication.

Works

More photos

• book chapter

  • A Comparison of Nonverbal Features in Commercials from the United States of America, Japan, West Germany and Norway

    (Chapter on cross-cultural differences in nonverbal featur...)

    1986

• conference paper

  • Suprasentential and Substitution Tests in First Language Acquisition

    (Paper presented at the Second Annual Meeting of the Socie...)

    1968

• edited book

  • Studies in Language Origins: Volume 2

    (Edited with Jan Wind and Abraham Jonker; the volume inclu...)

    1991
  • Aspects of Nonverbal Communication

    (Edited volume on kinesics, paralinguistics, gesture, post...)

    1980
  • Baby Talk and Infant Speech

    (Edited by Walburga von Raffler-Engel and Yvan Lebrun, wit...)

    1976
  • Doctor-Patient Interaction

    (Edited volume examining communication between physicians ...)

    1989
  • Aspects of Nonverbal Communication: A Handbook

    (Edited by Walburga von Raffler-Engel and Bates Hoffer.)

    1977
  • Studies in Language Origins: Volume 1

    (Edited with Jan Wind and Abraham Jonker.)

    1989
  • Language and Cognitive Styles: Patterns of Neurolinguistic and Psycholinguistic Development

    (Edited by Robert N. St. Clair and Walburga von Raffler-En...)

    1982

• journal article

  • Developmental Kinesics: Cultural Differences in the Acquisition of Nonverbal Behavior

    (Article by Walburga von Raffler-Engel in Word, volume 27,...)

    1971

  • Kinesics and Paralinguistics: A Neglected Factor in Second-Language Research and Training

    (Article published in the Canadian Modern Language Review,...)

    1980
  • Theoretical Phonology and First-Language Acquisition: How Scientific Is Psycholinguistics?

    (Article published in Word, volume 29, pages 31–43.)

    1978

• monograph

  • The Perception of Nonverbal Behavior in the Career Interview

    (Study of how interviewers perceive applicants through non...)

    1983
  • The Perception of the Unborn Across the Cultures of the World

    (Study of cultural perceptions of the unborn.)

    1994

• research monograph

  • Language Intervention Programs in the United States, 1960–1974

    (Co-authored with Robert H. Hutcheson Jr.; examines theore...)

    1975

• research paper

  • The Coordination of Verbal and Nonverbal Interaction Towards Three Parties: The Analysis of a Talk Show

    (Research paper analyzing verbal and nonverbal interaction...)

    1984

Membership

Von Raffler-Engel belonged to a broad network of professional and scholarly organizations in linguistics, sociology, psychology, semiotics, intercultural communication, and child-language research. Her documented service included chairing the Linguistic Society of America’s Golden Anniversary film committee in 1974, serving as vice president of the International Association for the Study of Child Language from 1975 to 1978, chairing the association’s international conference at the Tuscan Academy of Sciences in Florence in 1972, leading the executive committee of the Language Origins Society from 1985 to 1997, and chairing its international congress in 1987. She also participated in the International Association for Applied Linguistics, the International Sociological Association, the International Council of Psychologists, the International Association for Intercultural Communication Studies, the Institute for Nonverbal Communications Research, the Semiotic Society of America, the American Association of University Professors, the International Pragmatics Association, the Southeastern Conference on Linguistics, the National Association of Scholars, and the Tennessee Association of Scholars.

• American Association of University Professors

• International Linguistic Association

• Chairman of the Golden Anniversary film committee in 1974; emerita by 1985.

  Linguistic Society of America

• Linguistic Association of Canada and the United States

• Member of the committee on discourse analysis and session chairman in 1978.

  International Association for Applied Linguistics

• Executive committee member from 1985 to 1997 and chairman of the international congress in 1987.

  Language Origins Society

  1985 - 1997

• Member of the research committee for sociolinguistics and session chair at international and professional conferences in 1983.

  International Sociological Association

• International Council of Psychologists

• Panel organizer in 1999.

  International Association for Intercultural Communication Studies

• Vice president from 1975 to 1978; chaired the international conference held at the Tuscan Academy of Sciences in Florence in 1972.

  International Association for the Study of Child Language

  1975 - 1978

• Workshop leader in 1981.

  Institute for Nonverbal Communications Research

• Southeastern Conference on Linguistics

• Member of the organizing committee of the International Semiotics Institute in 1981.

  Semiotic Society of America

• National Association of Scholars

• Member of the board of directors from 1998 to 1999.

  Tennessee Association of Scholars

  1998 - 1999

• Section chairman from 1944 to 1945.

  United Europe Movement

  1944 - 1945

• International Communications Association

• International Pragmatics Association

Personality

Von Raffler-Engel was remembered as generous with her time, especially toward people who were new to the United States, and as intellectually energetic and forthright. In accounts of her wartime resistance, she described herself as aware of the danger but undeterred by it.

Quotes from others about the person

• Colleagues and former students remembered von Raffler-Engel as an inspiring teacher and pioneer in the study of nonverbal behavior. Vanderbilt colleague James Auer described her as a lovely person who was generous in helping newcomers adjust to life in the United States.

Interests

• Mountain climbing and skiing.

Connections

Von Raffler-Engel was married to A. Ferdinand Engel, who predeceased her. She had a son, Robert Engel, and a daughter, Lea Engel, as well as two grandchildren. She moved to San Antonio in 1999 to live near Robert Engel, his wife Hiroko, and their children. Her mother was Gertrud and her father was Friedrich. Her resistance activities during World War II connected her later life to Holocaust remembrance and to the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous, which she designated as a charitable beneficiary.

Father:

Friedrich

Trained as an engineer specializing in early X-ray technology.

Mother:

Gertrud

husband:

A. Ferdinand Engel

Predeceased Walburga von Raffler-Engel.

Son:

Robert Engel

Lived in San Antonio with his wife Hiroko and their children.

Daughter:

Lea Engel

References

• Vanderbilt University News obituary Documents von Raffler-Engel’s birth, death, resistance activities, academic career, research on nonverbal communication, publications, family, and burial.
  2009
• Tennessee Holocaust Commission survivor profile Documents her family background, childhood in Germany, and participation in the Italian partisan resistance.
• Vanderbilt University Faculty Records Lists her academic degrees and identifies her as Professor of Linguistics, Emerita, at Vanderbilt University.
  2000
• John Benjamins notes on contributors Documents her degrees, research areas, grants, international teaching and lecturing, publications, emerita status, senior research position, and presidency of Kinesics International.
  1991
• Persée authority record Provides bibliographic records for her books and edited volumes and identifies her as a linguist and Vanderbilt professor from 1965 to 1986.
• Dignity Memorial obituary Documents her wartime resistance, education, academic appointments, research on developmental kinesics, family, and burial plans.
  2009