Aspects of Ku Waru Ethnosyntax and Social Life.pdf (original) (raw)
Related papers
2015
'criminals' would not dare attack us. In particular I would like to thank Patrick Tanget, the local businessman who helped me in many ways, and his wife Maisie, who even lent me money when I was trying to secure a drum of petrol for our travels. Without this I know that Volker Gast expects me to add a subsection called 'disacknowledgements' and list his name there, but I will disappoint him and instead positively acknowledge his contribution to this thesis. Our many arguments about the methods and call of anthropology made me reconsider what we often take for granted when talking to our fellow-anthropologists, 'our own tribe', or others with whom we share a lot of common ground. I thus thank Volker for our arguments, for reading the Xlll drafts of several of the thesis chapters, and for sharing with me his field site in Sibidiri in Southern New Guinea. Several other people commented on earlier chapter drafts, some of which were published as papers or presented as conference talks. In this connection 1 wish to thank
Ku Waru: Language and Segmentary Politics in the Western Nebilyer Valley, Papua New Guinea
The aim of this series is to develop theoretical perspectives on the essential social and cultural character of language by methodological and empirical emphasis on the occurrence of language in its communicative and interactional settings, on the socioculturally grounded 'meanings' and 'functions' of linguistic forms, and on the social scientific study of language use across cultures. It will thus explicate the essentially ethnographic nature of linguistic data, whether spontaneously occurring or experimentally induced, whether normative or variational, whether synchronic or diachronic. Works appearing in the series will make substantive and theoretical contributions to the debate over the sociocultural-functional and structural-formal nature of language, and will represent the concerns of scholars in the sociology and anthropology of language, anthropological linguistics, sociolinguistics, and socioculturally informed psycholinguistics. Editorial Board 1. Charles L. Briggs: Learning how to ask: a sodolinguistic appraisal of the role of the interview in social science research 2. Tamar Katriel: Talking straight: Dugri speech in Israeli Sabra culture 3. Bambi B. Schieffelin and Elinor Ochs (eds.): Language socialization across cultures 4. Susan U. Philips, Susan Steele, and Christine Tanz (eds.): Language, gender, and sex in comparative perspective 5. Jeff Siegel: Language contact in a plantation environment: a sodolinguistic history of Fiji 6. Elinor Ochs: Culture and language development: language acquisition and language socialization in a Samoan village 7. Nancy C. Dorian (ed.): Investigating obsolescence: studies in language contraction and death 8. Richard Bauman and Joel Sherzer (eds.): Explorations in the ethnography of speaking 9. Bambi B. Schieffelin: The give and take of everyday life: language socialization of Kaluli children KwWaru
Language, affect and the inculcation of social norms in the New Guinea Highlands and beyond
Culturalist accounts of emotion and morality have focused on how they are constructed and inculcated through particular, more or less culturally specific ways of talking about them. Both Bourdieu and recent affect theorists have opposed what they see as an overemphasis on language in such accounts. Here I argue that the dichotomy between the 'verbal' and the 'non-ver-bal' that is common to both is misconceived. A more useful distinction is between the level of referentially explicit talk about emotions and moral precepts, and the ways in which they are implicitly conveyed, both through non-referential aspects of discourse and through other, non-discursive aspects of social interaction. Ethnographic evidence for my argument is drawn from study of children's language socialization in Highland Papua New Guinea.
San Roque, L. & B. B. Schieffelin. Language Socialisation in the Papuan context
2021
This chapter reviews research on language socialisation in Papuan languages and will appear (subject to edits) in N. Evans & S. Fedden (eds.), The Oxford Guide to Papuan Languages. Readers who are interested in this topic are pointed to the chapter on language acquisition by Hellwig, Sarvasy, and Casillas in the same volume.
Language in Society, 2011
variation and the emerging literature on this type of variation. The results also contribute to our understanding of attitudes toward nonstandard varieties of Austrian German. Soukup's clarity of style and organization leads the reader easily through what is a very complex project that relies on an interdisciplinary set of methods. The thorough and comprehensive coverage of the disciplines that Soukup draws upon demonstrates for the reader the utility of interdisciplinary methods for the investigation of intraspeaker variation. Explanation of how these methods can be used to investigate intraspeaker variation (and the limitations thereof) is important for readers who wish to carry out similar research. The growing interest in intraspeaker variation such as style and authenticity signals a need for the creative use of interdisciplinary methods such as these and certainly calls for more sociolinguistic research to be carried out in this manner. These comprehensive descriptions make this book a great resource for those who are new to research on attitudes to language variation and research methodology (although some details may seem tedious for readers who are already familiar with that literature) and for those who are looking for ways to explore intraspeaker variation.
Australian Journal of Linguistics, 2013
Speakers of many Trans New Guinea or Papuan languages use a number of reciprocal person-referring expressions. Various examples are found in the Papuan language of Koromu, spoken in Madang Province, Papua New Guinea. This paper examines the meanings of Koromu reciprocal expressions that recall shared past experiences, in particular, social category terms connected with coming of age events and spontaneous nicknames created at the time events occur in the course of everyday life. The meanings are explicated in clear simple terms using Natural Semantic Metalanguage primes. The explications point to important aspects of social cognition, including identification with significant others based on shared experience and relational concepts of personhood. Although this study points to the possibility of some language endangerment for some meanings, it also indicates the ongoing cultural importance of shared experiences, including commensality, in both rites of passage and everyday life. Keywords: Social Cognition; Coming of Age; Commensality; Relational Personhood; Endangered Meanings; Person Reference; Papuan Languages
The Articulation of Indigenous and Exogenous Orders in Highland New Guinea and Beyond
One of the leading challenges for contemporary anthropology is to try to contribute to an understanding of the interaction between indigenous and exogenous socio-cultural orders, especially at the frontiers of globalisation. Here I review three recent attempts to do so: (1) a model of structural transformation as developed by Marshall Sahlins; (2) a model of articulation as developed by James Clifford; (3) a model of 'adoption' proposed by Joel Robbins. As a test case for these models, I consider them in relation to some recent developments in local segmentary politics and verbal art in the Ku Waru region of Highland New Guinea. I show that all three models are in certain respects inadequate for understanding those developments, and offer some proposals as to what kinds of theory might be more adequate to the task.