Culture, Interaction and Person Reference in an Australian Language
An ethnography of Bininj Gunwok communication
1st Edition
Published on 14. November 2013
XX, 274 pages
978-90-272-7124-2 (ISBN)
Description
The study of person reference stands at the cross-roads of linguistics, anthropology and psychology. As one aspect of an ethnography of communication, this book deals with a single problem - how one knows who is being talked about in conversation - from a rich and varied ethnographic perspective. Through a combination of grammatical agreement and free pronouns, Bininj Gunwok possesses a pronominal system that, according to current theoretical accounts in linguistics, should facilitate clear cut reference. However, the descriptions of Bininj Gunwok conversation in this volume demonstrate that frequently a vast gulf lies between knowing that, say, an object is '3rd singular', and actually knowing who it refers to. Achieving reference to people in Bininj Gunwok can involve a delicate and refined set of calculations which are part of a deliberate and artful way of speaking. Speakers draw on a diverse set of grammatical and lexical devices all underpinned by shared knowledge about a diverse range of social relationships and cultural practices.
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Murray Garde
Culture, Interaction and Person Reference in an Australian Language
An ethnography of Bininj Gunwok communication
Book
11/2013
John Benjamins Publishing Co
€104.94
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Content
- Culture, Interaction and Person Referencein an Australian Language
- Editorial page
- Title page
- LCC data
- Table of contents
- In Memoriam
- Preface and acknowledgements
- Abbreviations and orthographic conventions
- Preface and Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations and orthographic conventions
- Introduction
- 1.1 Introduction
- 1.2 Linguistic anthropology
- 1.3 The indeterminacy of reference
- 1.4 Bininj Gunwok, dialects and location.
- 1.5 Eastern Bininj Gunwok in brief geographical and historical context
- 1.6 Synopsis
- Bininj Gunwok Kinship Systems
- 2.1 Introduction
- 2.2 Moieties, subsections and other social categories
- 2.3 Subsections in Bininj Gunwok
- 2.4 Bininj Gunwok basic kin terms
- 2.5 Arguments about Bininj Gunwok kinship
- 2.6 Generation skewing
- 2.7 Ceremonial moieties
- 2.8 Concluding remarks
- Ways of referring to people in Bininj Gunwok
- 3.1 Introduction
- 3.2 Diversity in person reference
- 3.3 Basic kin terms
- 3.4 Other types of non-vocative terms
- 3.5 Dyadic terms
- 3.6 Kinship verbs
- 3.6.1 Successive generation patrilineal and matrilineal kin, bornang, yawmang
- 3.6.2 Semantics of kinship verbs
- 3.6.3 Other kinship verb expressions
- 3.7 Other forms of person reference
- 3.7.1 Reference by subsection
- 3.7.2 Use of clan names in reference
- 3.7.3 Cross-sex sibling reference
- 3.7.4 Reference to the deceased
- 3.7.5 Reference by matrilineal phratry terms
- 3.7.6 Nicknames
- 3.8 Some concluding comments
- The kun-debi system of triadic kinship reference
- 4.1 Introduction
- 4.2 Triadic kinship systems in other languages
- 4.3 Deficiencies of the triangle analogy
- 4.4 Centricity
- 4.4.1 Centricity type
- 4.4.1.1 Egocentric terms
- 4.4.1.2 Tucentric terms
- 4.4.1.3 Tucentric dyad
- 4.4.1.4 Dicentric terms
- 4.4.1.5 'Isosceles' terms
- 4.4.1.6 Acentric terms
- 4.4.1.7 Equilateral terms
- 4.4.2 centricity encoding
- 4.4.3 centricity stability
- 4.5 Linguistic form and semantics of kun-debi terms
- 4.5.1 na-karrng/ngal-karrng
- 4.5.2 na-kiwalak/ngal-kiwalak
- 4.5.3 -dadjkawarre
- 4.5.4 pronouns and kun-kurrng register as kun-debi
- 4.5.5 Kun-debi and neutralization
- 4.6 Predicting centricity
- 4.6.1 The juniority-seniority principle
- 4.6.2 The markedness of certain affinal kin
- 4.7 Kun-debi and indeterminacy
- 4.8 Learning Kun-debi
- 4.9 Concluding comments
- Reference, grammar and indeterminacy in Bininj Gunwok conversation
- 5.1 Introduction
- 5.2 Person reference, reference tracking and semantic generality
- 5.2.1 Some grammatical background
- 5.2.2 Theorizing a 'preference for use of the implicit over the explicit'
- 5.3 Background local knowledge and inferring the identity of underspecified referents- some examples
- 5.4 Generic and impersonal uses of some verbal participant prefixes
- 5.5 Concluding comments
- Culture, reference and circumspection
- 6.1 The language of ceremony and esoteric knowledge
- 6.2 Circumspect language and kinship relationships characterised by restraint
- 6.3 The circumspect nature of requests
- 6.4 Joking
- 6.5 Concluding comments
- The path of inference
- 7.1 Introduction
- 7.2 A story about hunting kangaroos
- 7.2.1 Background
- 7.2.2 Episode 1. First mentions - clans names and place names
- 7.2.3 Episodes 2 & 3 - Kun-derbi and basic kin terms
- 7.2.4 Episode 4- Kun-derbi and nicknames
- 7.2.5 Episode 5- Ceremonial names and basic kin terms
- 7.2.6 Episode 6: Multiple referring expressions
- 7.2.7 Episode 7: Referring expressions in interactive competition
- 7.3 Telephone conversations
- 7.4 Other kinds of refusal to upgrade recognitional expressions
- 7.5 Concluding comments
- The trouble with Wamud
- 8.1 Introduction
- 8.2 Introducing the problem referent (lines 1-16)
- 8.3 Recognition via linking kin
- 8.3.1 Link number 1
- 8.3.2 Link number 2 - establishing common ground
- 8.3.3 Other linking kin
- 8.3.4 Linking kin - circumspect and associative reference
- 8.4 Conclusion- recognition is not always essential to 'fruitful' reference
- Person reference
- 9.1 In summary
- 9.2 Bininj Gunwok person reference and theories of communication
- 9.2.1 Recognitional demonstratives
- 9.2.2 Pronouns in switch reference
- 9.3 Some general comments about circumspection
- 9.4 A preference for the implicit as a form of verbal art
- Language index
- Subject index
