Linguistic Anthropology

Barcellona Paper: I PROVERBI DELLA METEOROLOGIA IN LADINO DOLOMITICO

by Gabriele Iannaccaro

Barcellona Paper: Broahut volli a hut, all moanada gnug. Proverbi meteorologici nelle comunità walser

by Gabriele Iannaccaro

Social Onomastics

by Parvaneh Khosravizadeh

"Social Onomastics", Parvaneh Khosravizadeh, Pazand Quarterly, Summer2004

The present paper reviews the role of different factors in selecting people names of a community. The main motivation... more The present paper reviews the role of different factors in selecting people names of a community. The main motivation of writing such a paper on the part of the writer is the presence of different criteria which independent of psychological investigations do have great values in the social and particularly linguistic researches and investigations.

Generative Oscillation - A Cognitive Model for the Emergence of Language

by Thorold (Thor) May

Research Material for a discontinued PhD

DRAFT COPY ONLY

NOT READY FOR PRINT PUBLICATION

The GO model proposes a co-generative view of the emergence of language. Most conventional linguistics models conceive... more The GO model proposes a co-generative view of the emergence of language. Most conventional linguistics models conceive of language as a representational system of symbols which refer to events, either mental or external to the organism. This representational function is said to motivate the linguistic system and (depending upon the linguistic model) largely control its form. The GO (Generative Oscillation) model proposed here recognizes the representational role of language. However it notes that as the mental linguistic system itself becomes efficiently organized, it creates an internal logic and drive of its own. To some extent this internally motivated linguistic system is conceived to override the external motivation to represent another reality. Since the internal linguistic system is dynamic and generative, it may give rise to linguistic output which seems strange in an inter-human communicative context (or even within the reflective mind of the creator). Thus while the external communicative context can become a constraint on unmotivated non-representational "internal language", it might not eliminate it. The Generative Oscillation model proposes that actual language production is an oscillating compromise between the representational function of language and the mental "language bot" itself (i.e. an internal self-organizing system) which is generating language strings just because that is what language language bots do. As far as I know, the Generative Oscillation Model, or anything like it, had not been suggested before in linguistics at the time of writing. Some conventional linguists may find it a bit "off the wall".

Review: Hauenschild, Ingeborg: Lexikon jakutischer Tierbezeichnungen. Wiesbaden 2008.

by Marek Stachowski

Who speaks here? Formality and the politics of gender in Mendi , Highland Papua New Guinea

by Rena Lederman

Voix de femmes songhay-zarma du Niger - entre normes et transgressions

by Sandra Bornand

published in "Femmes de paroles - Voix énonciatives et pragmatique des formes de discours", "Cahiers des mondes anciens", 3 / 2012

Au moment du remariage d’un homme, on observe – chez les Songhay-Zarma du Niger – un rituel spécifique aux mariages... more Au moment du remariage d’un homme, on observe – chez les Songhay-Zarma du Niger – un rituel spécifique aux mariages polygames, le marcanda, où les femmes, divisées entre « grandes » et « petites » épouses, se lancent dans une joute verbale d’insultes, puis chantent ensemble. Au sein de ce rituel, des chanteuses d’origine captives peuvent parfois venir chanter des chants grivois. Elles y évoquent ce dont on ne parle pas dans la vie quotidienne : la sexualité. Dans cet article, j’analyserai – sur la base d’une approche énonciative et pragmatique – le dernier chant d’une performance qui en totalise trente-deux. Celui-ci est particulièrement intéressant, car il débouche sur une altercation qui nous permettra de montrer comment ces chants de captives obéissent à des normes, bien qu’ils s’inscrivent dans la transgression, et comment cet espace transgressif, s’il est délimité, est sans cesse renégocié.

The ideology of swearwords in Slovenia

by Jona Fras

In press: Language & Communication, 2012, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.langcom.2012.04.004

Slovene speakers believe that swearwords are not indigenous to their language, but borrowed from other South Slavic... more Slovene speakers believe that swearwords are not indigenous to their language, but borrowed from other South Slavic languages. Interviews with educated Slovene speakers demonstrate that this ‘swearword ideology’ is not a purist or linguistic-nationalist phenomenon, but rather reflects Slovenes’ desire to differentiate Slovene from other South Slavic languages. This is due to mutual intelligibility and a lack of formal and legal distinctions, especially since other Slavic languages are not recognized as minority languages by the Slovene state. The role of swearwords in this ideology is analyzed as a product of both Lacanian symbolic anxieties and specific sociohistorical conditions, rather than an essentializing ‘Balkanist’ belief. This demonstrates the importance of an approach that does not presuppose essentialism on part of speakers.

‘Don’t Talk About It’: Navajo poets and their ordeals of language

by Anthony Webster

to appear in Journal of Anthropological Research

This article follows the theme of from self-suppression to expressive genres as a way to investigate Navajo poets’... more This article follows the theme of from self-suppression to expressive genres as a way to investigate Navajo poets’ ordeals with languages. If ordeals of languages arise from languages as objects of scrutiny, then intimate grammars can be seen as the use of expressive genres in the face of such ordeals of language. I look first at the ways that Navajo is an object of scrutiny and how as an object of scrutiny Navajos have self-suppressed speaking Navajo. I then turn to the practice of Navajos of feigning monolingualism in Navajo to avoid interacting with “outsiders” and to remove their uses of non-mainstream Navajo English from external scrutiny. I then turn to the ways Navajo poets continue to use Navajo English in their poetry and to the ways that Navajo poets now write about social, environmental and political issues on the Navajo Nation. Here they resist a Navajo injunction doo ajinída ‘don’t talk about it’, which is meant to discourage critique that can be overheard by outsiders. I conclude by arguing that we can only understand Navajo poetry within the context of both emergent ordeals of languages and in the expressive satisfaction of intimate grammars.

"We don't know what we become:" Navajo Ethnopoetics and an Expressive Feature in a Poem by Rex Lee Jim

by Anthony Webster

co-authored with Blackhorse Mitchell, to appear in Anthropological Linguistics (2011)

The Apple Doesn't Fall Far From the Tree? : Kazakh-Speaking University Studetnts' Language Ideologies Concerning "Community"

by Erik Aasland

Paper presented at the UCLA Conference on Language and Identity in Central Asia, May 4, 2012.

The question for my project is: In an environment of mandatory proverb instruction for youth, what do youth express as... more The question for my project is: In an environment of mandatory proverb instruction for youth, what do youth express as significant by means of these same proverbs? I will explore how Kazakh-speaking college students use Kazakh proverbs to narrativize “community”. I will do this be evaluating their knowledge and use of Kazakh proverbs addressing such issues as nationalism/patriotism, unity, family, and ethnic identity.

Banjalung* - Transcript for a Language Course

by Thorold (Thor) May

* Banjalang, aka Bundjalung, Bunjalung, Badjalang, Banjalung & Bandjalang, is a middle Clarence dialect of a NSW, Australia Aboriginal language

This is a rudimentary phrase book for the Australian Aboriginal language Banjalung, constructed in co-operation with a... more This is a rudimentary phrase book for the Australian Aboriginal language Banjalung, constructed in co-operation with a surviving speaker and designed to encourage Banjalung language revival. It was undertaken in 1983 at the request of Southern Cross University (then Northern Rivers CAE) and local community members.

Mapping Moral Landscapes: Cartographies of Ascent and Descent in the Narratives of Pro-Life Activists

by Field Notes: A Journal of Collegiate Anthropology

By Tegan J. Gaetano

Published in Field Notes: A Journal of Collegiate Anthropology 4(1): 74-86. (May 2012)
Copyright ©2012 by Field Notes: A Journal of Collegiate Anthropology

The Supreme Court ruling of Roe v. Wade in 1973 brought to the fore of public consciousness in the United States two... more The Supreme Court ruling of Roe v. Wade in 1973 brought to the fore of public consciousness in the United States two dominant stances on the issue of abortion (i.e. pro-life and pro-choice), each organized around a rhetoric of moral vilification. As the sites of abortion practice, abortion clinics have since become theatres of contention, where conflicting imaginings of agency, reproduction, and personhood take shape and are experienced. This paper seeks to explore the relationship between morality, place, and imaginative practice in the narratives of pro-life activists working at the doors of Affiliated Medical Services, a women’s health clinic providing abortions in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Discourse about abortion experiences and activisms is treated reflexively as landscape talk – talk of how places are culturally recruited to stake out the values, histories, and identities of the individuals who occupy them. This paper argues that to better understand this process, there is a need to investigate how talk temporally and spatially located in the lived landscape is rooted in the imaginative landscape. How is abortion imaginatively rendered in talk? An answer to this question is approached by adopting Randall Lake’s (1984) heuristic model of an ascent-descent structure of moral discourse.

Field Notes: A Journal of Collegiate Anthropology 3(1) & 4(1)

by Field Notes: A Journal of Collegiate Anthropology

Field Notes: A Journal of Collegiate Anthropology


Volume 3 Number 1 May 2012

Published by the Anthropology Student Union (ASU) at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Editors-in-Chief
Elizabeth K. Spott and Adrienne C. Frie

Editorial Committee
William Balco, Brooke Drew, Andrew Dicks, Ashley Dunford, Karen Esche-Eiff, Abby Forster, Shannon Freire, Lara Ghisleni, Jennifer Haas, Spencer C. LeDoux, Lindsay Robinson, Eric Schuetz, and Megan Sharpless


Volume 4 Number 1 May 2012

Published by the Anthropology Student Union (ASU) at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Editor-in-Chief
Adrienne C. Frie

Editorial Board
William Balco, Matt Dalstrom, Jen-Li Ko, and Amy Samuelson

Editorial Committee
Andrew Dicks, Ashley Dunford, Abby Forster, Shannon Freire, Lara Ghisleni, Shukrani Gray, Jennifer Haas, Elissa Hulit, Alexis Jordan, Lindsay Robinson, Eric Schuetz, and Megan Sharpless

Occasional Reviewers
Lindsay Barone and Colin Halverson

Faculty Advisors
Tracy Heatherington and Bernard Perley

Field Notes: A Journal of Collegiate Anthropology
Department of Anthropology
290 Sabin Hall
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Milwaukee, WI 53202
414.229.4175
fldnotes@uwm.edu
http://www4.uwm.edu/StudentOrg/asu/Field_Notes.html

Contents:

Stone Beads of Ancient Afghanistan: Stylistic and Technical Analysis
– Geoffrey Ludvikmore Contents:

Stone Beads of Ancient Afghanistan: Stylistic and Technical Analysis
– Geoffrey Ludvik

Embedded Archaeology, Cultural Heritage, and the Iraq War – Alexis Jordan

Tri-Nodal Social Entanglements in Iron Age Sicily: Material and Social Transformation
– William Balco

An Explanation for the Current Sex Distribution in the Riverside Cemetery (20ME01), a Terminal Archaic Site, and Implications for a Possible Site Reinterpretation
– Katie Herrera

Osteological Analysis of Burials Recovered from the Schrage Site, (47FD581) Fond Du Lac County, Wisconsin
– Ashley Dunford

Mapping Optimal Prehistoric Clay Sources: Adapting Watson’s Method to GIS Technology
– Elissa Hulit

Mapping Moral Landscapes: Cartographies of Ascent and Descent in the Narratives of Pro-Life Activists
– Tegan J. Gaetano

Almost There: A Portrait of Peter Anton. Cultural reproduction, attitudes, and meaning in the category of outsider art
– Andrea Fritsch

Going AWOL: Alternative Responses to PTSD Stigma in the U.S. Military
– Katinka Hooyer

The Multiple Temporalities of a Burial Monument: The Tumulus at Hrib
– Adrienne C. Frie

Red Ocher Burial Variability: A test of the effect of outsider influence on the conservation of ritual forms
– Robert E. Ahlrichs

Throw Me a Bone! Modeling Meat-sharing Behaviors in Western Great Basin Households During the Late Archaic
– Emily Mueller Epstein

Reliability Study of Methods for Scoring a Non-Metric Human Osteological Trait
– Shannon Freire and Ashley Dunford

Intraregional Social Interaction in Late Prehistory: Paste Compositional Analysis of Oneota Pottery Vessels in the Lake Koshkonong Region
– Seth A. Schneider, Eric J. Schuetz, and Robert E. Ahlrichs

Energy Dispersive X-Ray Fluorescence and its Sensitivity to Thermally Induced Changes in Clay Bodies
– Elissa Hulit

Introduction: Ordeals of Language: Essays in Honor of Ellen B. Basso

by Juan Luis Rodriguez

Co-authored with Anthony K. Webster. Introduction to Special Issue of the Journal of Anthropological Research.

Do the Khanty need a Khanty Curriculum? Indigenous Concepts of School Education

by Stephan Dudeck

Ventsel, Aimar; Stephan Dudeck, Do the Khanty need a Khanty Curriculum? Indigenous Concepts of School Education. In: E. Kasten (Ed.) Bicultural Education in the North. Münster, New York, München, Berlin: Waxmann, 1998, 89-99.

Conceptualizing and Conventionalizing Style

by Chris Taylor

Work Notes on the Tavola Eugubine Tablet 1a, Script N462-N748

by Mel Copeland

The Tavola Eugubine is a series of bronze tablets found near the city of Gubbio. There are seven tablets, some of which are written on both sides. The tablets are said to be written in the Umbrian language and in Latin. The texts of the group tend to follow a common theme, that of an oration. This text is a highly repetitive, hierophantic oration dealing with a funeral and perhaps a secret Bacchanalian rite. The archeological context of the tables is of interest, whether the seven bronze tablets were found in situ as one collection. This text appears to be an eulogy to Lord Tito.

This is an update of our work on the Tavola Eugubine, tables 1a, IIB , III and IV (http://www.maravot.com/Translation_EugubineQ.html et al.). Changes produced on this page will be added to our Etruscan GlossaryA.pdf. All of the words in the glossary follow a grammar similar to Latin. One can easily discover that the several hundred texts on Etruscan Phrases all share a common language and grammar. This controverts the prevailing theory that the Etruscan language is not an Indo-European language. It also warrants further examination of the prevailing conclusion that the Tavola Eugubine is written in the Umbrian language.

Etruscan GlossaryA.xls/pdf. is an index to about 2,300 Etruscan words that are similar to Latin, French, Italian and Romanian. Declension patterns follow those in Latin. The 2,500 words = the repeated words in 6,000 words of the major extant texts. The texts have been frozen in time, covering ~700-400 B.C., representing a lens to understanding the early formation of Indo-European languages, particularly the early Italic-Latin-Celtic languages, such as Italian, French & Romanian / Dacian. (By 45 BC. the language was a dead language - no one understood or could write Etruscan.)

This GlossaryA works together with Indo-European Table 1 which refutes theories by the Pallottino school of thought that the Etruscan language is not Indo-European and an isolate, unlike any other language. It is very close to Latin and, curiously, Romanian, Italian and French. The Latin suffix, "us" shifts to "o" as in Italian (Titus vs Tito); first person conjugation patterns are similar to French and Romanian. This GlossaryA provides a quick look at the grammatical structure of the Etruscan language, how closely it coincides with Latin. A more detailed Declension Table can be seen on the Etruscan Phrases website. These PDF documents facilitate independent confirmation of the words in GlossaryA.xls , the Grammar and Declension Table. All words can be examined from actual images of texts on the Etruscan Phrases website. Over 150 texts, with about 6,000 words can be examined at Etruscan Phrases.

The Etruscans surfaced in Italy about 1,000 B.C., reputed to have arrived from Lydia / Phrygia. The Phrygians originated near Macedonia in Thrace, according to Herodotus. One may therefore inquire whether the ancient Thracians (Dacians, Gettae, modern Romanians), spoke a language common to the Phrygians, at the time of the Trojan War and after (~1180 B.C.). The Thracians, Phrygians and Lydians (also dead languages) were allies of the Trojans, according to the Iliad. Etruscan Phrases finds a common vocabulary among Latin, Italian, French, Romanian, Etruscan and Phrygian. While French, Spanish, Italian and Romanian are considered Romance languages, showing a similar Latin heritage, Etruscan is not, of course, a Romance language, as it preceded Latin, at least in the written form (giving Rome its alphabet).
Resolution of the Etruscan Mystery may be likened to Michael Ventris' decipherment of Linear B and Jean-François Champollion's decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphics using the Rosetta Stone - written in Egyptian hieroglyphics, Demotic and Greek.

The decipherment of Etruscan is a bit more challenging; since we have no multilingual Rosetta stone, but we do have enough vocabulary and grammar to establish that Etruscan is similar to Latin, French, Italian and Romanian. (Certainly far more vocabulary and a more extensive grammar are provided in Etruscan Phrases than that used by Ventris to claim translation of Linear B as an old form of Greek.)

We look forward to the time when a peer review of these Work Notes will warrant corrections to the prevailing record, showing that the Etruscan language was similar to Latin and decry the theory that the "Etruscan language is unlike any other and not an Indo-European language." The theory of a non-Indo-European Etruscan language is absolutely false.

There is a far richer record to be written of an Indo-European branch, dead as of ~400 B.C., that can shed light on the movements of the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age Italic peoples, perhaps out of southeastern Europe to Anatolia and then to Italy by sea. Herodotus, who recorded the Etruscan tradition, that they came from Lydia as a result of a long drought after the Trojan War, may be right. We mention this because there is more to be gained in sorting out the grammar at Etruscan Phrases - and possible confirmation of Herodotus - than can ever be hoped for in the bogus theory that "the Etruscan language is unlike any other language known to man." Wikipedia et al. should be corrected.

This text may be of interest to those interested how the liturgy of an Augur may compare to that of a modern liturgy.

Voice and moral accountability: Burlesque narratives in televised Hungarian political discourse

by David Boromisza-Habashi

Boromisza-Habashi, D. (2007). Voice and moral accountability: Burlesque narratives in televised Hungarian political discourse. SKY Journal of Linguistics, 20, 81-107.

The essay makes advances toward identifying the form and function of burlesque narrative as a discursive resource in... more The essay makes advances toward identifying the form and function of burlesque narrative as a discursive resource in broadcast interaction. It complements existing studies of burlesque in spoken discourse through the examination of situated interaction in a televised Hungarian political talk show (Sajtóklub). The study includes the analysis of a segment of interaction characterized as a bounded episode of interactionally managed burlesque narrative. Burlesque narratives are identified as narratives in which the speaker adopts a persona and performs imaginary actions in the ideological universe of an adversary that reveal the absurdity of that universe and the insidious motives of the adversary. The burlesque narrative emerges as a speech genre that speakers employ in the specific situational context of the political talk show and the discursive context of perceived political provocation (1) to render the adversary’s stance to a public issue absurd, (2) to mitigate their own accountability for the norm violation that this rendering may constitute in the eye of the lampooned adversary, (3) to create opportunities for participant affiliation by means of humor. The analysis also shows that in the extended context of Hungarian political discourse the burlesque narrative functions as a counter-discourse in opposition to a perceived dominant political discourse.

Une narration à deux voix

by Sandra Bornand

Published in "Cahiers de littérature orale, n°65/2009 - Autour de la performance", Paris, INALCO, 2010, pp.29-63

This article analyze an "extraordinary" narration by Djado Sekou, a Songhay-Zarma griot genealogist and... more This article analyze an "extraordinary" narration by Djado Sekou, a Songhay-Zarma griot genealogist and historian. It is narrated at the "Maison de la Radio" in Niamey on May 27 1987 and thus addresses a virtual audience, the radio audience. This poses an original problem for the griot who usually builds his narrations in direct interaction with his listeners. Djado Sekou must thus redefine his narrative strategy in order to adapt his discourse to his audience and his solution is totally original. Indeed, while numerous griots have narrated over the radio waves, only Djado Sekou narrates by using two voices, with the help of his co-performer, Karimou Saga. This article analyses this co-performence, its function and the representations it generates for Songhay-Zarma auditors.

__________

Cet article analyse une narration « extraordinaire » de Djado Sékou, un griot généalogiste et historien songhay-zarma (Niger). Le fait que celle-ci est narrée à la Maison de la Radio le 27 mai 1987 et qu'elle s'adresse donc à un auditoire virtuel, l'auditoire radiophonique pose un problème inédit au griot qui construit habituellement ses narrations directement en interaction avec ceux qui l'écoute. Il doit donc redéfinir sa stratégie narrative pour adapter son discours à ses auditeurs et la solution qu'il propose est tout à fait originale. En effet, si plusieurs griots ont réalisé des enregistrements à la radio, seul Djado Sékou met en place une narration à deux voix, à l'aide de son coénonciateur nommé Karimou Saga. Cet article analyse donc le problème de la coénonciation, de sa fonction et des représentations qu'elle induit chez les auditeurs songhay-zarma.