Question: 155 Native American Languages and Cultures-Study Guide #2
Newman, Stanley 1955. "Vocabulary Levels: Zuni Sacred and Slang". In Hymes (ed.) Language in Culture and Society New York: Harper, pp. 397 -402.
Note: The author was a student of Edward Sapir at Chicago and later Yale University. His dissertation was on Yokuts-an indigenous language of Central California-but because he became a Professor of Anthropology at UNM, he had an opportunity to work with nearby languages such as Zuni. This article is published almost 10 years before Dell Hymes even calls for an ethnography of communication yet it clearly deals with contextual and cultural issues.
1. Newman talks about the evaluation of words and how word associations make even synonyms (words that mean the "same") differ in meaning and appropriateness. How are Zuni sacred, neutral, and slang levels distinguished in terms of context-who uses them, where, for what purpose?
2. How does Newman define "speech level"? Is this something like what you would call "style"?
3. Why does Newman not want us to regard Zuni linguistic practices of exclusion as "linguistic purism"? What is his preferred alternative analysis?
4. What does Newman say about social stratification (hierarchy) at Zuni?
5. What does Newman say in his conclusion? Is this paper about the kind of choices we make when we decide how to speak appropriately (in cultural contexts)?
Foster, Michael 1974. "When Words Become Deeds: An Analysis of Three Iroquois Longhouse Speech Events." In R. Bauman and J. Sherzer (eds.) Explorations in the Ethnography of Speaking. New York: Cambridge, pp. 354 -67.
Note: Michael Foster is another successful student of Dell Hymes from the University of Pennsylvania. In this writing he attempts to synthesize then current research coming from the school of thought in Philosophy commonly referred to as "ordinary language" philosophy-a school that includes such scholars as Austin, Searle, and others. He was a researcher for the Canadian Museum of Civilization, Ontario.
1. What does Foster mean by "performative" and how is this concept relevant to understanding Iroquiouian Longhouse Speech events?
2. What does the author mean by a Native theory of speech acts?
3. "Preparatory conditions" are required contextual features for a speech act to "count". What are the preparatory conditions that Foster discusses regarding Longhouse speech.
4. What Hymes called "emotional tone or tenor-Key" is very important for the person appointed speaker in acts of Thanksgiving and other ceremonies. What specifically is required of speakers?
5. What do the many quotes from Longhouse religious authorities suggest about the importance of metalanguage and metadiscourse for this group and these activities? Metalanguage, of course, is talk about talk.
Basso, Keith H. 1972. "To Give Up on Words: Silence in Western Apache Culture". In P. Giglioli (ed.) Language and Social Context. London: Penguin, pp. 67-85.[Reprinted in WALC pp. 80 -98.]
Note : While an undergraduate at Harvard, Keith Basso took Anthropology courses with the great Psychological Anthropologist Clyde Kluckhohn who researched Navajo communities. For his Ph.D. he studied with Charles Frake, one of the few cultural anthropologists who actively contributed to the Ethnography of Communication movement of the 1960's and 70's. This is one of his earliest published studies of a Western Apache group that he would continuously study for 40+ years until his retirement from the University of New Mexico. In retirement he now lives on a ranch adjacent to the Apache community.
1. When do Western Apaches remain silent-what are the types of situation?
2. What generalization does Basso make about when, in general, members of this community choose silence?
3. Is this an observational study-does Basso talk about what Apaches are doing when they are NOT talking?
4. How does Basso attempt to get at the Apache point of view-what methods does he use?
5. Would you agree that in almost all the cases that Apaches choose silence , Euro- Americans would normally talk? What do you make of this?
Black, Robert A. 1967. "Hopi Grievance Chants: A Mechanism of Social
Control." In D. Hymes and W. Bittle (eds.) Studies in Southwestern Ethnolinguistics. The Hague: Mouton, pp. 54 -67.
Note: The author was a student of Carl Voegelin at Indiana University. He worked on Hopi culture for several decades and published a book on the first Hopi-Tewa judge on the Hopi Reservation shortly before the author's death almost a decade ago. Professor Black taught at
CSU-Heyward and UC-Berkeley as a lecturer in both Anthropology and Native American Studies. This chapter reflects Black's dissertation research.
1. Apply the SPEAKING model: who are the speakers, the hearers, the maximal effective level or instrumentality that should be used?
2. Why are grievance chants performed?
3. How are they structured?
4. Are grievance chants related to sacred chants?
5. What is a non-casual speech form (Voegelin) and how is that notion relevant to greivance chants?
Briggs, Charles L. 1992. "Since I am a Woman, I will Chastise My Relations": Gender, Reported Speech, and the (Re)Production of Social Relations in Warao Ritual Wailing. American Ethnologist 19:337 -361.
Note: The author earned his doctoral degree at the University of Chicago in 1981. He has authored and co-authored many books on Hispano material culture and verbal art in Northern New Mexico, on confrontational talk, on modern language philosophies as language ideologies, on medical institutional racism in allowing the spread of a cholera epidemic among the Warao of
Venezuela. He has served as a Professor of Ethnic Studies at UCSD and Stanford and is currently a Professor of Anthropology at UC Berkeley.
1. Within the Warao community, various discourse genres are "gendered"? Which are for men, and which for women?
2. Why is public ritual weeping more than just a personal expression of sorrow?
3. What is sana as a genre? How is it performed? What cultural assumptions about women's use of this genre make it a powerful social force?
4. How are notions of gender-specific expression of emotion related to cultural differences in the expression of grief?
5. How does Briggs succeed in presenting ritual wailing not simply as a set of communicative norms but as a form of social process within Warao society?
Graham, Laura. 1993. A Public Sphere in Amazonia?: the De-personalized Collaborative Construction of Discourse in Xavante. American Ethnologist 20:717-41.
Note: Laura Graham is a professor of linguistic anthropology at the University of Iowa. She was trained at the University of Texas where she worked under the direction of Professor Greg Urban. Her work has dealt with indigenous rights in South America and she has researched both indigenous political activity as well as indigenous participation in the national politics of Brazil.
1. Describe the sociologist/philosopher Habermas's ideas about the "public sphere" and how democratic political decision making develops in modern Europe as it emerges from its feudal past. What are the assumptions about how the many take over the political decision making that was formerly reserved for the very few?
2. What is the central goal of this paper in regard to thinking about how Xavante political meetings (wara) provide a different way of thinking about collective political action?
3. What is the principle of negativity? Why is it relevant here?
4. How is negativity used in men's council meetings to avoid factionalist impasses and to create something that approaches group consensus?
5. What are some of the formal features of wara (council) discourse?
6. Thought question: how is political action different for groups like the Xavante than for Europeans and presumably Euro-American political discourse?