From Grammar to Politics: Linguistic Anthropology in a Western Samoan Village / Edition 1

by Alessandro Duranti

Overview

Alessandro Duranti explores the way traditional oratory in a Samoan village is shaped by the needs of the political process and shows how language insulates ceremonial speakers from the perils of everyday confrontation. He proposes a "moral flow hypothesis" in discourse, to describe a grammar that distributes praise and blame and in that way defines the standing of individuals in the community. This ethnographic journey from linguistic to political anthropology demonstrates that the analysis of grammar in context needs ethnography just as much as the conduct of politics needs grammatical analysis.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780520083851
Publisher:	University of California Press
Publication date:	08/22/1994
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	232
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Alessandro Duranti is Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Table of Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

1
Introduction

The Place of Grammar
The Political and Moral Dimensions of Grammatical Choices
Getting to the "Facts"
Intertextuality and Heteroglossia
Representations of the Social Order Change
Talk and Conflict: The Relevance of Genre Distinctions
What Kind of Pragmatics Is This?
A Speech Event Approach

2
Methods as Forms of Life

Field Linguistics
Ethnographic Linguistics
In Search of a Method
The NSF Project
Research Agendas and Acquired Social Identities
Interviews, Metalinguistic Awareness, and Native Taxonomies
Discovering the Fono
Interpreting the Texts
The Fa)alupega or Ceremonial Address of Falefa
What's in a Transcript?
Writing Interaction

3
Hierarchies in the Making: Space, Time, and Speaking in a Fono

A Love for Order and Its Permutations
Space
Temporal Boundaries
Speaking
Conclusions

4
Politics and Verbal Art: Heteroglossia in the Fono

Variations across Contexts
The Lauga Plan
The Lauga as an Epic Genre
Formalized Language and Power
Variations within the Fono
Conclusions

5
The Grammar of Agency in Political Discourse

The Content of Political Speechmaking
Grammatical Structures as Framing Devices
The Expression of Agency in Samoan Grammar
Ergative Agents in Fono Discourse: Claims of Accountability
Human Agents in the Fono Discussion
Mitigated Agency
Agency and Power
Conclusions

6
From Political Arenas to Everyday Settings: The Grammar of Agency across Contexts

The Expression of Agency across Social Situations
In Search of Fully Expressed Agents
The Politics of Everyday Interaction I: Blaming
The Politics of Everyday Interaction II: Giving Credit
Illocutionary Force of Transitive Clauses with Agents
Conclusions

7
Conclusions

Ethnographic Linguistics
Conflict and Grammar
The Grammar of Human Agency: From Information Flow to Moral Flow
Narrative Accounts
Samoan Politics

APPENDIX: ABBREVIATIONS IN INTERLINEAR GLOSSES

NOTES
REFERENCES
INDEX