The Art of Language
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This book contributes to opening up disciplinary knowledge and offering connections between different approaches to language in contemporary linguistics. Rather than focusing on a particular single methodology or theoretical assumption, the volume presents part of the wealth of linguistic knowledge as an intertwined project, which combines numerous practices, positionalities and perspectives. The editors believe¸ together with the contributors to this volume¸ that it is a crucial and timely task to emphasize the relevance of linguistic knowledge on power, hospitality, social class, marginalization, mobility, history, secrecy, the structures of discourse, and the construction of meaning, as knowledge that needs to be brought together – as it is brought together in personal discussions, conversations and encounters. To work along traces of linguistic connectivity, marginalized narratives, in and on lesser studied (often stigmatized) language practices and to shed light on the tasks of linguistics in making diverse knowledges transparent—this offers spaces for critical discussion on the ethics of linguistics, its challenges, contributions and tasks. These are the approaches that are characteristic for the work of Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald, to whom this book is dedicated.
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Anne Storch is a Professor of African Linguistics at the University of Cologne. Her principal research has been on the various languages of Nigeria (including Jukun and Maaka), on the Atlantic language region, on Western Nilotic (Southern Sudan and Uganda), with a current interest in Digo (Kenya). Her work combines contributions on cultural and social contexts of languages, the semiotics of linguistic practices, epistemes and ontologies of colonial linguistics, as well as linguistic description. She has contributed to the analysis of registers and choices, language as social practice, ways of speaking and complex repertoires. She is interested in epistemic language, metalinguistics, noise and silence, as well as language use in complicated settings, such as tourism.
R. M. W. Dixon is Adjunct Professor at Central Queensland University in Cairns. For forty years he reveled in on-the-spot fieldwork in Brazil, South Pacific, and especially in Australia. He has also put out two general books on Australian languages. Being equally intrigued with his native language, he has published several books about English grammar. Bob Dixon also enjoys looking for inductive generalisations which reveal the nature of human language, resulting the three-volume Basic Linguistic Theory (2010, 2012), among other works. His enterprise extends outwards from these foci, to kinship systems, the poetry of songs, the nature of linguistic evolution. He has been inspired by the linguistic acumen, insight, and integrity of Alexandra Aikhenvald, with whom he has had a long and prosperous partnership, as recounted in his academic autobiography I am a Linguist (Brill 2011). He has recently published The Essence of Linguistic Analysis (Brill 2021).
R. M. W. Dixon is Adjunct Professor at Central Queensland University in Cairns. For forty years he reveled in on-the-spot fieldwork in Brazil, South Pacific, and especially in Australia. He has also put out two general books on Australian languages. Being equally intrigued with his native language, he has published several books about English grammar. Bob Dixon also enjoys looking for inductive generalisations which reveal the nature of human language, resulting the three-volume Basic Linguistic Theory (2010, 2012), among other works. His enterprise extends outwards from these foci, to kinship systems, the poetry of songs, the nature of linguistic evolution. He has been inspired by the linguistic acumen, insight, and integrity of Alexandra Aikhenvald, with whom he has had a long and prosperous partnership, as recounted in his academic autobiography I am a Linguist (Brill 2011). He has recently published The Essence of Linguistic Analysis (Brill 2021).
Preface
List of Figures and Tables
Notes on Contributors
1 Linguistics as Art, Language as Joy
Anne Storch and R.M.W. Dixon
2 Truthiness and Language—Popular Perception and Fall-Out
Kate Burridge
3 At the Heart of the Murui
Katarzyna I. Wojtylak
4 While We Are Not yet Dead: Themes of Love and Loss in a Kandozi-Chapra Drinking Song
Simon Overall
5 Research, Rituals and Reciprocity: The Promises of Hospitality in Fieldwork
Rosita Henry and Michael Wood
6 Zande Politeness Strategies and Their Verbal Expressions
Helma Pasch
7 Sensual Language: Three Stories
Anne Storch
8 Othering Based on Communicative (In)competence: Examples from West Africa
Felix Ameka
9 On Politeness and the Expression of Socially Valued Behaviour in Tarma Quechua Verbs
Willem Adelaar
10 The Power of Kin Terms in White Hmong: Reinforcing Rights and Duties and Redefining Identity
Nerida Jarkey
11 Imbuing Words with Power in Ersu
Sihong Zhang
12 Commands, Curses, Blessings and Invocations among the Iraqw of Tanzania
Maarten Mous
13 Directive Speech Acts: Imperatives and Hortatives in Northen Amis (Austronesian)
Isabelle Bril
14 The Healing Words of the Ayoreo
Luca Ciucci
15 Kumatharo, Mother of the Tariana, Mother of the World
Jovino Brito
16 Appreciation of Alexandra Aikhenvald
James Sesu Laki
17 The Near Future Tense in Child and Child-Directed Nungon Speech: A Case Study
Hannah Sarvasy
18 Ngiä dm bloyag dand: Coconut Stories from Southern New Guinea
Dineke Schokkin
19 Code Copying and the Strength of Languages
Lars Johanson and Éva Á. Csató
20 Blurring the Lines at InField/CoLang: Examining Inclusion and Impacts
Carol Genetti and Carlos M. Nash
21 Working with the Last Guardians of a Language
R.M.W. Dixon
22 The Particle ba: A Mirative Strategy in Greek
Angeliki Alvanoudi
23 How Grammar Encodes Knowledge in Munya: Evidentiality, Egophoricity, and Mirativity
Junwei Bai
24 Nominal Incorporation in Shiwilu (Kawapanan): Nouns, Classifiers and the Deceased Marker =ku’
Pilar Valenzuela
25 Utilitarian versus Intellectualist Explanations of Lexical Content: A False Dichotomy
N.J. Enfield
26 On Language Use beyond the Sentence: The Role of Discourse Markers in Akie
Bernd Heine and Christa König
27 The Semantics of Adverbial Clause Linking in Mongolic Languages: Evaluation of Events and Relations between Them
Elena Skribnik
Index
List of Figures and Tables
Notes on Contributors
1 Linguistics as Art, Language as Joy
Anne Storch and R.M.W. Dixon
Part 1 How to Be Welcoming and Hospitable
2 Truthiness and Language—Popular Perception and Fall-Out
Kate Burridge
3 At the Heart of the Murui
Katarzyna I. Wojtylak
4 While We Are Not yet Dead: Themes of Love and Loss in a Kandozi-Chapra Drinking Song
Simon Overall
5 Research, Rituals and Reciprocity: The Promises of Hospitality in Fieldwork
Rosita Henry and Michael Wood
6 Zande Politeness Strategies and Their Verbal Expressions
Helma Pasch
7 Sensual Language: Three Stories
Anne Storch
8 Othering Based on Communicative (In)competence: Examples from West Africa
Felix Ameka
9 On Politeness and the Expression of Socially Valued Behaviour in Tarma Quechua Verbs
Willem Adelaar
Part 2 How to Imbue Words with Power
10 The Power of Kin Terms in White Hmong: Reinforcing Rights and Duties and Redefining Identity
Nerida Jarkey
11 Imbuing Words with Power in Ersu
Sihong Zhang
12 Commands, Curses, Blessings and Invocations among the Iraqw of Tanzania
Maarten Mous
13 Directive Speech Acts: Imperatives and Hortatives in Northen Amis (Austronesian)
Isabelle Bril
14 The Healing Words of the Ayoreo
Luca Ciucci
Part 3 How to Keep Languages Strong
15 Kumatharo, Mother of the Tariana, Mother of the World
Jovino Brito
16 Appreciation of Alexandra Aikhenvald
James Sesu Laki
17 The Near Future Tense in Child and Child-Directed Nungon Speech: A Case Study
Hannah Sarvasy
18 Ngiä dm bloyag dand: Coconut Stories from Southern New Guinea
Dineke Schokkin
19 Code Copying and the Strength of Languages
Lars Johanson and Éva Á. Csató
20 Blurring the Lines at InField/CoLang: Examining Inclusion and Impacts
Carol Genetti and Carlos M. Nash
21 Working with the Last Guardians of a Language
R.M.W. Dixon
Part 4 How to Make Language Transparent
22 The Particle ba: A Mirative Strategy in Greek
Angeliki Alvanoudi
23 How Grammar Encodes Knowledge in Munya: Evidentiality, Egophoricity, and Mirativity
Junwei Bai
24 Nominal Incorporation in Shiwilu (Kawapanan): Nouns, Classifiers and the Deceased Marker =ku’
Pilar Valenzuela
25 Utilitarian versus Intellectualist Explanations of Lexical Content: A False Dichotomy
N.J. Enfield
26 On Language Use beyond the Sentence: The Role of Discourse Markers in Akie
Bernd Heine and Christa König
27 The Semantics of Adverbial Clause Linking in Mongolic Languages: Evaluation of Events and Relations between Them
Elena Skribnik
Index
Because of its wide-ranging ambit, this volume will appeal to senior students, teachers, and researchers across many subfields of linguistics. The inclusion of important topics in cross-disciplinary areas will ensure that the book is of considerable interest to cognitive psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists and applied linguists.