Gunter Senft

Semantic typology and spatial conceptualization

This project collected linguistic data for spatial relations across a typologically and genetically varied set of languages. In the linguistic analysis, we focus on the ways in which propositions may be functionally equivalent across the linguistic communities while nonetheless representing semantically quite distinctive frames of reference. Running nonlinguistic experiments on subjects from these language communities, we find that a populations cognitive frame of reference correlates with the linguistic frame of reference within the same referential domain.

Referring to space : studies in Austronesian and Papuan languages

The first aim of this anthology is to illustrate the variety of resources that Austronesian and Papuan languages offer their speakers for referring to space. The languages here described are spread from Madagascar to Tonga, and there are many differences between them. They also offer a striking contrast to Indo-European languages, and call into question universalistic claims about human spatial concepts and spatial reference based solely on evidence from Indo-European languages and their speakers. There are, however, striking parallels between the kinds of systems that languages offer and that their speakers employ when referring to space. Understanding the differences in the ways that coordinate systems are used requires not only linguistic, but also cultural, historical, and geographical knowledge. Thus the second aim of the collection is to illustrate the necessity of an interdisciplinary approach to the topic of space if we are to understand the underlying logic of conceptions of space manifest in verbal expressions. The first three papers offer overviews of the conception of space in Austronesian languages and analyse the coordinate systems employed for spatial reference. The seven papers which follow offer anthropological linguistic descriptions of directionals and locatives in Austronesian and Papuan languages, and the last three contributions offer a more structurally-oriented perspective.

Ritual Communication and Linguistic Ideology: A Reading and Partial Reformulation of Rappaport's Theory of Ritual

This article examines Roy Rappaports theory of ritual from the point of view of recent work on linguistic ideology. Rappaports theory, I argue, can best be understood as an attempt to marry the performative approach to ritual to one that regards ritual as a form of communication. Rappaport effects this synthesis through an argument about the indexical qualities of performatively produced signs and goes on to argue that because ritual produces indexical signs, it is a uniquely trustworthy channel of communication. Because language is an untrustworthy channel of communication, prone to carrying misrepresentations and lies, people turn to ritual to make up for languages shortcomings. Here, Rappaports argument requires reformulation. His assumptions about language reflect a particular linguistic ideology. Where that ideology is in force, ritual will likely play the role he suggests, but where it is not, ritual will be evaluated differently. I illustrate this with examples from Melanesia and the history of Christianity in the West. The force of this reformulation is an insistence on the need for any theory of ritual as communication to situate its claims in relation to broader issues of linguistic ideology and cultural constructions of communication.

How to tell - and understand - a dirty joke in Kilivila

Jokes made by ‘rather exotic’ speech communities are hardly to be found in the literature on aspects of humor. This paper presents and analyzes a joke told by a Trobriand islander in the Kilivila language. The analysis emphasizes the fact that to understand the contents, the humor of a joke, and the way the joke is told depends on one’s knowledge of the pragmatic conventions of the speech community in which this joke is told. Moreover it is shown that jokes within the Kilivila speech community are just one class of speech acts that constitute a special ‘situational-intentional’ language variety which is called biga sopa. This Kilivila concept of sopa is defined and its social function is explained.

Prolegomena to Kilivila grammar of space

This chapter presents preliminary remarks on some of the central linguistic means speakers of Kilivila use in expressing their conceptions of space, that is, for referring to objects, persons and events in space. After a brief characterization of the language and its speakers, the chapter sketches how specific topological relations are encoded, how motion events are described and what frames of spatial reference are preferred in what contexts for what means and ends. The paper ends with a summary of the major patterns in topology, motion and frames of references, and with a programmatic outline of how to write a complete grammar of space.

Mahnreden auf den Trobriand Inseln Eine Fallstudie

Die Aussage, das die Diskussion uber »Theorie und Empirie«, uber »Theorie und Praxis« — gerade auch wegen ihrer grosen philosophisch-wissenschaftshistorischen Tradition — immer wieder notwendig und geboten ist, sollte eigentlich inzwischen dem Bereich des Trivialen angehoren. Findet man allerdings in einem 1983 erschienenen »Lexikon linker Gemeinplatze« den Eintrag »Theorie und Praxis (Einheit von)«, dann stimmt einen das doch schon eher nachdenklich. Das man manchmal die (fast schmerzliche) Erfahrung machen mus, das leider immer noch auf die Notwendigkeit dieser Diskussion — die eben keinesfalls zu einem »Gemeinplatz« verkommen darf -hinzuweisen ist, mochte ich unter anderem auch im folgenden am Beispiel der Erfahrungen im Rahmen meiner sprachwissenschaftlichen Beschaftigung mit dem Kilivila, der Sprache der Trobriander, verdeutlichen.

“Masawa—bogeokwa si tuta!”: Cultural and Cognitive Implications of the Trobriand Islanders’ Gradual Loss of Their Knowledge of How to Make a Masawa Canoe

This chapter describes— how the Trobriand Islanders of Papua New Guinea used to build their large seagoing masawa canoes and make their sails; what forms of different knowledge and expertise they needed during various stages of the construction processes; how this knowledge was socially distributed; and the social implications of all the joint communal activities necessary before a new canoe could be launched.

Talking about color and taste on the Trobriand Islands: A diachronic study

ABSTRACT How stable is the lexicon for perceptual experiences? this article presents results on how the trobriand Islanders of Papua New Guinea talk about color and taste and whether this has changed over the years. comparing the results of research on color terms conducted in 1983 with data collected in 2008 revealed that many English color terms have been integrated into the Kilivila lexicon. Members of the younger generation with school education have been the agents of this language change. However, today not all English color terms are produced correctly according to English lexical semantics. the traditional Kilivila color terms bwabwau ‘black,’ pupwakau ‘white,’ and bweyani ‘red’ are not affected by this change, probably because of the cultural importance of the art of coloring canoes, big yams houses, and bodies. comparing the 1983 data on taste vocabulary with the results of my 2008 research revealed no substantial change. the conservatism of the trobriand Islanders’ taste vocabulary may be related to the conservatism of their palate. Moreover, they are more interested in displaying and exchanging food than in savoring it. Although English color terms are integrated into the lexicon, Kilivila provides evidence that traditional terms used for talking about color and terms used to refer to tastes have remained stable over time.

Tales from the Trobriand Islands of Papua New Guinea: Psycholinguistic and anthropological linguistic analyses of tales told by Trobriand children and adults

This volume presents 22 tales from the Trobriand Islands told by children (boys between the age of 5 and 9 years) and adults. The monograph is motivated not only by the anthropological linguistic aim to present a broad and quite unique collection of tales with the thematic approach to illustrate which topics and themes constitute the content of the stories, but also by the psycholinguistic and textlinguistic questions of how children acquire linearization and other narrative strategies, how they develop them and how they use them to structure these texts in an adult-like way. The tales are presented in morpheme-interlinear transcriptions with first textlinguistic analyses and cultural background information necessary to fully understand them. A summarizing comparative analysis of the texts from a psycholinguistic, anthropological linguistic and philological point of view discusses the underlying schemata of the stories, the means narrators use to structure them, their structural complexity and their cultural specificity.

Theory meets Practice – H. Paul Grice’s Maxims of Quality and Manner and the Trobriand Islanders’ language use

As I have already pointed out elsewhere (Senft 2008; 2010; 2014), the Gricean conversational maxims of Quality – “Try to make your contribution one that is true” – and Manner “Be perspicuous”, specifically “Avoid obscurity of expression” and “Avoid ambiguity” (Grice 1967; 1975; 1978) – are not observed by the Trobriand Islanders of Papua New Guinea, neither in forms of their ritualized communication nor in forms and ways of everyday conversation and other ordinary verbal interactions. The speakers of the Austronesian language Kilivila metalinguistically differentiate eight specific non-diatopical registers which I have called “situational-intentional” varieties. One of these varieties is called “biga sopa”. This label can be glossed as “joking or lying speech, indirect speech, speech which is not vouched for”. The biga sopa constitutes the default register of Trobriand discourse and conversation. This contribution to the workshop on philosophy and pragmatics presents the Trobriand Islanders’ indigenous typology of non-diatopical registers, especially elaborating on the concept of sopa, describing its features, discussing its functions and illustrating its use within Trobriand society. It will be shown that the Gricean maxims of quality and manner are irrelevant for and thus not observed by the speakers of Kilivila. On the basis of the presented findings the Gricean maxims and especially Grice’s claim that his theory of conversational implicature is “universal in application” is critically discussed from a general anthropological-linguistic point of view.