Title: Is Arabic A Polysynthetic Language?
Denise Yazbeck
dyazbeck@unm.edu
In this paper, I will describe some of the basic properties of Arabic morphology,and will attempt to argue that Arabic shares most of the characteristics of polysynthetic languages and therefore could easily be classified as such. This argument is based on Sapir and Fortescue‚s definitions of the term. As we will observe, Arabic meets the following criteria: It is a highly synthetic language with a large inventory of bound morphemes, has a rich system of prefixes, infixes, and suffixes, all expressing numerous categories on the verb, and where grammatical relations are found to be highly fused with the root meaning. We also find pronoun incorporation,head marking inflections and a relative free word order. Because the verb in these high or poly-synthetic languages plays a central and a complex role, capable of expressing a complete clause at times, I have opted to restrict my analyses to the verbal morphology of Arabic in its morphosemantic and morphosyntactic patterns. Examples are extracted from the Bible written in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), and from other literature.
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Title: Modality in Keresan
Jordan Lachler
lachler@unm.edu <mailto:@unm.edu>
The languages of the Keresan family are spoken in seven Pueblos (Eastern Keres: Santo Domingo, Santa Ana, San Felipe, Zia, and Cochiti; Western Keres: Acoma and Laguna) located in central New Mexico. Keresan is an isolate, not known to be related to any other language family, and is also among the least well documented of all native North American language families.
The focus of this paper will be a detailed description of the system of inflectional modality in the Keresan verb. The basic Keresan verb is composed of an inflectional prefix and a verb base. The inflectional prefix is a portmanteau, expressing the person (but not the number) of the agent and/or patient argument(s) of the verb, plus one of several modes. There are three basic modes, termed Factual, Dubitative and Hortative. The Factual is used in declarative statements, in possessives, nominalized clauses and wh-questions. The Dubitative is used in narratives, in giving second-hand information, in statements expressing doubt (e.g. "maybe they will come"), and in yes-no questions. The Hortative is used in imperatives, not just for second person, but also for first and third. Example forms from Santa Ana (Davis 1965:143-144): sèku "I bit him" (Factual), tèku "maybe I bit him" (Dubitative), and kàku "let me bite him" (Hortative).
Beyond these three basic modes, Eastern Keres also has two more modes, the Negative Hortative, used to express prohibitions (e.g. "don‚t look at it!"), and the Future Hortative, used for delayed imperatives (e.g. "look at it later!"). These modes are absent in Western Keres. Example forms from Santa Ana (Davis 1965:144): báamíí k‚àku "don‚t bite me", and ba ch‚àku "bite me later!"
Lastly, there is the Negative mode, which occurs in both Eastern and Western Keres. It requires the presence of the negative particle dzádzi (< dzá "no" plus dzii "thing") before the verb (e.g. Santa Ana dzádzi sr‚àku "I didn‚t bite you"). The Negative has been called a "defective" mode (Valiquette 1990:40), because it has unique forms only in the cases of a first person acting on a third person (1>3), and a third person acting on first person (3>1). According to Valiquette (1990:43) and Davis (1965:80-81), all other person combinations in the Negative mode are expressed using dzádzi plus the corresponding Factual mode prefix form.
However, an analysis of a large corpus of traditional narratives in Western Keres (Boas:1925) shows that this is not an accurate description. Rather, in cases other than 1>3 and 3>1 in the Negative mode, either the corresponding Factual or Dubitative mode prefixes may be used, in line with the general patterns of mode use described above. Thus, in narratives, it is the Dubitative mode forms, and not the Factual forms, which co-occur with dzáádzí (the Western Keres form of dzádzi) as shown below.
Wagu dzaadzi hauwi dyutuuni.
just not someone he/she.knew.it[dub]
"Nobody knew it." (Boas 1925 05.058)
These data raise the question of exactly how many modes there are in Keresan; for instance, is there a separate Negative Factual mode, or is there just a morphological rule that overrides the normal Factual forms with special Negative forms in the cases of 1>3 and 3>1? I will argue that the best solution to the question of modality in Keresan can be reached by taking a construction-based approach (Bybee 2001, Langacker 2000, Rubba 1993), which sees paradigms as emergent from the organization of verbal forms in the lexicon.
References
Boas, Franz. 1925. Keresan Texts. American Ethnological Society.
Bybee, Joan. 2000. Phonology and Language Use. Cambridge University Press.
Davis, Irvine. 1965. The Language of Santa Ana Pueblo. Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 191, pp.53-190. Smithsonian Institution.
Langacker, Ronald W. 2000. A Dynamic Usage-Based Model. In Usage Based Models of Language ed. By Michael Barlow and Suzanne Kemmer. CSLI Publications.
Rubba, Johanna E. 1993. Discontinuous Morphology in Modern Aramaic. San Diego: University of California Dissertation.
Valiquette, Hilaire. 1990. A Study for a Lexicon of Laguna Keresan. UNM Dissertation.
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Title: Contributions of the Discourse Marker 'Okay' in the Collocation 'Okay But'
Keri Holley
krholley@unm.edu
This study aims to uncover the semantic and pragmatic contributions provided by okay when it is used as a discourse marker and appears in collocations such as okay but and oh okay but. Using natural spoken discourse data from the Switchboard telephone corpus, the results of this investigation show that there are different distributions of usage for the collocations. It is posited that the difference in distribution arises from different information management needs between participants. Specifically, a shift in polarity from a positive to a negative utterance (or vice versa) may account for the presence or absence of the discourse marker in the collocation. A contrast between whether the shift in polarity occurs in an utterance delivered by the same speaker or by different speakers is examined. It is suggested that a shift in semantic or pragmatic polarity of the utterance and the identity of the speaker of the upcoming turn predicts the nature of the collocation and the inclusion of the discourse marker. The roles of information flow management and face-saving strategies in this process are discussed.
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Title: When you can say "no" in Japanese: A discourse analysis of TV talk shows.
Mami O. McCraw
mamimc@hotmail.com
The communicative style of the Japanese people is known as intuitive and indirect. In Japan, which is a culturally homogeneous country, people value sasshi Œan ability to understand another person‚s thoughts and feelings‚ and wa Œharmony‚. Saying simply "No" may break wa, thus it is something people want to avoid. Various indirect strategies for denial or refusal are used such as silence, ambiguity, apologies, and even lies. Nonetheless, there are occasions when the Japanese people say "No". This study focused on the use of ie, ieie, iya, and iyaiya (the conversational versions of iie Œno‚) in Japanese. The data taken from two kinds of Japanese TV talk shows were analyzed. The subjects were eight celebrities (three males, four females, and one transsexual person). Thirty-nine instances of "the Japanese ŒNo‚s" (any of the four conversational forms of Œno‚ in Japanese) were found out of 145-minute videotaped conversations. There were gender differences in choosing the forms: Although both men and women used iya most often (59.1% and 76.9% respectively), men did not use ie (0%) and women did not use iyaiya (0%); The transsexual person showed a different pattern. It was also found that the speaker used these different forms for different functions. The data were categorized based on four types of functions: 1) The simple correction of facts, 2) The expression of humbleness, 3) A discourse marker, 4) Other functions. The outcome showed that the Japanese people say "No" to correct simple facts but not others‚ opinions. There are occasions when the speaker should say "No" such as when receiving compliments and when hearing negative comments about the interlocutor. Iya has a function as a discourse marker similar to "well" in English. These results were discussed along with the concept of "face" (the positive self-image) proposed by Goffman (1967). It was concluded that both saying "No" and not saying "No" are motivated by face-saving endeavor.
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Title: Narrative Co-construction of Collaborative Experience
Vera John-Steiner vygotsky@unm.edu
Christopher Shank chrc@unm.edu
Teresa Meehan tmeehan@7cities.net
Joint thinking and the co-construction of knowledge, which are the trademarks of collaborative relationships and experiences, are inherently dynamic, individually internalized, intensely personal processes. Participants must be willing to orient, integrate, and coordinate with one another on a number of discrete levels, paths, or trajectories in order to achieve the intellectual interdependence and mutual appropriation and exchange of knowledge, concepts, and ideas necessary for a "successful" or truly productive collaborative endeavor.
To conduct our analysis on the co-constructive nature of collaborative experiences we utilized series of joint interviews, with 11 different sets of dyadic collaborators, conducted by Vera John-Steiner in preparation for her most recent book "Creative Collaboration". The participants were all long-term collaborators that came from a variety of disciplines, occupations‚, and professional backgrounds‚. (Themes from initial pilot interviews were used to develop a collaborative Q-sort instrument.) Each dyad was interviewed using a collaborative Q-sort instrument, developed by John-Steiner and Kathryn Miller. By using a Vygotskyian approach we were able to provided a theoretical framework for our methodological approach for this study. These consisted of the participants‚ reconstruction of the partners‚ collaborative history and the role of metaphors in illuminating the collaborative experience.
Our early analyses focused on the quantity and quality of discourse structures that occurred during their joint narrative reconstructions. This included examining the distribution of turns, average utterance length, percentage of overlaps and frequency of joint constructions of a thought. In addition, we distinguished three different patterns of collaboration: complementary, family, and integrative.
Additional study revealed 261 different metaphors that fell into the following three meta- categories: collaborative process, collaborative relationship, and the nature of ideas. Our most significant finding at this level was the revelation that both men and women, although with slightly differing degrees of frequency, made use of a large number of kinesthetically oriented metaphors that dealt with touch, motion, shaping and placement. The richness of the kinesthetic metaphors, especially when describing aspects of the nature of ideas was an unanticipated discovery. These narratives, and their analysis, also revealed how the participants, themselves, conceptualized the nature and type of the co-construction of ideas in their collaborative endeavors.
In summary, this study provides a fine-grained analysis of jointly constructed narratives, which complements existing literature on individual accounts of constructive or creative experiences.
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Title: Acquisition of L2 phonology: An alternative view based on cognates, interference, and frequency effects
Bethany B. A. Muller
bethany@unm.edu
Abstract
The focus of this study was to determine if Spanish vowels could be acquired with native-like proficiency by English speakers learning Spanish as a second language. The primary objective was to determine if the type of interference from English suggests that frequency effects in the L1 are a significant factor in the acquisition of L2 phonology. The role that cognates play in the domain of frequency effects was investigated, and it was predicted that speakers will likely rely on the previously established mental representation of the L1 form of the cognate when accessing the cognate for production in the L2. This exploratory study examined data from six participants; due to the small sample size, the data can only be considered as preliminary insight to how frequency effects, cognates, and interference could be integrated in an explanatory theory of L2 phonological acquisition. The six participants consisted of two native Spanish speakers, two advanced level Spanish learners (L1 English), and two beginning level Spanish learners (L1 English). The stimuli consisted of ten written, Spanish sentences, which the participants were asked to read aloud. The readings were recorded and later analyzed using a computerized system for doing phonological analysis known as PRAAT. Certain word pairs were used to investigate the notion of how strong the mental representation is of a cognate in the native language, which might presumably lead to greater L1 interference. The pair confusio@n/profusa was selected to analyze the values of /u/ for each speaker, and the pair interesante/invierno was used to analyze the values for /i/. A more general discussion is also presented of findings from across-group variation of the pronunciation of interesante and in the timing of the segment, es profusa la nieve. The hypothesis that frequently used English words and morphemes have an effect on the acquisition of L2 phonology was supported in the data from the beginning L2 learners. However, data from the advanced L2 learners suggest that continued use of the L2 may enable second language learners to create new mental representations in order to avoid L1 interference. Furthermore, the advanced learners‚ performance suggested that, in some cases, they overcompensated for their L1 tendencies. When simply listening to their recordings this overcompensation was not detected; it was only apparent through the detailed analysis available from the PRAAT program.
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Title: From Shakespeare to Dickens: A Diachronic Study of English Contractions
Paul Edmunds
pedmunds@unm.edu
Abstract
This study examines diachronic change of English contractions for the verbs be, have, will, and would with personal pronouns between the time of Shakespeare‚s writing (early 17th century) and Dickens‚ work (early 19th century). Analysis of the corpora of 6 Shakespeare plays and 1 Dickens text (averaging 145,000 words for each author) show that relative frequency of use of contractions increased diachronically in almost all categories analyzed. Findings show that the verbs be and have tended to show more contraction with third-person pronouns, while the inherently more modal will and would showed more contraction with first-person pronouns.
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Title: Processing Signed Nonsense Words: An Examination of Acceptability
Brenda Nicodemus and James MacFarlane
nicodemusb@aol.com and jmacfarl@unm.edu
In a study of phonotactic constraints in ASL, the question of whether linguistic experience is instrumental in the mental representation of language is explored. A nonce experiment designed to test subjects‚ ability to rank nonce signs with respect to "goodness" was performed. Subjects (n=24) were presented with nonce signs in which the handshapes were replaced with frequent handshapes, infrequent handshapes, and non-occurring (impossible) handshapes in ASL. The results indicate that subjects do maintain statistically significant preferences for the nonce signs that employ the most frequent material in the language. It is suggested that a signer‚s experience with language, as opposed to an abstract set of categorical rules, is a key factor in the mental representation of language.
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Title: Clustering and profiling of image schemas as two determinants of lexical sense extension
Paula Bramante
paulab@unm.edu
This research draws on the basic notions of the clustering and profiling of image schemas within differing senses of lexical concepts. Lakoff and Johnson (1999) note that many spatial-relations concepts are actually clusters composed of more elementary spatial relations. For example, 'into' combines the more elementary notions of 'in' and 'to.' Beitel, Gibbs, and Sanders (2001) suggest that a cluster of five image schemas, SUPPORT, PRESSURE, CONSTRAINT, COVERING, and VISIBILITY account for the broad range of concrete and abstract uses of 'on.' Both of these accounts, and others including Brugman (1981) and Gibbs (19 ) suggest that schemas are capable of working in clusters in the structuring of spatial and verb concepts. Cienki (1997) also notes the tendency for certain image schemas to group together in our common experience, and discusses the importance of this tendency to the coherence of metaphors that have image schemas as their source domain.
Lakoff and Johnson (1999, p.33) identify conceptual 'profiling' or 'highlighting' of structural elements within schemas as a source of differing lexical concepts associated with a single schema. For example, 'to' and 'from' can both derive meaning from the SOURCE-PATH-GOAL schema by highlighting a different structural element of the schema for each lexical concept. "·'to' profiles the goal and identifies it as the landmark (LM) relative to which the motion takes place [while]· 'from' profiles the source as the LM·"
The present study draws on these insights regarding the clustering behavior of schemas and profiling within schemas. The analyses focus on three verbs, jump, cut, and step, and suggest that for verb concepts that describe (e.g., jump) or implicate (e.g., cut) body movement, a schema cluster helps to structure the lexical category prototype. Through examination and discussion of several examples, extended senses within the category are then shown to derive from relative schematic salience within the schema cluster, a process which is analogous to profiling. The difference is that instead of structural elements such as SOURCE or GOAL being profiled relative to a single schema, an entire schema is profiled relative to its cluster. For example, SOURCE/PATH/GOAL, FORCE, CONTACT, UP/DOWN, and VERTICAL is the schema cluster proposed for the central meaning of the verb concept 'step,' and different senses within that lexical category are shown to highlight different schemas within the cluster. In a sense extension referring to "stepping on someone's toes," CONTACT emerges as the profiled schema within the cluster. In another sense extension that refers to "the next step" in a given process, SOURCE/PATH/GOAL is profiled with respect to the other schemas. As the latter sense illustrates, verbs describing discrete, salient movements of the body often have a nominal form whose meaning is very closely associated with the verb. These forms derive from the clear, visual imagery that verbs of physical movement invoke, and from their aspectual character that permits a summary scanning of the action. Nominal forms of verbs are included in the analyses presented in this research. For each verb concept, metaphors whose source domains are structured by participating image schemas are proposed, and their operation within the sense extensions is examined.
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Title: Locating and Evaluating Intersubjectivity in Discourse
Catie Berkenfield,
catieb@unm.edu
Intersubjectivity is the ability of a person to recognize another person‚s subjectivity. Snow writes "Intersubjectivity is the construct that makes sense of the claim that communication can occur before conventional language, and that communicative intent can be the source of conventionalized languageforms"(1999:263). Studies of children‚s language acquisition illustrate the interactional foundation for intersubjectivity and subsequent language development,showing how early interactional patterns observed between infants and young children and their primary caretakers may give rise to theory of mind (Bretherton 1991, Snow 1999, Wellman 1991). Researchers agree that intersubjectivity is a prerequisite for communication (see, for example, Snow 1999 and Trevarthen 1979).
The purpose of the present paper is to lay out some criteria for locating sites of intersubjectivity in adult discourse. These criteria are based on the developmental literature and empirical observations in my own research on adult language. Building on other definitions of intersubjectivity but aiming at the exploration of a more fine-grained definition, I suggest that intersubjectivity in adult discourse is a potential, not a given (contra Schiffrin 1994).
Using corpus-based examples of interactive adult language, I show that intersubjectivity, as a potential, can be marked, if not determined, by conventionalized language forms. These grammatical forms include verb- and adverb-based constructions, patterns of pronominal usage, and a range of constructions that code interlocutors‚ points of view. I also discuss whether the expression of intersubjective potential by an individual is taken up and developed by some other individual in the discourse, resulting in what Benjamin calls "mutual recognition" (1990:33).
Other studies of corpus language indicate that grammatical patterns associated with ergativity in syntax, topic-comment structure in syntax, and patterns of subjectivity in conversation may emerge due to pragmatically motivated repetitions in discourse (Cf. Dubois 1987, Geluykens 1992, and Scheibman 2001, respectively). The notion that pragmatic functions may give rise to an "emergent grammar" (Hopper 1987) is not new to functional linguistics. We can hypothesize that intersubjectivity may also contribute to discourse structure. Such discussion should be explored within a more general theory of language.
References
Benjamin, Jessica. 1990. An Outline of Intersubjectivity: The Development of Recognition. Psychoanalytic Psychology 7 (supplement), 33-46.
Bretherton, Inge. 1991. Intentional Communication and the Development of an Understanding of Mind. In Children‚s Theories of Mind: Mental States and Social Understanding, Ed. by Douglas Frye and Chris Moore, 49-75. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
DuBois, John W. 1987. The Discourse Basis for Ergativity. Language 63 (4).805-55.
Geluykens, Ronald. 1992. From Discourse Process to Grammatical Construction: On Left-dislocation in English. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Hopper, Paul. 1987. Emergent Grammar. In Berkeley Linguistics Society, pp. 139-57.
Scheibman, Joanne. 2001. Local Patterns of Subjectivity in Person and Verb Type in American English Conversation. In Frequency and the Emergence of Linguistic Structure, Ed. by Joan Bybee and Paul Hopper, pp. 61-90. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Schiffrin, Deborah. 1994. Approaches to Discourse. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers.
Snow, Catherine E. 1999. Social Perspectives on the Emergence of Language. In The Emergence of Language, Ed. by Brian MacWhinney, 257-76. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Trevarthen, Colwyn. 1979. Communication and Cooperation in Early Infancy: A Description of Primary Intersubjectivity. In Before Speech: The Beginning of Interpersonal Communication, Ed. by Margaret Bullowa, pp. 321-47. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wellman, Henry M. 1991. From Desires to Beliefs: Acquisition of a Theory of Mind. In Children‚s Theories of Mind: Mental States and Social Understanding, Ed. by Douglas Frye and Chris Moore, 19-38. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
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Angus B. Grieve-Smith
grvsmth@unm.edu
Biber (1988) lays out a methodology for investigating relationships among genres in written and spoken language, which he further applies in Biber (1995). This factor analysis offers the possibility of quantifying these relationships, and thus a sense of how comparable two genres are. However, the results of this method have shown less of an effect of cognitive and social constraints than had been hoped. The data that Biber uses as input pose problems for his analysis. He draws over 60 features from the literature on situational variation, and uses relative frequency of that feature per thousand words as a measure of that feature for each text. But this measure of relative frequency allows the features to covary in ways that can interfere with the factor analysis. For example, the features "past tense" and "present tense" can both be increased by the relative frequency of verbs in a text, which in turn can be due to a lack of adjectives or adverbs. Relying on this kind of relative frequency in factor analysis can lead to a factor that simply measures the frequency of verbs, instead of one reflecting cognitive or social constraints. What is really relevant to this kind of factor analysis is that speakers and writers are constantly making choices: whether to make a statement in the present or past tense, for example. Sometimes they are constrained in their choices by their circumstances: it may only be possible to use complicated relative clause structures when they do not have to pay attention to conversational turn-taking, as in writing. The input to the factor analysis should try to isolate these choices as much as possible, so that the frequency of past-tense morphemes is measured relative to the number of finite verb forms, i.e. the number of opportunities to produce past-tense morphemes. Features like this could produce a radically different output, which might tell us more about situational variation in English.
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Title: Discourse Approach to Primate Communication
Gabriel S. Waters
watersg@unm.edu
Language has long served as a defining trait of humanity along with such behaviors as tool using and culture. In recent years, results from a number of fields of study have questioned the strong dichotomy between human and nonhuman animals. The current paper suggests that along with the building body of research questioning the line between human and nonhuman behavior, the traditional assumptions about nonhuman animal behavior should be reanalyzed. Such a reanalysis should strive for a common measure between the communication systems of all species. It is suggested that discourse can provide this common ground. To this end two short play session involving three chimpanzees was analyzed as discourse.
Preliminary results suggest that behaviors with a greater degree of conventionalization serve to introduce the play context while those of a lesser degree of conventionalization maintained the context. Further, candidates for the ritualization and emancipation of these signals emerged from the play behaviors. These results were analyzed in regard to implication for the study of nonhuman animal communication suggesting that discourse analysis could provide a robust framework for the study of communication of all species. Implications for the evolution of language are also discussed. It is suggested that if discourse is a level of communication utilized by all species it could thus serve to be a constraining factor on the evolution of the human communication system.
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Title: Iikááh: Chaco Sacred Schematics
JS Williams, TJ Blackhorse, JR Stein, and R Friedman
jswill@unm.edu
The Navajo term iikááh commonly defines as sandpainting (Young and Morgan, 1999). However, iikááh is an overarching term for any sacred graph whether a sandpainting, petroglyph (tsé bee‚ bik‚e niinil), or pictogram (tsé bik‚e naashch‚). Incorporated among these sacred designs are Anasazi ruins: their internal architecture, their orientation to celestial phenomenon, and their positioning relative to each other within the landscape. These schematics of buildings, petroglyphs, and pictograms act as mnemonic devices, which, taken together, comprise templates which when "read" correctly parallel the progression of Navajo oral historical narratives.
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Title: Metonymy in ASL Name Signs
Dan Parvaz
dparvaz@unm.edu
In signed languages, signs are frequently used as names for individuals and locations; these signs are often independent of the orthographic form of the names in the languages of the surrounding communities. Current accounts of ASL Name signs, including the prevailing understanding as formulated by Supalla, tend to emphasize the essentially arbitrary nature of name signs coined by native signer. This paper finds that not only are name signs strongly motivated cross-linguistically, but that even supposedly "arbitrary" name signs exhibit iconicity, metaphor, metonymy and conceptual blending.
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Title: Subjective Use of the Mandarin Morpheme LE in Conversational Discourse
Li-Hsiang Chang
changli@unm.edu
ABSTRACT
This is a pioneer study of the Mandarin morpheme le based on spontaneous spoken conversational data. Previous researchers have identified the morpheme le in Mandarin Chinese as a perfect or perfective marker. In addition to the morpheme le having the meaning of perfect or perfective, this study shows that in natural conversations the use of le is highly associated with the notion of linguistic subjectivity. That is to say, using le in interactional conversation has to do with the speaker‚s point of view in discourse. As indicated in the literature, since the traditional analysis of le focuses on isolated sentences from speaker intuition or narrative discourse, the importance of the interactional view and the speaker‚s role in the emergence of grammar has been neglected. Subjective use of le cannot be captured by traditional analysis. This paper indicates that the main function of le in interactional conversation is to emphasize the speakers‚ subjective feelings and evaluation through a cooperative effort between speaker and hearer (i.e. interaction). This fact that the data from this study is taken from interactional conversation suggests that subjective usage must be taken into account to the grammar of the Mandarin morpheme le. This is in favor of a functional analysis of language and emphasizes the importance of understanding the relationship of frequently recurring patterns in discourse and the emergence of grammar and the significant effects of the role of speaker point of view on grammar.
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Title: Linguistic Etiquette among Relatives in the Jicarilla Apache Community:
Sociopragmatics of In-Law Speech and Teasing Cousin Speech.
Candace Maher.
cmaher@unm.edu
This paper reports on the structure and use of "in-law" language in Jicarilla Apache, an eastern Apachean language spoken in New Mexico. The focus is on lexical and morphological characteristics of this variety, spoken now only by the oldest speakers with in-laws. Data is drawn from native speakers in Dulce, New Mexico in the summer and fall of 2001. "Teasing cousin" speech used between same sex first cousins is also investigated. Linguistic strategies employed in the greeting of in-laws and teasing cousins are examined. Verbal and non-verbal signs as well as communication channel of in-law and teasing couysin speech are investigated.
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Title: "Aizuchi: A Study of Japanese Backchanneling"
Jun Sato
junsato@unm.edu
Abstract
Back channeling has been found to be one of the important elements in conversation. An early study in this field was done by Yngve (1970), who described backchanneling as the situation in which "the person who has the turn and his partner are simultaneously engaged in speaking and listening" (p. 567-577). According to Hayashi (1988a), backchanneling, which is called aizuchi in Japanese, refers to "a signal by which the auditor indicates his/her attention and interest in the speaker's talk" (p. 2). Based on Goffman, Allen, and Guy, Locastro (1987) pointed out that "Back-channel cues·enable the speaker to continue to 'have the floor'" (p. 103).
It is interesting to focus on the use of "aizuchi" according to gender, generation, and social status because the socio-cultural values of a speech community can be reflected in the language use of its members. In particular, in Japanese, males and females use different expressions and different discourse markers. Furthermore, based on age and social status, Japanese people generally expect speakers or listeners to pay proper respect to the individuals who might be referred to. Therefore, the following research questions are addressed in this study:
What kind of "aizuchi" do Japanese people use?
What are the functions of "aizuchi"?
Are there any differences in the use of "aizuchi" between men and women?
How do people use "aizuchi" differently according to interlocutor's social status or age?
In order to investigate these research questions, conversation between 1) male and male, 2) female and female, 3) male and female, and 4) people whose ages are widely different were tape-recorded.
The result of the present study provided characteristics and tendencies of Japanese "aizuchi". First, Japanese "aizuchi" turned out to be divided into two types: casual or informal type and formal type. They are selected by speakers according to interlocutors' age and the degree of intimacy between them. Second, gender difference was not significantly reflected on the use of "aizuchi" in interactions between the same-aged man and woman as far as the present study is concerned. They used the same expressions for the most part and the frequency of "aizuchi" seemed to be almost the same as well. Finally, age difference turned out to have much influence on the use of "aizuchi" by Japanese people. One of the Japanese socio-cultural value, 'showing respect for older people', seems to be much related to this tendency of "aizuchi" use by Japanese people. It can be concluded that a truly subtle balance between age difference and the degree of intimacy plays an important role for the Japanese linguistic behaviors.