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No detailed description available for "From Grammar to Politics".
List 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
About the author
Alessandro Duranti is Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Summary
This monograph explores the way that traditional oratory in a Samoan village has been shaped by the needs of the political process. The author explains how grammar has been used to distribute praise and blame, in a way that also defines the standing of individuals in the community.
