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Sound-symbolism occurs when words resemble the sounds associated with the phenomena they attempt to describe, rather than an arbitrary representation. For example the word raven is arbitrary in that it does not resemble a raven; cuckoo, however, is sound -symbolic in that it resembles the bird's call. In Sounds Like Life, Janis Nuckolls studies the occurrence of sound-symbolic words in Pastaza Quechua (a dialect of Quechua), which is spoken in eastern Ecuador. The use of sound-symbolic words is much more prevalent in Pastaza Quechua than in any other language, and they symbolize a wider range of sensory perceptions including sounds, rhythms, and visual patterns. Nuckolls uses discourse data from everyday contexts to demonstrate the Quechua speakers' elaborate schematic perceptual structure to describe experience through sound-symbolic language. With words for contact with a surface, opening and closing, falling, sudden realizations, and moving through water and space, Nuckolls finds that sound-symbolism is integral to the Quechua speakers' way of thinking about and expressing their experience of the world.
The present volume represents a selection of papers presented at the International Symposium on Ideophones held in January 1999 in St. Augustin, Germany. They center around the following hypotheses: Ideophones are universal; and constitute a grammatical category in all languages of the world; ideophones and similar words have a special dramaturgic function that differs from all other word classes: they simulate an event, an emotion, a perception through language. In addition to this unique function, a good number of formal parallels can be observed. The languages dealt with here display strikingly similar patterns of derivational processes involving ideophones. An equally widespread common feature is the introduction of ideophones via a verbum dicendi or complementizer. Another observation concerns the sound-symbolic behavior of ideophones. Thus the word formation of ideophones differs from other words in their tendency for iconicity and sound-symbolism. Finally it is made clear that ideophones are part of spoken language the language register, where gestures are used rather than written language.
In Amazonian Quichua Language and Life: Introduction to Grammar, Ecology, and Discourse from Pastaza and Upper Napo, Janis B. Nuckolls and Tod D. Swanson discuss two varieties of Quichua, an indigenous Ecuadorian language. Drawing on their linguistic and anthropological knowledge, extensive fieldwork, and personal relationships with generations of speakers from Pastaza and Napo communities, the authors open a door into worlds of intimate meaning that knowledge of Quichua makes accessible. Nuckolls and Swanson link grammatical lessons with examples of naturally occurring discourse, traditional narratives, conversations, songs, and personal experiences to teach readers about the languages’ structures and discourse patterns and speakers’ sensory depictions, ecological aesthetics, and emotional perspectives.
Using the intriguing stories and words of a Quechua-speaking woman named Luisa Cadena from the Pastaza Province of Ecuador, Janis B. Nuckolls reveals a complex language system in which ideophony, dialogue, and perspective are all at the core of cultural and grammatical communications among Amazonian Quechua speakers. This book is a fascinating look at ideophones—words that communicate succinctly through imitative sound qualities. They are at the core of Quechua speakers’ discourse—both linguistic and cultural—because they allow agency and reaction to substances and entities as well as beings. Nuckolls shows that Luisa Cadena’s utterances give every individual, major or minor, a voi...
This volume explores new frontiers in the linguistic study of iconic lexemes known as ideophones, mimetics, and expressives. A large part of the literature on this long-neglected word class has been dedicated to the description of its sound symbolism, marked morphophonology, and grammatical status in individual languages. Drawing on data from Asian (especially Japanese), African, American, and European languages, the twelve chapters in this volume aim to establish common grounds for theoretical and crosslinguistic discussions of the phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, acquisition, and variation of iconic lexemes. Not only researchers who are interested in linguistic iconicity but also theoretical linguists and typologists will benefit from the updated insights presented in each study.
Vision is typically treated as the defining sense of the modern era and a powerful vehicle for colonial and postcolonial domination. This is in marked contrast to the almost total absence of accounts of hearing in larger cultural processes. Hearing Cultures is a timely examination of the elusive, often evocative, and sometimes cacophonous auditory sense - from the intersection of sound and modernity, through to the relationship between audio-technological advances and issues of personal and urban space. As cultures and communities grapple with the massive changes wrought by modernization and globalization, Hearing Cultures presents an important new approach to understanding our world. It ans...
The first volume to offer a thorough and systematic account of evidentiality and the expression of information source, Illustrated with extensive data from a range of typologically diverse languages, Introductory chapter offers practical advice for fieldworkers investigating evidentially, Interdisciplinary in nature with insights from typology, semantics, pragmatics, language description, anthropology, cognitive psychology, and psycholinguistics Book jacket.
Vision is typically treated as the defining sense of the modern era and a powerful vehicle for colonial and postcolonial domination. This is in marked contrast to the almost total absence of accounts of hearing in larger cultural processes. Hearing Cultures is a timely examination of the elusive, often evocative, and sometimes cacophonous auditory sense - from the intersection of sound and modernity, through to the relationship between audio-technological advances and issues of personal and urban space. As cultures and communities grapple with the massive changes wrought by modernization and globalization, Hearing Cultures presents an important new approach to understanding our world. It ans...
This bibliography lists the most important works published in anthropology in 1993. Renowned for its international coverage and rigorous selection procedures, IBSS provides reserchers and librarians with the most comprehensive and scholarly bibliographic service available in the social sciences. IBSS is compiled by the British Library of Political and Economic Science at the London School of Economics, one of the world's leading social science institutions. Published annually, IBSS is available in four subject areas: anthropology, economics, political science and sociology.