Basic Aspects of Language in Human Relations: Toward a General Theoretical Framework [Reprint 2019 ed.] 9783110872675, 9783110126853

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Basic Aspects of Language in Human Relations

Contributions

to the Sociology

59

Editor Joshua A. Fishman

Mouton de Gruyter Berlin • New York

of

Language

Basic Aspects of Language in Human Relations Toward a General Theoretical Framework

by Harald Haarmann

Mouton de Gruyter Berlin • New York

1991

M o u t o n de Gruyter (formerly M o u t o n , The Hague) is a Division of Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin.

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H a a r m a n n , Harald. Basic aspects of language in human relations ; toward a general theoretical framework / by Harald H a a r m a n n . p. cm. — (Contributions to the sociology of language ; 59) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 3-11-012685 (acid-free paper) 1. Language and languages I. Title. II. Series. P106.H24 1991 302.2'24'01 — dc20 91-30526 CIP

Die Deutsche Bibliothek

— Cataloging in Publication

Data

Haarmann, Harald: Basic aspects of language in human relations : toward a general theoretical framework / by Harald H a a r m a n n . — Berlin ; New York : M o u t o n de Gruyter, 1992 (Contributions to the sociology of language ; 59) ISBN 3-11-012685-0 NE: G T

© Copyright 1991 by Walter de Gruyter & Co., D-1000 Berlin 30. All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. N o part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Conversion by: Satzpunkt Ewert, Braunschweig. — Printing: Gerike G m b H , Berlin. — Binding: Dieter Mikolai, Berlin. Printed in Germany.

To Pirkko-Liisa who was born in the year of the tiger and who awakened me in the year of the tiger

Preface

When somebody in any field of the humanities offers a "new" theory, claiming that the proposed conceptual framework and ideas presented are being produced for the first time, there are good grounds for suspicion. Such a theory can be compared to a perpetual motion machine and, as everybody knows, such a device does not exist. In numerous theoretical approaches to language-related subjects, new terminologies make theories look like unprecedented foundations of reasoning. However, closer inspection of the theoretical foundation always reveals that certain strings of ideas and basic concepts find their equivalents and/or their roots in the history of scholarly concern. There is good reason to recall that any scholar's efforts are backed up by the accumulated theoretical and empirical knowledge of the past, regardless of how creative his/her own contribution may be. The history of reasoning about language in human relations can rely on a long tradition which is known to reach back as far as the second millennium B.C., with the earliest traces found in the Babylonian literature. In my view, any modern theory about language in human relations, no matter what the orientation, can claim to be novel only to the extent that it can offer a more comprehensive view on, or modifications or specializations of ideas previously formulated. Paying due respect to the sum of wisdom that is found in the history of reasoning throughout the ages, I would thus like to present here exactly that, simultaneously stressing the need for a comprehensive view of language in human relations. The view I have in mind would ideally be more systematic than previous attempts to elaborate so-called "general theories". Theory-making in all fields of the sciences has a specific nature, and it is hard to agree on an appropriate figurative comparison. Among several comparisons which have been proposed earlier, there is one which seems most appealing, and this makes reference to ship-building. "Science may be compared to a ship which, from time to time, is reconstructed from top to bottom, while always remaining in the water" (Apresjan 1971: 279). One insight is immediately revealed by this comparison: it is technically impossible to construct a completely new ship while remaining in the water. No scientist can rely on the firm ground of a shipyard when elaborating a theoretical framework and trying to make it more efficient than previous approaches. This is true for the natural sciences as well as for the humanities. In attempting to rebuild an outdated ship in the water, one might remove all

VIII

Preface

the upper parts and replace them with new elements. However, one is definitely obliged to keep the essential components of an older hulk in the new construction which make the ship float on the surface. And, although one may reinforce and stabilize the hulk using new material and techniques, one is bound to the basic structural principles used by previous constructors. It seems worthwhile to extend the above comparison to make the aim of the present theoretical approach transparent. Some general theories of language have been introduced by their creators like technically advanced cabin cruisers. However, when testing those modern ships, one finds that their technical advantages lie in their specialization. If those ships find themselves in rough seas, they might easily be damaged or even sink. No specialized theory can make claims to generality. This is true for all formal linguistic theories which claim to present a general or overall theoretical scheme, transformational grammar for one. N. Chomsky's elaboration of generative transformational grammar deserves the label of a "Chomskian revolution" only to the limited extent that it is a highly formalized partial theory of grammar which, by its mere limited range, cannot come into question as a general or overall theory of language. The appearance of transformational grammar may make the impression of a cabin cruiser to many theoreticians, but they forget that a cabin cruiser is not an all-weather ship, a vessel including properties a cabin cruiser could not offer. Any theory laying claim to generality must have the properties of a ship so that it can maneuver in any water and withstand any weather. Many formal linguistic theories tend to exclude "disturbing" factors (e.g. sociocultural variables) in order to guarantee a "smooth" handling of their technical procedures. To abstain from the inspection of the sociocultural embedding of language in a theoretical framework, general or specialized, is equivalent to denying the most basic of its properties, and this is its ontological nature as a phenomenon crucial to human relations. Under such conditions, any formal grammatical theory which degrades language to the status of a laboratory substance is not only limited in range, but it cannot even lay claim to being a genuine theory of language. There is one facet in the study of language which has to be acknowledged by any theoretician, simply because it is a matter of common sense: whatever insight a theoretician may achieve into the cognitive dimension of linguistic structures, this is definitely related to the sociocultural reality of language, since items of knowledge in the human brain are constructed through the cognition and interpretation of items of the real world in their sociocultural settings. If language were not a sociocultural phenomenon per se, there would be no sense in correlating meaning and grammar in the human brain. The theoretical approach presented in this study is not introduced like a cabin cruiser, and it may well lack the technical brilliance of a highly specialized vessel.

Preface

IX

At first sight, this ship may even look rugged and somehow bulky. But it is hoped that, when put to the test, it will reveal its qualities as a multifunctional all-weather vessel. The basic properties of a general theory are meant to allow for the elaboration of partial theories as derivations from the general scheme. In other words, the present theoretical approach is intended to be comprehensive and, therefore, it includes aspects of the variational diversity found in language. It is my sincere conviction that only a multivariational perspective in theory construction can do justice to the facets which make language a crucial instrument in human relations. A general theory of language in human relations has to incorporate reasoning on semiotic aspects, on communication and interaction, on culture and the speech community, on the network of social and societal patterns, on environmental orientation and world view, and on the complex functioning of organizational principles which become apparent in a language's microstructure of phonological, morphological, syntactic, and lexical techniques. In other words, a general theoretical scheme has to incorporate all the ingredients which may serve to highlight the nature of language as a human phenomenon. When trying to do justice to language with its multivariational nature, the scheme of a general theory has to be multidimensional and multirelational. As the author of this study, I certainly hold expectations as to how the ideas presented might be received. As a kind of minimum expectation, I hope that sceptical critics who disagree on specific relations among theoretical constructs, could nevertheless agree that the substance and framework provided in this study cannot be neglected in a general (or comprehensive) theory. It has been my concern to provide the elements for a theoretical framework by broadening the existing foundations which enable theoreticians to relate their partial (or specialized) theories to a more general perspective. Symbolically indicative of this intention is the broadening of my horizons with regard to both my knowledge of the world and my world view as a European which I experienced during a three year stay in Japan as a fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung (Bonn) and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (Tokyo). I admire the attitude for which Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) is known throughout the world. This great scholar was never content with any kind of limited perspective, and he always tried to extend his horizons of empirical research and theoretical reasoning to a comprehensive view of all the ecological relations which are relevant for the interaction of living and non-living things in this world. I think that any theoretician truly interested in the elaboration of a general theory of language should be ready to engage in a tireless striving for a comprehensive perspective on human relations. Although this volume was written after my return to Europe, much of the progress which I hope to have made is a reflection and di-

X

Preface

gestion of the research I conducted during the Humboldt fellowship. I would like to express my gratitude to Prof. Dr. René Dirven (Duisburg) who read a draft version of this manuscript. His remarks and comments have been helpful for clarifying various aspects in the discussion of problems and in the presentation of ideas.

Harald Haarmann Helsinki and Suviharju, July 1990

Contents

Chapter 1 Finding a Mold for a General Theory Toward a Methodological Fusion of the Sociocultural and Cognitive Dimensions of Language

1

Chapter 2 Man's Sociocultural Capacities and the Essence of Ethnic Identity Language as a Variable in Processes of Identification

11

Chapter 3 The World of Signs and Symbols The Interpretation of Human Relations in the Real World by Means of Language and Other Sign Systems

41

Chapter 4 Communicative Competence and the Processing of Meaning The Cognitive Dimension of Language

100

Chapter 5 Interaction and the Production of Speech The Sociocultural Dimension of Language

148

Chapter 6 Human Relations in Community Life The Reflection of Cultural Patterns in Language and Linguistic Structures .

181

Chapter 7 Principles of Language and Structural Resources of Natural Languages Elements of a Bioprogram of Linguistic Diversity

243

Bibliography

292

Subject Index

305

Index of Names

310

Chapter 1

Finding a mold for a general theory - Toward a methodological fusion of the sociocultural and cognitive dimensions of language

Any theory of language, general or partial, has to be based on assumptions about the nature of its object. So far, theoreticians have limited themselves, unwillingly or deliberately, to the selection of those properties of language which were covered by the range of their theoretical schemes. To my knowledge, there is no overall set of assumptions on which language experts would agree. To give but a few examples, linguists tend to emphasize the nature of language as a biologically programmed entity, and they provide schemes for describing its mechanism. Sociolinguists, for their part, point to the relationship between language and society, and they stress the role of language as a vehicle of communication. Anthropologists believe in the priority of the study of language and culture, psycholinguists direct their attention to the participation of linguistic structures in cognitive processes, semioticists try to formalize the role of language as a model of the universe, while other specialists concentrate on the impact of language on social and cultural identification. There can be no reason for denying that any one of these directions of theoretical reasoning and empirical research may produce valuable insights into the nature and functioning of language. However, each of the perspectives is specific, and none of the disciplines participating in the language sciences has been able to produce a general definition of the nature of language. The dilemma of those who delimit themselves to the boundaries of a given discipline as marked by a tradition of scholarly activities may be compared to the situation of a group of blind scholars who set out for finding the truth. They come across an elephant and try to describe it. One blind man touches the side and claims the truth to be like a wall, another who gets hold of the trunk opposes, stating that it is like a rope. A third man explores the elephant's leg and is convinced that the truth is like a pillar. There may be many other partial statements of this type based on the limited experiences of persons who cannot see the overall panorama of the truth. This comparison has been revived and reintroduced recently by Shaumyan (1987: 12), and it may be effectively propagated as an argument in fa-

2

Chapter 1

vor of a comprehensive perspective, the need for this being particularly acute in the language sciences. Summarizing all potential properties of language would require a catalogue of book length. The nature of language is multifaceted, given the variety of aspects of its functioning. And yet, although one might argue about the definition of individual properties of language, there is a set of basic (or primary) properties from which all specific properties derive. These basic properties in the nature of language may be specified in the following assumptions (A 1-11): A 1 - Language is a social phenomenon in the sense that it serves the multiple needs of interaction in human relations. A 2 - Language is always embedded in a sociocultural context. Consequently, language is always produced and perceived from within such a context. A 3 - Language is a system of symbols which is organized in terms of a bioprogram with a hierarchical order of structural elements, ranging from the most specific (i.e. phonological units) to the most comprehensive level (i.e. text structure). A 4 - Language as a bioprogram is always normative, and the norms may be implicit (i.e. historical norms), or explicit (i.e. norms of conventionalized language use in a given speech community). A 5 - Language is heterogeneous, which causes variation in linguistic structures. Variation may affect the language of the individual speaker (i.e. idiolectal variation) and the language of the group (i.e. variation of social subsystems). A 6 - Language variation is the expression of the functional diversity of language use in a speech community. Functional diversity may be situation oriented (e.g. standard variety versus local dialect) or context oriented (e.g. the stylistic levels of the written language). A 7 - Language participates in human relations in several ways; there is the need of the individual's identification with the language of the speech community of which he/she is a member, the individual's orientation in his/her environment - which is equal to the association of cultural patterns with language through the channel of cognition, and the individual's communication within the cultural context in a given community. A 8 - The basic needs in human relations of language, namely ethnic identification through language, the participation of language in cognitive process-

Finding a Mold for a General Theory

3

es, and communication, do not evolve separately, but are interdependent and closely related in a kind of symbiotic interplay. A 9 -

Any meaningful language-related interaction requires, as elementary preconditions, the individual's successful ethnic identification, his/her cognitive categorization of the phenomena in the environment, and his/her ability to produce speech within and perceive it from within a cultural context.

A 10 - The ability to produce speech within and perceive it from within a cultural context is a consequence of the cofunctioning of cultural experience and knowledge of language or, in other words, of the correlation of an individual's sociocultural and behavioral competence. A 11 - Although language is an elementary component of human relations, it has to be understood in its multiple relativity. Language is by no means the only vehicle of ethnic identification, the only channel of cognitive processes, or the only means of communication. A broad panorama of phenomena can be discerned in the multiple relativity of language as applied to human relations. This ranges from the relativity of language in ethnic processes (Haarmann 1986) and the relative importance of language, as opposed to other human sign systems, as a sign system for conveying information (see chapter 3 of this study), to the relativity of language in its communicative role. The latter property was well understood long ago, and the duality of language and contextualising means, such as gestures and poses for the purpose of interaction, is reflected in the categorical distinction between verbal and non-verbal means. The multiple relativity of language in human relations has been selectively acknowledged for most domains, but there is no theoretical scheme in which all three relations would have been specified. The acknowledgement of multiple relativity as a basic property of language is a necessary component in a general theory which has been widely neglected in previous approaches. This may be mainly due to a sort of psychological blocking which is typical of most scholars who dedicate themselves to the study of language: in the eyes of those for whom language is the most prominent object of investigation, its role in human relations is easily overestimated and its importance given too exclusive a status. It might be argued that several assumptions combine clusters of properties and should be differentiated into individual basic assumptions (e.g. A 7, 9, and 11). Although this may be practical for the purpose of a systematic overview, it may nevertheless evoke misconceptions about a potential separation of such properties. In order to avoid any atomistic view on the properties of language, I prefer to corre-

4

Chapter 1

late basic properties as far as they definitely intermingle. Opinions may also differ as to the association of "specific" to the mentioned "basic" properties. And yet, for the purpose of the theoretical groundwork which is intended here, the specification of the above assumptions provides a sufficiently broad basis. The panorama of basic properties of language cannot unreasonably be asserted to consist of less than the proposed minimum inventory. When acknowledging a certain set of language properties as basic, any theoretician must solve the methodological problem of reconciling his/her assumptions with the theoretical scheme he/she wants to elaborate. As a general experience, this reconciliation is understood in terms of methodological constraints of delimiting the panorama of language related phenomena which are included in his further work. In the context of this study, however, the methodological problem involved is the extension of the theoretical scheme to a framework which still remains operational, rather than to one of constraint. As a consequence of the property of language mentioned under (A 7), there can be no dispute as to whether sociocultural variables should be included in or excluded from a general theory. The sociocultural conditions of language must definitely be included in a theoretical scheme with claims to generality. If the social aspects of language were to be excluded, this would be tantamount to acknowledging only a subset of the properties of language. Consequently, any theory excluding social factors can only be partial and, as such, it falls short of the requirements demanded of a general theory. The latter issue touches on the problem of how much of the social property of language has to be incorporated into a theory of language for it to deserve the label "general", but it does not concern the uncontroversial insight that language itself is a social phenomenon. A conscious awareness of the social property of language dates back to remote antiquity. And yet, the first explicit statement about language being a social phenomenon was made as late as the sixteenth century, namely by the Spanish philosopher Juan Luis Vives (1492-1540) who stated: "Est etiam sermo societatis humanae instrumentum". Emphasising the need for including an undisputed property of language (see A 1) in a general theory is not the equivalent of splitting hairs, although it might be considered as a truism. Various theoreticians have, in fact, acknowledged the social property of language even though neglecting this premise in their theoretical scheme. For example, F. de Saussure was among the first representatives of a more modern linguistics who defined language (langue) as "the social part of human speech" (CLG 17). As is well known, Saussure did not succeed in reconciling his theoretical scheme with this basic premise. Another and more recent example is provided by S. Shaumyan (1987) in his semiotic theory. Here he repeats the statement: "Language is a social phenomenon" (1987: 12, 273). His theoretical foundations, however, are based on the assumption that language is homogeneous, with a

Finding a Mold for a General Theory

5

few remarks on dialectal variation which find no reflection in a scheme of linguistic variation. In this regard, the Chomskian tradition of formal linguistics falls still further behind the basic requirement of a general theory, since its representatives do not even raise the problem of heterogeneity as a basic methodological issue. The incorporation of so-called "variable rules" into transformational grammar carries all the hallmarks of a cosmetic adjustment of a theoretical frame which is based on the assumption of homogeneity. It has become a truism that formal linguists feel responsible for the analysis of linguistic structures in terms of a homogeneous grammar, while variation is treated as deviation from a common abstract basis. The study of the environmental factors causing linguistic variation and determining the social functions of a language is left to the sociolinguists. Dealing with all the kinds of irregularities which might potentially cause variation in linguistic systems requires more complex and refined theoretical foundations than are needed for analysing the grammar of an abstract linguistic system which, in reality, does not exist. In this view, all purely formal approaches to grammar have the value of a description of a theoretical construct, equal to the notion of "étalon" language in language typology (see Ramat 1987: 23 ff. for this term). Many formal linguists appear to succumb to the illusion of a smooth theoretical scheme offered by universal grammar even though it fails to do justice to either the sociocultural embedding of language or the association of cultural patterns with language in cognitive processes. Sociolinguists, on the other hand, face the challenge of theoretical reasoning against the background of an abundance of irregular empirical data for linguistic variation. There have been provocative statements about the dilemma in the construction of sociolinguistic theories, among these being Hymes' (1974: 194) evaluation of the theoretical "depth" of sociolinguistics : "Sociolinguistics might drift indefinitely, profuse and shallow, a mile wide and an inch deep". Although there is no alternative to acknowledging the intrinsic nature of language as a social phenomenon, formal linguists have maintained the fictitious boundaries of their discipline to save the fragile "brilliance" of their formalizations. Little cooperation can be expected from representatives of the "camp" of formal linguistics for the elaboration of a general theory since many, if not most, of them seem to understand the boundary marking of their field as an ideological goal. Deplorably enough, there have been emotional provocations from the two sides, intellectual raids by linguists on sociolinguistic positions and crusades by sociolinguists against formal linguistics, the vehemence of which is likely to irritate benevolent observers. On the other hand, there have been various attempts to build "bridges" between the fields of linguistics and sociolinguistics by those who take the intrinsically social nature of language seriously. It has turned out, however,

6

Chapter 1

Figure 1

The network of sociolinguistics and allied fields of study

Finding a Mold for a General Theory

7

that maintaining the right balance between the needs of a formal description of linguistic systems and observation of the sociocultural impact on their structures is a difficult task. The theoretical approach presented by W. Labov (1972) arguably incorporates a selection of social aspects making it more linguistically oriented and less balanced than would be required by a general theory. On the other hand, the language-and-culture framework elaborated by Hymes (1974) may be considered as too anthropological to be attractive for linguists. A better balance can be observed in the sociolinguistic frameworks proposed by Bell (1976) and Hudson (1976, 1980). The methodological foundations of the latter approaches, however, are not broad enough to cover the whole range needed for a general theoretical scheme. Bearing in mind the overall goal of elaborating a general theory, we find the controversial issues of boundary marking between linguistics proper and sociolinguistics eventually losing their importance, in addition to which the controversy concerning the alleged priority of formal linguistics over sociolinguistics in the domain of theory-making tends to dissolve. As a future perspective, the categorization of "linguistic" and "sociolinguistic" subjects may only remain valuable for the purpose of making progress in the elaboration of partial theories as derivations from a general theoretical scheme. Thus, linguistics and sociolinguistics will, most probably, abandon their "ideological" symbolism and undergo a transformation into external labels for the practical purposes of a division of labor. Such an evolution of the language sciences will, ideally, prevent theory-making from maneuvering itself into the deadlock of an atomistic and "anorganic" treatment of the delicate object 'language'. Seemingly, even nowadays sociolinguists maintain the edge as regards the seriousness with which social aspects are made available for Notes to figure 1: 1 A circle is used as a graphic means of representing those fields of study which do not fulfill a bridging function Methods and methodiologies in fields such as sociology, applied lingustics, and medical sciences are specific as regards the problems researched and studied within their boundaries. 2 A rectangular shape is used as a graphic means of representing those fields which are characterized by their bridging function (i.e. sociolinguistics as a bridging link between lingustics and sociology; neurolingusitics as a bridging link between lingusitics and medical sciences; psycholinguistica as a bridging link beween linguistics and psychology; ethnolingusitics as a bridging link between linguistics and ethnology; semiotics as a bridging link beween information theory and pragmatics; linguistic anthropology as a bridging link beween linguistics and anthropology; social psychology as a bridging link between psychology and sociology; ethnopolitical sciences as a bridging link between juridical sciences and sociology). 3 A rectangular shape with an ondulated line inside ist used as a graphic means of representing those fields of study which are characterized by a multiple bridging function (i.e. the study of minority literature as a bridging link between the study of literature, sociolinguistics and ethnicity research; ethnicity research as a bridging link between sociology, social psychology and sociolinguistics). 4 The dotted line marks differences in the orientation of micro- and macrosociolinguistics, and thus, does not serve to mark the boundary between different fields of study.

8

Chapter 1

methodological reasoning. Therefore, it seems reasonable to assign sociolinguistics, with its branching into micro- and macro-sociolinguistics (see Fishman 1970: 43 ff. for this fundamental duality), a crucial role for potential progress in the language sciences (see Figure 1). Inspecting the basic properties of language (see A 1-11) provides the frame of premises on which to rely when elaborating a theoretical scheme. For the elaboration of the latter, methodological theorems are as crucial as the set of basic assumptions. Against the background of the inventory of properties of language, the following set of methodological theorems (MT) may be formulated: MT 1 -

Any kind of reasoning about language cannot abstain from the inclusion of the sociocultural context on which the evolution of the normative bioprogram as well as of language use depend (see A 1 and A 2).

MT 2 -

The working of language has to be viewed in terms of its grammatical mechanism within the framework of valid norms which may either have evolved historically (implicit norms) or have been established by the speech community (explicit norms); (see A 3 and A 4).

MT 3 -

Language has to be described in its multivariational diversity, with patterns of linguistic variation seen as being aligned on a hypothetical continuum (see A 5 and A 6).

MT 4 -

The functioning of language has to be considered in terms of its being rooted in the process of ethnic identification, in its role for fixating a world-view, and in its functional conditions within a given community (see A 7).

MT 5 -

The elucidation of the working of language has to emphasize the interdependence of language in ethnic, cognitive and communicative processes (see A 8).

MT 6 -

Language has to be explained on the basis of man's capacity to develop into a social being through ethnic identification, the cognitive categorization of the world, and behavior (see A 9).

MT 7 -

The working of language has to be elucidated in terms of the emergence of meaning out of the correlation of items of cultural knowledge, and of verbal means where meaning can assume concrete form (as provided by the knowledge of grammar); (see A 10).

MT 8 -

Theory-making has to elucidate the variable role of language in basic human relations (i.e. for ethnic identification, for the shaping of a worldview, and as a sign system for communication); (see A l l ) .

Finding a Mold for a General Theory

9

MT 9 -

A general theoretical scheme has to be sufficiently comprehensive to be capable of incorporating any aspect of language in human relations.

MT 10 -

A general theory has to be designed so as to allow for the formulation of various partial theories in different fields of the language sciences which may be associated with the overall scheme.

These methodological theorems provide the necessary guidance for the elaboration of the intended theoretical scheme. Previous theories of language have been based on individual theorems or on the clustering of a few individual theorems. The attribute "general", however, requires the observance of any one of the theorems specified here. Comprehensiveness has to be understood in terms of both the extension of the theoretical scheme (see MT 9) and the sum of the methodological requirements. Therefore, comprehensiveness is a necessary ingredient in a general theory, but it is not equal to its goal. A variety of goals can be achieved by a general theoretical scheme, rather than by a single one. The intended theoretical approach which, ideally, would provide a guideline for the entire enterprise of the language sciences, may be directed in the following way: -

The achievement of immediate goals

The elucidation of the culturally specific nature of language and of human speech behavior is a cluster of goals which may be interpreted in terms of a multiple goal. A goal of this type implies an examination of both the social embedding which serves as an orientation for a given individual speaker in his/her environment, of his/her ability to use language appropriately (that is, according to valid norms), and of the way in which the individual experiences language as the vehicle of a specific culture. This task is equal to trying to elucidate the speaker's human relations involving language. -

The achievement of the ultimate goal

On the basis of the insights into the functioning of language which are ideally provided by the attainment of the immediate goals, the ultimate goal of the language sciences may be envisaged, this being increasing our understanding of human nature through the channel of language as a bioprogram which is intrinsically associated with a cultural context. An abundance of previous statements exists concerning the scope and goals of sociolinguistics, these ranging from a very general assignment such as "the study of language in relation to society" to a fairly specific definition such as the "examination of the interaction of language structure and social structure and of the mu-

10

Chapter 1

tual implications of speech behavior and social behavior" (Grimshaw 1971: 93). Against the background of the goals formulated above, the latter statement reveals itself to be a partial goal. The same is true for other specific definitions, for instance for Hymes (1974: 31) who calls for the following: "A general theory of the interaction of language and social life must encompass the multiple relations between linguistic means and social meaning". It is obvious that only a comprehensive scheme can guarantee the requisite broad view of language in human relations, and that any theoretical approach lacking such comprehensiveness can at best achieve but a partial goal. Achieving an overall goal may appear to be a matter of consistently pursuing it according to set premises, but one should be aware "that there is a big difference between recognizing that one should take account of the social dimension of language and knowing how to do so" (Hudson 1980: 4).

Chapter 2

Man's sociocultural capacities and the essence of ethnic identity - Language as a variable in processes of identification

Among the basic capacities of man is his ability to organize himself socially into groups and to identify himself with cultural patterns which emerge from community life. The dependence of people's lives on social and cultural networks is equal to the reliance on the functioning of systems of symbolic relations. "Man is a cultural being, which in essence means that he is a symbol-using animal" (Lessa Vogt 1965: 203). Ethnic identification is a consequence of such a dependence, and it counts as one of the basic experiences of a human being as a member in a speech community. As a vehicle of the individual's sociability, ethnic identification is relevant in any community, be it on the level of a tribal group or on the scale of national boundaries in a modern industrialized society. Basic elements in the shaping of an individual's ethnic identity are descent (ancestry or paternity), the acquisition of language and the adoption of specific cultural patterns (patrimony), and the activation of a value system (phenomenology). Descent is an element which remains unchanged throughout a person's lifetime and which does not depend on the individual's will or wishes. Everybody is the sum of the genetic bioprogram of his/her ancestors, and this is a stable ethnic marker. The stability of ancestry as an ethnic marker does not correlate with a stable set of cultural patterns or values. A black American, for example, may identify himself/herself positively with his/her racial features (along the lines: 'I like being black.'), or the evaluation of such features may be negative (along the lines: 'I hate being black.'). The other elements of ethnic identity, patrimony and phenomenology, are variables which depend on the cultural environment and on education. Thus, cultural patterns as well as values attributed to them may change, not only from one generation to the other, but also during a person's lifetime. It has become a tradition to assign to language the role of a cultural pattern in its own right, comparable to religion or to the social structures of kinship. However, an inspection of the participation of language in ethnic processes suggests that language should be considered a symbol of culture. This specific role may be compared to that of a writing system, the elements of which symbolize sound patterns. It is inadequate to say that

12

Chapter 2

writing reflects the sound structure of a language, just as it is to say that language reflects the structures of a cultural pattern. Depending on the living conditions, the adoption of cultural patterns by the individual (enculturation) through the channel of language acquisition may evolve in various ways. The process of enculturation may be monolingual (e.g. for a German brought up in Braunschweig, an industrial town in Northern Germany), bilingual (e.g. for a Soviet German in Kazakhstan whose mother tongue is German and who adopts Russian as a second language), or multilingual (e.g. for a German in Belgium who learns German and French at preschool age, and Dutch, one of the three national languages of the country, as an additional language at school). An individual's identification with language can change. As regards language, a change in identification is called language shift and it is usually accompanied by a shifting of values in the individual's categorization of himself/herself and others. Language participates in ethnic processes and, although elementary, it does not shape ethnic identity exclusively or dominantly. The identity of any individual in a given community may be determined on the basis of a matrix of ethnic elements. Given the great racial, cultural, linguistic, and phenomenological diversity of peoples throughout the world, the correlation of data in the matrix will naturally differ among French, Vietnamese, Mexican, or other people. For better illustration of the implications of ethnic markers involving language, data for a member in the Finnish community are presented in the following (see Figure 2). The abstract question "What makes a Finn a Finn?" may be related to an individual person, for example to my wife, Pirkko-Liisa Haarmann, and it may find an answer in terms of the following data: Descent - Her father was a Finn, as is her mother, and both of them have Finnish as their mother tongue. The parents' parents were also members of the Finnish speech community. My wife's maiden name is Autio, a Finnish surname and, thus, another indicator of her Finnish descent. Although Finns are hardly racially distinguishable from people of Swedish stock, their Finnish ancestry differs from that of the Finland-Swedes, a group which has formed a sizeable proportion of the population of Finland since the Middle Ages. Language and cultural patterns - Finnish is Pirkko-Liisa Haarmann's mother (and father) tongue. She was brought up in a local Finnish community (Lapua) and surrounded by a cultural milieu typical of the rural population in Vaasa province. Her parents and relatives have had no contact with people in the bilingual area (with a Swedish and Finnish-speaking population) some 50 km west of her home town. As a Lutheran she belongs to the dominant religious group in Finland. Basic principles of Christian ethics and world-view form a part of the cultural patterns

Language as a Variable in Processes of Identification

13

Finnish ethnic identity (Finnish ethnicity)

Descent or ancestry or paternity

The adoption of ethnically specific cultural patterns (the Finnish language as one such cultural pattern)

Phenomenology or value system

patrimony

Self-identification (Self-categorization) Self-awareness (National) Pride

Reflection of outsiders' views about the Finns in the Finns' own value system

Categorization of foreign people and their cultures in the Finns' value system

Figure 2

What makes a Finn a Finn?

Notes: (1) The value system comprises elements related to the language (Finnish language), to the people who speak Finnish (members of the Finnish speech community), to the culture (cultural items and habits in the Finnish community), and to societal relations (social relations among Finns, societal organization in Finland). (2) Self-identification refers to what a Finn thinks about Finns, the reflection of outsiders' views to how a Finn accepts statements about Finns coming from a German, Russian, Swede, etc. The categorization of foreign people and their cultures comprises elements of what a Finn thinks about Swedes, Germans, Russians, Americans, etc.

14

Chapter 2

which she adopted during her education within the family and when she was attending school. Value system - As a specific reflection of Scandinavian educational standards, Pirkko-Liisa Haarmann is fully aware of the far-reaching equality of men and women in her country and, consequently, she has adopted a self-confident stand as a woman in her professional life. Her self-identification also includes the awareness that the Finns are a small community if viewed from a world-wide perspective. When she writes articles or books about juridical subjects in Finnish, she is aware that only a limited number of experts and students will have access to her writings. She uses Swedish when dealing with Scandinavian affairs, and English or French for subjects of international interest. Pirkko-Liisa Haarmann is sensitive to foreigners' statements about Finns and Finnish society. Critical remarks about the Finns coming from non-Finns are sometimes accepted by her as hinting at "weak points" in the Finnish way of living or in the behavior of Finns. She admits that such self-criticism might result from a feeling of inferiority wide-spread among the Finns, especially when they are in contact with members of "great" nations such as the English, French, or Germans. Her categorization of foreigners incorporates a highly differentiated set of evaluations. Among the most prominent values are a cluster of viewpoints about Germans, and her appreciation of German influences on Finnish culture. Pirkko-Liisa Haarmann is a justice in the Supreme Court of Finland and thus the holder of the highest permanent administrative position a woman has ever had in Finland. Her professional duties require bilingual proficiency in the two national languages of the country, Finnish and Swedish. The existence of two official languages in the country is reflected in the bilingual administrative bureaucracy, and proficiency in the two official languages is a basic requirement for public office. This special case of a Finn's ethnic identity may illustrate that the profile of features which shape an individual's personal and cultural identification relates only partly to language. What makes up Pirkko-Liisa Haarmann's ethnic identity, therefore, cannot be completely accounted for by the fact that Finnish is her native language. The network of features which determine a person's identity becomes more complex in cases of bilingual and bicultural identification. A personal case of a complex process of ethnic identification which I have had the opportunity to follow closely is that of my daughter, Suvi Haarmann who grew up in an ethnically mixed family. Her mother was Finnish, and she was the strongest tie to Finnish language and culture for Suvi when she was very young. Her father is a German who grew up in a monolingual German environment. Suvi adopted Finnish as the

Language as a Variable in Processes of Identification

15

native language of her mother, and German as that of her father. She lived in Germany for several years, then in Finland and Japan. While living in Germany, Suvi developed her value system relating to German culture by contrasting evaluations about Finnish culture which were reduced to the family environment. In Finland, Suvi shaped her values about the Finnish language and the Finnish community, in contrast to the values relating to her German background, which was being maintained within the family. In Japan, Suvi was subjected to the evaluations made by Japanese people of both Finnish and German culture as "foreign" patterns, something she had never experienced before. The confrontation with Japanese attitudes about "exotic" European cultures obviously deepened Suvi's understanding of cultural diversity in addition to strengthening her awareness of features of her own native Finnish and German cultures. When facing the wide variety of ethnic identities existing in the world, one becomes aware of the importance of divisions between individual ethnic groups and their corresponding ethnocultural patterns. Such divisions become apparent when viewing phenomena of ethnic identity on the level of intergroup relations. Speaking about ethnic identity in terms of a community's identity requires a degree of abstraction which, naturally, is much higher than in the case of individual identity (see above). On the one hand, ethnic boundaries can be considered as a phenomenon resulting from a community singling itself out and thereby giving shape to its ethnic identity. On the other hand, when viewing the problem from the standpoint of interethnic relations, the shape of ethnic identity often appears in the form of elements emphasising mutual separation, creating "distance" between ethnic groups. These are two aspects of the one and the same phenomenon, and a contrasting perspective is revealed. However, opinions based on these views are not necessarily in mutual opposition. The components of self-identification and the categorization of others - subsumed here under phenomenology - which comprise evaluations and stereotypes about one's own ethnic group and other contacting groups, can be considered as bricks, that is to say, as the building blocks of which ethnic walls (i.e. boundaries) are built. All these factors which are related to evaluations of oneself and others in the mentality of people belonging to the same ethnic group could be grouped together as a system which supports identity. Most scholars would agree that the divisions between ethnic groups are either the result of, or themselves produce, social and psychological support systems. The view that attitudes toward other ethnic groups as well as features of selfcategorization shape the ethnic identity of an ethnic group is supported by the assumption that evaluations of the group's own role as well as that of other groups in interethnic contacts are elementary factors in all interethnic relations. One may say that the profile of an ethnic group's identity is a function of the manner in which

16

Chapter 2

the members of the group use features of ethnicity for categorizing themselves and outsiders, when interacting. Ethnic conflicts result from manifestations in positively categorizing members of one's own group and in negatively categorizing those from other groups. Categorization of this type leans on defensive elements of the group's support system such as intolerance, mistrust, cultural preconceptions, and other prejudicial attitudes toward outsiders which tend to isolate a group. Ethnic boundaries between a given group of reference and other ethnic groups grow stronger in those settings where the ethnic profile of the reference group is characterized by negative attitudes toward the groups with which it is in contact. Ethnic boundaries are the consequence of differently shaped ethnic identities in individual groups and are thus not fixed, being instead crucially dependent on the attitudes and activities of ethnic groups. These may, in turn, serve to weaken or strengthen them. Objective features such as differences in language, in cultural heritage (including religion) or in ancestry (including racial diversity) mark a group's ethnic boundaries. However, it is the perception of such features and the judgments pertaining to such boundary markers made by the members of an ethnic group which are decisive for the shaping of attitudes among ethnic groups in contact. Thus, in self-identification boundaries may be perceived as positive, this being most common among members of such groups, the living conditions of which are characterized by self-determination (e.g. pride in one's language and culture among the Catalans in Spain). On the other hand, self-identification may be revealed in a fading of self-awareness, this being relatively common among minorities under extreme pressure of assimilation (e.g. the attitude held by many speakers of Occitan in southern France). This circumstance, namely the fact that objective features are perceived by the members of an ethnic group to form their value system, explains the partially hybrid nature of ethnic boundaries. On the one hand, they are the cause of a balanced ethnic identification, on the other, they may function as the effect of a group's state of conflict. To argue that the existence of the Welsh as an ethnic group in Wales can only be explained by the ethnic boundaries separating them from the members of the English and Scottish-Gaelic communities in Britain would be too negative a definition of Welsh ethnicity. The fact that the Welsh people are different from the rest of the British population should be only a secondary consideration to the observer. More decisive are the elements of identity and group solidarity in the forming of the Welsh community (i.e. consciousness of the value of their native language, awareness of the prestige of the old cultural tradition, pride in their cultural and political autonomy). The awareness of a long cultural tradition which, in the case of the Welsh, dates back to the 6th century, as an element of national pride is also strong among ethnic groups such as the Irish, Armenians, Japanese and others. In

Language as a Variable in Processes of Identification

17

Haarmann (1983b: 34f.), this facet of ethnicity is called the "historical dimension of ethnic identity". This concept finds its parallel in the "sociohistorical status" of a group which, according to Giles, Bourhis and Taylor (1977: 310f.), may influence the "vitality of a linguistic minority". The cohesiveness of an ethnic group's identity may also be the function of the level of threat from outside (e.g. political discrimination) and, therefore, ethnic boundaries as a nexus of various features are important for the study of ethnopolitical conflicts. Everybody belongs to at least one speech community which is singled out by its language. Such a statement might seem odd when thought of in terms of a minimum definition (i.e. one community). However, any description of the individual's relation to a speech community has to take into account the specific conditions in ethnically mixed families, a type of social unit in which many millions of people around the world live. Additionally, there are many people who, living in areas with a polyethnic population (e.g. sub-Saharan Africa, Caucasus, Northern India), have adopted several languages in early childhood and interact daily with members of different communities. Relating an individual to one or more speech communities on the basis of the knowledge of languages of which he/she has a command and which serve as practical means for communication is an objective criterion of membership. And yet, the membership in a speech community is not only a matter of the observable fact that an individual speaks a certain language (or several languages, respectively). There are the values relating to a language and its modal speakers which shape an individual's identification. In reality, it is the objective ability to express oneself in a language combined with the set of values attributed to this ability which constitute the individual's practical experience of membership in a speech community. Self-identification is a subjective process, and an individual's self-determination as regards his/her membership in a speech community by including features such as self-awareness, national pride, mistrust, or intolerance toward outsiders is a subjective criterion. Both the objective and the subjective criteria are relevant for the study of language in human relations, and both provide keys to the understanding of an individual's sociocultural orientation. The individual's membership in a speech community is an elementary ethnic factor in human relations. This is true in modern societies, as it has been throughout the history of mankind. Since ancient times, people have been aware of this fact, and the awareness of the marking of ethnic boundaries. The essence of this is symbolized by the biblical story of the Tower of Babel, this account being but one of the explanations which have been proffered of the language-related ethnic fissions in the world. The individual person's relation to a speech community always remains an elementary factor, regardless of the prevalence of either objective or

18

Chapter 2

subjective features in his inclination toward group membership. In monolingual communities, objective and subjective features of group membership usually neatly coincide. On the other hand, there are many cases of shifting membership during a bilingual person's lifetime when objective and subjective might change their weight. Phenomena of shifting speech community membership can be observed in many countries. A frequently occurring type of shifting is found in the group relation of a member of a minority who acquires the language of his/her local community and adopts a language of wider communication in childhood, but later loses command of his/her "native" tongue and shifts to the second language as the only means of communication in adulthood. There are two alternative manners in which the subjective orientation of such a person may interrelate with the objective fact of a shift in group membership. One possible development is the person's integration into his/her "second" speech community by leaving behind the elements of his/her former identity (i.e. the minority language, the values attributed to the minority group by its members). Many non-French people in France who speak French as their second language may well feel like Frenchmen although being of Breton, Occitan, or other descent and having spoken a local language in childhood. The other alternative is a disruption of an objective membership and of the individual's self-identification. People living in one of the Basque provinces in Northern Spain might feel like they belong to the Basque community even though they no longer speak or understand the language of their parents. The objective fact of speaking Spanish and, thus, of sharing cultural patterns with other Spanishspeaking people weighs less than the person's sentimental ties to the community whose language he/she has lost as a marker of identity. As another example, subjective aspects prevail in the identification of Jews who have assimilated to the Russians in the Soviet Union, but who have maintained the cultural traditions of their ancestors as a symbol of Jewishness. The potential gap between an objective membership in a speech community and a subjective inclination toward the cultural traditions of another may even persist for one or more generations. This means that individuals who never spoke the language of their immediate ancestors (i.e. parents and/or grandparents), nevertheless feel inclined to their traditions and cultural heritage. It is noteworthy in this connection that, for instance, the ethnic revival movement in Western Europe (Petrella 1978) which flourished in the 1970s and early 1980s was strongly supported by those who have but a sentimental relation to the culture and language of their ancestors. This is true, in particular, of areas with a population of Celtic origin such as Brittany, Cornwall, Wales, the Scottish Highlands, the Isle of Man, and Ireland. There, the reminiscence of Celtic heritage is still remarkable among those who

Language as a Variable in Processes of Identification

19

have no living memory of a spoken Celtic language (Stephens 1976). The movement of ethnic revival might have been even stronger in the United States where the "finding of one's roots" developed into a kind of fashion in the 1970s (Fishman 1985). Among Americans, however, the self- identification with the cultural heritage of one's ancestors is a matter of reviving the awareness of descent rather than of reviving cultural patterns and of preserving them for future generations as has been the case in Western Europe. This idea of actualization may also be a key to the understanding of the reason why, in Western Europe, the ethnic revival has produced considerable political activity which, in some areas, has even exceeded its democratic limits and developed into a militant movement (e.g. the ETAmovement in the Basque provinces, the nationalist movement in Corsica). In language, arguably, the essence of a community's culture assumes its form symbolically. The alternative view, that language functions as a "mirror" of a culture, is, in turn a gross simplification. How essential language is in this role for the members of a given community remains a highly controversial issue. Evidently, cultural patterns may survive without being transferred by the language which was the means of expressing them among the members of a community in the past (e.g. English-speaking people in Britain who keep up customs of their Celtic ancestors). Although an elementary ingredient of ethnicity, language is not a necessary factor in ethnic boundary marking. There are many settings where religion is more decisive for the preservation of a community's culture than language. Illustrative examples for this may be found in Jewish communities in many parts of the world. In the Soviet Union, for instance, the number of those Jews who speak Yiddish or another Jewish language such as Judeo-Georgian, Judeo-Tadzhik or Judeo-Tat is continually decreasing, and it is but a very small portion (i.e. 14.2% according to the census of 1979) of total Soviet Jewry (Haarmann 1985b). Most Soviet Jews have assimilated to the Russians which, however, does not mean that they feel like Russians. Many of the Jewish assimilants identify themselves with Jewish cultural patterns, and this spiritual Jewishness is strongly related to religious traditions. The situation of the Jews in the Soviet Union is specific because both the Jewish religion and the Jewish languages remain in the shadow of Soviet nationality politics. Religion, however, is the main supporting factor of Jewishness in other countries with a Jewish population {e.g. Britain, France, Italy, the United States). Here, language often plays the role of a symbol of Jewishness. Most Jews outside Israel have no practical knowledge of a Jewish language. Hebrew, as the sacred language of Jewish religious tradition, is a symbol or institutionalized item in the mosaic of Jewish culture, rather than a functioning cultural pattern. The culture-supporting role of a religious tradition without the participation of language can be observed in other communities, among the Copts in Egypt for

20

Chapter 2

one. The Copts, descendants of the ancient Hamitic population, had been a Christian community long before Islam spread throughout northern Africa, and they have retained their faith to the present. As early as the ninth century, many Copts assimilated linguistically to the Arabic-speaking majority of Egyptians. By the end of the Middle Ages, the process of assimilation was almost completed. As a living language, Coptic survived in some isolated settlements for a few more centuries. As a sacred language, however, it has remained a mediator of religious thought throughout the Islamic era (Kamil 1987: 42 ff.). While in the case of Jewry, Hebrew is both a symbol of religion (i.e. classical Hebrew) and a living institution of Jewish identity (i.e. Ivrit as the official language of the state of Israel), Coptic is but a fossilized symbol of Christianity among the Copts. In a world-wide comparison, religion demonstrates a great range of variation as a culture-supporting factor. There are millions of people in many countries, Eastern and Western, for whom it is of little importance to be a member of a religious community, primarily, perhaps because they do not feel the need of a spiritual support in a religious tradition. In addition to this type of modern-age indifference to religion, there is another sort of "indifference" which is revealed in a kind of religious syncretism. In this regard, the situation in Japan provides a remarkable experience to foreigners. Westerners, in particular those from European countries and North America, are often puzzled by the "indifference" to religion characteristic of most Japanese, this being an attitude which does not seem to match the otherwise strong consciousness of cultural traditions among people in the Far East. Religious "indifference" among the Japanese does not only prevail with respect to foreign religions (i.e. Christianity, Islam), but it is also noticeable with respect to the religions with a long tradition in Japan (i.e. Shintoism, Buddhism). There is a specific facet of "indifference" which makes it almost useless to categorize the population according to their membership in a religious community, and this is the widespread habit of attending ceremonies with different religious rituals. Millions of Japanese celebrate the birth of a child following the Shintoist tradition. The same persons would prefer a Western-style (= Christian) wedding, and this does not only include the typical white bridal dress and other requisites, but also a ceremony in a Christian church where a priest gives God's blessing to the couple. However, a funeral for a member in the family will most probably be organized according to Buddhist rites. It would be a misconception to categorize those Japanese as "Shintoist-Christian-Buddhists", nor would it make great sense to relate them exclusively to any of the religions. In the Japanese mosaic culture of today, religious inclination, as it appears, is a matter of a multiple identity, rather than a kind of membership in a given community as a Westerner would understand it. When taking into consideration the history of religions since ancient times, one

Language as a Variable in Processes of Identification

21

has to admit that religion played a much more important role as an identity marker in the past than it does now. However, there are also many communities in the modern world where religious traditions have preserved their relevance as cultural patterns throughout the ages to the present, e.g. in so-called traditional cultures of Africa (Baumann 1975a), in American-Indian communities (Campbell 1984: 193 ff.), in India, Islamic countries and elsewhere. Religion may also become a primary factor in the shaping of ethnic identity. An example of this are the fundamentalist movements which have increased their political weight in many Muslim communities. Obviously, membership in the community of Shiite Muslims is more important for a modern Iranian's identity than is the fact that he/she speaks Farsi and lives in an Iranian environment. The relativity of religious patterns as concerns their changing role as indices of ethnic identity actually proves to be as multifaceted a phenomenon as the relativity of linguistic patterns. In a cross-cultural comparison, religion as a variable in ethnicity functions as an ethnic matrix in its own right, and it is not dependent on language, in the same way that language functions as a matrix, independent of religion. These two matrices, religion and language, may overlap or even form an exclusive pattern of congruence. The latter, however, is of rare occurrence among the ethnic groups in the world. An example of such a unique ethnic profile is Armenian identity which includes the following markers: a) common descent (the Armenians are of Indo-European stock and are characterized by Europide racial features); b) a common language (i.e. Armenian, an Indo-European language which represents an isolated branch of that family, is an exclusive symbol of Armenian culture and of Armenian identity); c) a common writing system (i.e. the Armenian alphabetic script which is used exclusively to render Armenian); d) a common religion (i.e. the Armenian tradition of Christianity, a unique variety of the monophysitist Oriental churches whose members believe in a fusion of the heavenly and human natures in Christ); e) a common history (which culminated in a fatal opposition of Christianity against Islam); f) the existence of a state in the original homeland (i.e. the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic within the Soviet Union); this fact is a crucial element in the

22

Chapter 2

shaping of national pride among Armenians, as is the awareness of the long struggle for national self-determination. As regards the Armenian writing system, its uniqueness even exceeds that of the Hebrew alphabet in its role as a symbol of Jewishness. While the Hebrew script has been applied not only to Hebrew (Ivrit) and Yiddish, but also to other languages (e.g. Tat and Tadzhik, which are both Iranian languages, Karaim, a Turkic language, Georgian, a Caucasian language), the Armenian alphabet has, throughout its history, been reserved for writing Armenian only. When viewing language in terms of an elementary factor in ethnic relations, this does not imply the generalizing notion of any language being a symbol of a specific culture. This is admittedly true for the great majority of the more than 5,000 languages of the world, for which reason Danish, for example, is a means for expressing Danish culture, while Japanese and Yoruba are means for expressing the culture of their respective communities, etc. Languages which are more widely spoken, such as English, Spanish, Arabic, or Swahili serve as vehicles for a multitude of cultures and subcultures. In this regard, English does not reflect the specific cultural patterns of the British because it is the "native" language of members in many other communities. It might be appropriate to speak of English as the mediator of regional cultures (e.g. British, Australian, Indian, North American varieties of Anglo-Saxon cultural traditions) and/or of subcultures (e.g. the role of English for assimilated Irish people, for black Americans, for Filipinos). Thus, English symbolizes a multifaceted panorama of cultural varieties. Similar differentiations of cultural varieties are true for French (e.g. French, Belgian, Franco-Canadian, Chadian, Cameroonian varieties), Spanish (e.g. Spanish, Mexican, Colombian, Filipino varieties), Russian (e.g. varieties of Russian related subcultures among Russians, assimilated Ukrainians, Estonians, Georgians, etc.), Arabic (e.g. Syrian, Iraqi, Egyptian, Maroccan varieties), Swahili (e.g. Tanzanian, Kenyan, Ugandan varieties), and for other languages. Mention has been made earlier of the writing system of Armenian in terms of a pattern of Armenian culture. Arguably, any script is more than a practical means of fixing language in the written code. In a comprehensive view of its functions, it is also a vehicle of cultural traditions (e.g. the evolution of literacy as against oral traditions in a community), a device for fixing cultural identification and, hence, a symbol of ethnic identity (Haarmann 1990a: 91 ff.). A language which is written and possesses written (orthographic) norms for a standard variety enhances its sociocultural potential and extends the range of cultural activities within a community (Kloss 1978: 37 ff.). In addition, the writing system of such a language usually associates highly symbolic values in a community's self-categorization. The

Language as a Variable in Processes of Identification

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24

Chapter 2

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Sign systems which are either completely or predominantly nonlanguage related

50

Chapter J

understand the meaning of an ever increasing number of pictorial symbols which are the elements of the geography-related sign system. Many specialized sign systems in the fields of technology and science are not language related or contain only a few symbols which include letters. Additionally, most of the traffic signs and other signs used in outdoor communication are not language-bound (see examples in Figure 6). Others are either partly or entirely language based (see examples in Figure 7). For instance, the chemical code for 'water', H2O, is rendered by symbols which are taken from the letters of the alphabet and from the inventory of signs for numbers. Each letter represents the first sound in the name of chemical substances. This technique of symbolizing is called acrophonic, and it functions in the same way in which the names for the letters of the Semitic alphabet originated (see Table 5). The progress of technology and science depends largely on the use of language. Although there are specialized, non-language dependent logographic sign systems which have been elaborated by experts to serve the needs of scientific precision, language is still an essential communication system among experts in whatever field. Therefore, any specialized sign system, whether language or non-language based, works in association with language. There still seems to be a widespread misconception among natural scientists, some of whom claim that language is not necessary for empirical or theoretical research. However, even though the results of information processing in chemistry, mathematics, or astronomy may find their expression in specialized symbols and formulas, the procedures and the relation of findings to other knowledge have to be explained through the channel of language, either in terms of the spoken or the written code, not to speak of the teaching of natural sciences. This basic role of language which may serve the most general purpose (e.g. in everyday communication) and may fulfill the most specialized functions (e.g. in teaching mathematics) illustrates the comprehensiveness and flexibility of this sign system. And yet, stressing this role of language must not conceal the fact that it is not the only sign system suitable for covering the wide range of cultural and social relations in a community. In any community, there is a system of gestures and poses to serve communicational intentions and which usually function as a contextualising means for placing utterances in a proper social context. In many cultural environments, gestures are also applied in their own right as a communication system without the participation of language (e.g. gestures for communication among hunters or warriors, or for rendering secret messages). In some cultures, gesture communication has reached a high level of sophistication and complexity. Arguably, one of the most refined and flexible sign systems ever to have been elaborated for interethnic communication is the system of gesture signs and symbols which was in use for

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d) Varieties of flag signalling Figure 7

Sign systems which are language based

54

Chapter 3

Table 5

The names of the Semitic alphabet

Phoenician letters

Hebrew letters

Name of letter

Phonetic value

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t

?

^

*

jôd

j

jad 'hand'

1

2

kâp

k

kap 'cupped hand'

lâmed

1

lamad 'to study'

1

L

&

D

mëm

m

majim 'water'

1

i

nun

n

?nun 'fish'

%

Î

D

sâmek

s

?samak 'fulcrum'

o

V

îajin

î

Taj in 'eye'

pë

P

pe 'mouth'

çâdê

Ç

?

qôp

q

qop 'ape'

rês

r

ros'head'

V

sin

s, s

sen 'tooth'

n

tâw

t

taw 'mark'

0

t

r

2t

P w

+

Source: Sampson 1985: 80

«1

r

The World of Signs and Symbols

55

hundreds of years among the North American Plains Indians (Taylor 1978). This system of intertribal communication which incorporates some 400 basic signs also served as a means for interaction between Indians and settlers (e.g. merchants, soldiers, settlers) until well into the nineteenth century. The effectiveness of the Indians' sign system has been tested by scholars, and its semiotic potential is sufficiently high for it to have been capable of recording the proceedings of a political debate in the US House of Representatives. The principle of this gesture-based system consists in relating individual signs (i.e. gestures produced with the arms, hands and/or fingers) to concepts and ideas, and the system allows for the handling of concrete concepts (e.g. arrow, horse, moon), abstract ideas (e.g. to be, alone, bad) and of relational concepts (e.g. opposite, something else, cannot). In Figure 8, examples of the relationship between gestures and concepts have been illustrated. Iron Hawk, a chief of the Sioux, once said that the Great Spirit provided the white people with the ability to read and write, but he gave the Indians the power to talk with their arms and hands. The latter observation with respect to the "technical" differences in the organization of communication by means of language, on the one hand, and by means of a gesture system, on the other hand, points at the basic problem of how flexible communication systems are as regards their capacity to render ideas, to record items of knowledge, to transfer information and to recall information from memory. The high degree of flexibility which is typical of language consists in that this communication system is a practical means for the instantaneous transfer of information (e.g. speech event involving the spoken code) and, eventually, for the preservation of information to serve the needs of a repeated use (e.g. the fixation of utterances in a written code, the creation of a written text). It is with good reason that one attributes to the written variety of a language a sociocultural potential higher than that of the spoken code (Kloss 1978: 23 ff.). With the instrument of a written means of communication it is possible to assemble and accumulate a theoretically unlimited amount of information and to preserve items of knowledge in a great variety of patterns (i.e. the sorts and genres of written texts). There is no need here to emphasize the revolutionary impact of literacy on the evolution of social, cultural and societal relations. The significance of writing for the fixation of magical and mythological symbolism, for the elaboration of key texts for the dissemination of religious and/or social ideas, for the codification of laws, for the expression of intellectual and spiritual abilities, and for the development of scientific traditions has become a matter of increasing attention among sociolinguists and specialists in language and culture (e.g. Haarmann 1990b). It has often been claimed that before writing was invented man expressed himself in rock carvings and paintings. As regards the similarities between the

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'horse'

'dog' a) Signs denoting concrete concepts

'to be ashamed'

'alone'

'to insult'

'bad'

X \

b) Sigs denoting abstract ideas

- t x :

'afterwards'

' cannot'

'opposite'

'something else'

one

'five'

c) Signs denoting relational concepts (i.e. relating concrete concepts or abstract ideas) Figure 8

The correlation between substance and essence in the system of gestures which served as a means of intertribal communication among the North American Plains Indians

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57

composing of rock pictures and the use of pictographic symbols in writing, this general - although superficial - statement holds water. When thinking of the social functions of carving and writing, however, it is wrong and, therefore, should be most appropriately avoided. Man expressed himself in rock carvings both before and after literacy had emerged. Therefore, rock carving is neither a simple preliminary stage of literacy nor has it been replaced by writing. For instance, the famous Scandinavian picture rocks in which the contents of the Nordic myths and chants was expressed were as popular as were the contemporary Runic texts which were also carved into the rocks (Lindqvist 1968). As far as the composition of rock pictures is meant to fix information, this is a pictorial technique which is very similar to pictographic or ideographic writing in that there is a relationship with concepts, not with the sounds of an individual language. Expressing something in a picture relies as much on the human ability to use symbols as does the use of signs for writing, since rendering objects both in carving and in writing is a matter of the individual's interpretation of the real world in terms of either more naturalistic symbols (e.g. a rock picture) or more abstract signs (e.g. a highly stylized Chinese character). All the original writing systems of mankind which emerged independently in the ancient civilizations of the world were based, in their initial stage of development, on the principle of a pictographic rendering of concepts, a technique which is not language related. This is true for the Old European writing during the period of the Vinca civilization (ca. 5300-3500 B.C.), for the Old Sumerian and Elamite writing systems, for the oldest stage of Egyptian hieroglyphs, for the Indus script, for the Chinese oracle bone inscriptions, and for writing in Mesoamerica since the emergence of literacy in the Olmek culture (see Haarmann 1990b, chapters 1-3). In most of the original writing systems, the early pictographic principle sooner or later was transformed into a more effective way of writing, namely into stylizing symbols and of relating them to the sounds of an individual language. Examples of this are the transformation of Old Sumerian pictography into Sumerian syllabic writing, or of early Egyptian pictorial techniques into the classical principle of segmental hieroglyphic writing. The Chinese script was also gradually stylized, thus signalling a transition from pure pictography to ideographic writing. In the historical stages of syllabic and alphabetic writing, however, there are hardly any traces which would still suggest an original pictographic evolution of writing (cf. the Greek alphabet as derived from the Phoenician script, the writing systems of India as derived from the Aramaic script, the Japanese syllabaries as derived from Chinese characters). Although in pictographs, the association with drawing and/or painting as artistic activities is most pervasive, the iconic sense of the human mind shows up in the

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shape of signs in whatever script, pictographic, ideographic, logicosyllabic or alphabetic. In this respect, one may find the most common link between carving, drawing and painting, on the one hand, and writing, on the other, in the elementary iconic creativity underlying such activities. And yet, such a statement about a general similarity hints at nothing else than at some variations of activities in which the creative spirit of the modern homo sapiens is concretely manifested. In a general comparison, sculpturing also has to be included in the range of activities relating to iconic creativity. It must nevertheless be admitted that the techniques applied in carving and drawing resemble those used in writing more than is the case with sculpturing. In order to understand more about the human motivation to engage in creative-iconic activities, one has to pay attention to the purpose for which carvings, writings and other "products" of the human mind come into being. From the viewpoint which is of greatest interest in the present discussion, namely the culture-related role of sign systems in a community, one has to ask how much of the individual's communicative intention is reflected in his/her activity. Basically, it depends on the creator's intention whether his/her product will have a value which is figurative-artistic, being an expression of the sentiments of his/her mind (e.g. a sculpture reflecting the creator's sense of esthetics), or whether it is to serve as a means for iconic-semiotic communication (e.g. a rock carving with a picture sequence depicting a hunting scene). The implication of figurative-artistic and iconic-semiotic values in carvings or paintings is diffuse to the extent that their classification is not a matter of attributing the one or the other sort of value to individual creations, but one of either feature outweighing the other. This duality of features is clearly retained in writing. Even though the communicative impact of written signs may seem to predominate in a text, many people are conscious of the figurative-artistic implications. This kind of consciousness is actively reflected in the history of literacy in many cultures of the world, namely in calligraphic traditions (see Long 1987 for China, A1 Samman 1988 for the Arabic script in Islamic communities, Stiebner - Huber Zahn 1985 for calligraphy in Western Europe since the Middle Ages). Nevertheless, there is a criterion which allows a distinction between the two kinds of artistically and semiotically oriented activities, and this is the mnemotechnical aspect of fixating information. Regardless of whether language is involved or not, creative activities have a semiotic impact under the condition that the creator intends to fixate information. The coordinated processing of information through the channel of iconic creativity for the purpose of a repeatable communication, the effects of which exceed the limits of a momentaneous interaction, has proven to be of great significance for the evolution of man's intellectual capacities. Mnemotechnics, understood here as

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the cluster of skills needed to fixate information, is basically an independent mental ability, and not necessarily related to the operation of language. In Figure 9, specimens of iconic creations are illustrated which serve the purpose of communication without the participation of language. These specimens are characterized by their semiotic impact, the quality of which differs in each piece of "art". The paleolithic rock painting (9a) reveals features which have been identified by scholars as symbolism in connection with magic rituals, the shape of a human hand and a variety of punctuations. The human hand appears altogether six times in the painting. Undoubtedly, the painting was meant as a means of magic communication between human beings and spirits from whom the Paleolithic bands of hunters expected luck for their enterprise. The signs of the hand may be interpreted as an expression of man's wish to gain power over the depicted animals. The second illustration (9b) is an example of primitive cosmology. Among the main components in the configuration of stars and other heavenly bodies are the sun, depicted as it appears during the daytime (as a white circle with rays beaming from it in the upper part) and as the "sleeping" star after sunset (as a white circle with a black center in the lower part), and the moon (as a white circle surrounded by white sickles in the central part). In the composition, the sun and the moon are divided by the eastern and western horizons (represented as white horizontal stripes). Other stars figure as objects with a mostly rectangular shape in the cosmological complex. The nature of the composition is mythical, but without the magic impact which is characteristic of the specimen under (9a). The third illustration shows objects of practical use (9c). In this case, the mnemotechnical aspect may be even more apparent than in the other specimens of "art". Both objects are sculptured pieces of wood, and they are intended to convey information, rather than to appeal to the viewer's esthetic senses. The "sculptures" serve the purpose of geographic orientation along a strip of the Greenlandic coast. The lower piece of wood is carved in a way depicting a part of the coastline of eastern Greenland, while the upper piece of wood is meant to represent the islands scattered along the coast. In order to function as a map, both pieces have to be adjusted properly so that the alignment of islands and the bay and fjords of the coast match. When inspecting the semiotic impact of a picture painted on a rock, of the configuration of "ornaments" on a piece of bark, or of wooden carvings, one may be impressed as to how far the way is from such a relatively simple means of communication to the highly sophisticated systems which are called 'writing'. It has been emphasized that the processing of information through the channel of iconic creativity, that is the activation of iconic creativity for mnemotechnical ends, was a decisive step forward in the cultural evolution of modem homo sapiens. As a matter of fact, the creation of writing systems was an even bigger step from the level of

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a) Rock painting featuring horses with large punctuations and hands from the cave of Pech-Merle near Cabrerets (Département Lot) in France (about 32,000 years old)

b) An "image of the universe", painted on the bark of a tree (from the Melville Islands, northern coast of Australia)

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61

c) Wooden carvings which function as a map (Angmagssalik Eskimos, eastern coast of Greenland) (Source: Birket-Smith 1972/3: 147 and 163) Figure 9

Figurative creations with semiotic functions

62

Chapter 3

communication illustrated in Figure 9. In order to provide a comprehensive survey of phenomena which are associated with the working of human figurative creativity for fixing information, a conceptual frame will be introduced here which incorporates the principal elements of the semiotic systems used by human beings, as well as their relationship to mnemotechnics. The framework of concepts which will be used in the following for denoting levels of cultural evolution, is characterized by the alignment of theoretical constructs such as "mnemotechnics", "language (spoken code)", "iconic creativity", and "language (written code)". The relationship between the components "language (spoken code)", of "iconic creativity" and of "language (written code)" and "mnemotechnics" is different in nature for each. Additionally, each relation has a different weight when inspecting its role within the overall frame of relations as postulated for individual levels in the course of cultural evolution. The proposed cultural levels are equal to evolutionary stages in the cultural evolution of mankind. The categorization of evolutionary stages which will be outlined in the following is a semiotic approach to a cultural typology of ethnic communities intended to serve as a methodological instrument for categorizing cultural levels from a semiotic point of view. A) Mnemotechnics with oral and iconic means (excluding literacy) In a general perspective of cultural evolution, the stage under discussion is the most basic and, as far as evidence is available from prehistory, the oldest stratum in the cultural evolution of the neanthropines. In a rudimentary form, this cultural type is already present in the communities of archaic homo sapiens (see above), although its flourishing is definitely related to the appearance of modern homo sapiens. The oldest settings for a fully developed cultural level of this type can be reconstructed for the Lower Paleolithic Age, dating back to about 35,000 years before present. In some marginal areas of the world, similar cultural settings have survived to the present, for example, among the Bushmen in South Africa, Namibia, Botswana and Betchuanaland (Hirschberg 1975: 390 ff.), and among aboriginal tribes in northwestern and central Australia (Bodrogi 1981a: 62 ff.). In Figure 10, the relationship between mnemotechnics and the other pertinent components for this stage of cultural evolution have been illustrated. The relationship between mnemotechnics as a mental activity and iconic creativity in terms of its "products" is the visible crystallization of how the real world is interpreted. The latter is the factor with the greatest perpetuating potential since mnemotechnics functions, under the conditions of this specific evolutionary stage, without the participation of literacy. The relationship between mnemotechnics and the spoken code is graphically represented by a dotted line, thus indicating a fairly unstable link. The attribute

The World of Signs and Symbols

, >

63

Language (Written code)

Notes: (1) The relatively low degree of effectiveness as regards oral memorising is indicated by a dotted line encircling the components "mnemotechnics" and "language (spoken code)". (2) The component "language (written code)" falls outside the range of relations which are typical of the stage of cultural evolution illustrated here. Nevertheless, its position is marked in the configuration.

Figure 10

Mnemotechnics and iconic creativity in cultures without literacy (theoretical construct)

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Chapter 3

'unstable' refers here to the limited capacity of spoken language to serve mnemotechnical purposes. For obvious reasons, the coordinated operation of the two independent mental abilities has to be considered an a priori force which started to work in human beings ever since language was used for communication in the Paleolithic Age. Whatever is recalled from the memory and put into spoken words, cannot be controlled in terms of its reliability as regards past happenings. The time distance between an event and its recalled memory on a later occasion is a factor which has a highly dispersing effect on the preservation of information relating to past experiences. The capacity of memorizing without the help of secondary means (e.g. writing) is fairly limited, and it weakens with age. In addition, memorizing is a selective process. A human being cannot recall all what he/she has experienced during his/her lifetime because of the limited storage capacity of the brain. Consequently, the experience recalled by means of the spoken code is subject to subjective selection, evaluation and distortion, and there is no reliable control to avoid the fading of a previous knowledge in one's memory. Mnemotechnics operating by means of the spoken language is a universal property in human relations and, as an elementary capacity, it has been preserved since remote times down to the era of human beings in modern industrialized society. Memorizing by means of the spoken code is the basic principle of oral literature and its transition from the memory of one generation to that of another. Although there is no evidence of oral literature from the Stone Age, it is reasonable to assert that an oral literature (e.g. magic chants, mythical narrations) has been produced ever since the time when man started to express his existential and spiritual needs in rock paintings and carvings. The wish to gain, through magic rituals, insight and control over his role in the environment must have also stimulated man to use his speech for the specification of the relationship between spirits and living creatures. And this is the essence of which myths are made, the most archaic being myths relating to cosmology and creation (see Hinnells 1984: 97 ff., Maclagan 1977). Even in the oldest specimens of mythical literature which have come down to us, the Sumerian myths and epic chants, there is evidence for a diffuse memory of then remote times. For example, in the "Epic of Gilgamesh" (1987: 108 ff.) the original oral version of which dates back to the third millennium B.C., the Great Deluge is described. There is archaeological evidence for a great flood which once devastated the southern lowlands of Mesopotamia, and this happened thousands of years before the memory of it merged into the oral text of an epic tale. The oral tradition is closely related to and, at the same time, dependent on the narrative potential of a community. One can define a community's narrative potential as the sum of narrative capacities among individuals and of narrative rituals which form part of an ethnic group's cultural patterns. The narrative potential can

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65

be subsumed in terms of its products, i.e. items of folk literature. In all known cultures which operate without literacy, there is a considerable amount of oral literature. This is even true for pygmy bands of hunters and gatherers in the African rain forests. Although the visual representation of their animistic symbolism (e.g. folk art) is poor, they possess a variety of ceremonial dances and magic chants to be performed in honor of their High God, the Wood (i.e. molimo songs), as well as legends and origin myths (Turnbull 1962). Traditions of oral literature show a great refinement and sophistication in several parts of the world, among many Indian communities of North America (see Thompson 1929 for a survey) and in western Africa (see Zwernemann 1979: 480 ff.). The narrative potential of folk literature may even survive in a community which is characterized by a life-style typical of the industrialized age. An example of this is the survival of folk epics among Finns and Karelians. As late as the 1950s, there were several persons (mostly old women) known in Finland and Soviet Karelia who were able to recite entire parts of the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala. In such communities where oral literature is the only language-oriented means for preserving the accumulated knowledge of the community (i.e. excluding literacy), mnemotechnics also works in terms of iconic creativity. Therefore, all the specimens of visual "art" with a semiotic impact which have been illustrated in Figure 9 are to be associated with this stage of cultural evolution. Although mnemotechnics works independently through the channel of oral literature, on the one hand, and that of visual "art", on the other, they may, as potential abilities, well function in a cultural symbiosis which is so typical of the evolutionary stage under discussion. A prominent example of such a symbiotic functioning of oral and iconic mnemotechnics is the performance of ceremonial dances and songs in close association with the production of sand pictures among the Navaho Indians who live in the north-eastern part of Arizona and in neighboring areas of New Mexico and Utah (see map in Campbell 1984: 249). Originally, the tradition of sand pictures for ritual purposes was found among the Pueblo Indians from whom the skills and customs spread to the Navaho. In their community, the art of painting sand pictures as a requisite in animistic rituals has reached its sublime expression. Until now, the configuration of about 500 sand pictures are known, the smaller ones measuring some 30 cm in diameter, and the biggest up to 5 m (Reichard 1977). Sand pictures are created as part of a ceremony or magic ritual. Navaho sand pictures, of which a specimen has been presented in Figure 11, are a means of communicating with the gods and spirits who are responsible for natural phenomena such as wind, rain, drought, illness and death. In the pictures, one finds concrete figures and objects which are stylized to different degrees, and the configuration of components in each picture is governed by geometrical forms. Some figures

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Chapter 3

Note: Navaho sand painting from the Mountain Chant ceremonial.

Figure 11

Sand picture of the Navaho

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67

resemble human beings, and these "holy people" are asked, as messengers, to appeal to the spirits for health, well-being and good weather. Each sand picture is created for a special ceremony. There are rituals for which only one picture is required, and others the procedures for which require several to be painted. Sand pictures are "painted" (i.e. created) on a smooth ground by disseminating colored sand. No matter how long it may take to create a picture sometimes many hours - , it has to be destroyed before sunset. In ceremonies which last several days, the sand pictures have to be renewed on each day. The destruction of any picture before the daylight disappears is a ritual constraint to interrupt the process of communication between human beings and heavenly spirits. On the one hand, sand pictures are not meant for a perpetuated communication, due to the prohibition on a permanent fixation of ceremonial symbolism. On the other hand, the creators of sand pictures are forced to spontaneously recall the ceremonial configuration of symbols from the best of their memory. Closely associated with this iconic tradition are the famous Navaho chants which take over a kind of liturgical function in connection with the ceremonial procedure of creating pictures. The iconic impact of magic symbolism in the Navaho community is even visible in the construction of their houses (Navaho hogan) with eight sides and the doorway always facing east. "The sand or pollen paintings - with their associated chants and prayers, ceremonial illustrations, visionary journeys, and pictured revelations, continuing their spell through nights and days within the sacred space of a Navaho hogan (which itself is in its form symbolic of the cosmos) - remove the mind from the usual considerations of mortality by confirming it (to quote Plato again) in "thoughts immortal and divine" (Campbell 1984: 248). When evaluating the sociocultural potential of mnemotechnics which is implied in this stage of cultural evolution, an observer who has been brought up in the world of literacy might be inclined to think that, in ethnic communities of this type, there is no need for recording complex clusters of information. However, the memory of individual specialists (e.g. a skilled narrator, someone who is able to recite genealogies including many generations, an "artist" who can reproduce dozens of ceremonial sand pictures) may be extraordinary in such communities. At the same time, the one who lives in the world of literacy should be aware of the fact that he/she strongly depends on writing. For instance, signing a contract in the world of literacy is equal to identifying oneself with the conditions which are expressed in language. Basically, this is a highly abstract procedure which usually leaves out the circumstantial factors of the occasion. Literacy is poor in recording the spirit of the parties who sign a contract, although some of it may be present in the choice of a flowery language, and yet, the spirit of an agreement may be precisely what is considered to most essential element for being recordet in the un-

68

Chapter 3

a) Text of the contract which was set up in 1682 between William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, and the Delaware

b) The Indian version of the same contract as recorded by the Delaware Note: The Indian version of the contract consists of three belts, called wampum (an Algonquian expression). The belts are m a d e of shells which are arranged in strings. The designs (featuring living things as well as geometrical forms) are created by the deliberate alignment of shells in different color and of different size. W a m p u m belts served as a mnemotechnical device for Algonquians as well as for other Indians of the East and North-East.

Figure 12

Diversity of culture and world-view as reflected in the versions of a contract (Source: Haarmann 1990b: 40-41)

70

Chapter 3

derstanding of people who live in a world without literacy. This kind of relativity of what a contract may mean stands behind many agreements between white people and Indians in North America. In Figure 12, the confrontation of the literate with the illiterate world is illustrated in terms of the versions of the contract which William Penn negotiated with the Delaware Indians in 1682 and which led to the foundation of the State of Pennsylvania. When inspecting the bicultural version of this contract - which is not the same as a bilingual contract - one should be aware of the differences in the communicative intentions and mnemotechnical interests of the participating parties. The cultural contrast which is apparent in the versions of the Pennsylvania contract may serve as a good example for avoiding misconceptions as regards the overall "superiority" of cultures with literacy over those which function without it. B) Mnemotechnics with oral and iconic means, including pictorial literacy

Figure 13

A year guide used among the Dakota Sioux (corresponding to a calendar for the years 1800 to 1871; Mallery 1893: pi. 20)

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71

A decisive step in the direction of writing was taken with the elaboration of pictorial techniques in terms of the deliberate alignment of iconic symbols for the purpose of clustering information. At an evolutionary stage of human culture, the characteristic features of which are found in type (A), the semiotic impact of a rock painting, for example, remains diffuse since only selective information can be provided in an arbitrary configuration of pictures. However, in the deliberate alignment of iconic symbols, the mnemotechnical information can be rendered with greater precision. The use of the term 'literacy' in connection with pictorial techniques of the type (B) under discussion is reasonable under the condition that there is a deliberate and determined activity to accumulate a certain amount of information for mnemotechnical purposes. It has to be emphasized that the kind of pictorial literacy in question must not be confused with language related writing. Refined pictorial techniques of this cultural stage are non-verbal means because they work perfectly without relating iconic symbols to the words or the sounds of an individual language. Let me review some of the basic implications of such pictorial techniques which provide a clue to the emergence of pictographic writing (see under type C). Figure 13 illustrates the use of iconic symbols which are aligned in a sequence for the mnemotechnical recording of happenings. The illustrated object, the skin of a buffalo with symbols painted on it, served as a calendar among the Dakota Sioux, and it records important events in the span of time between the years 1800 and 1871. The spiral of the years has to be "read" starting in the center and following the iconic sequence opposite to the movement of the clock. Each picture has the value of a symbol featuring a typical event during winter time. Some selected symbols will be explained in the following. The symbols under discussion are marked in the illustration by numbers.

Symbol 1 - The picture of a man with pox, recalling the winter of 1801/02 when an epidemic of smallpox decimated the Dakota community; Symbol 2 - The picture of a falling star, recalling the winter of 1833/ 34 when a swarm of meteorites crashed in the area of Sioux settlement;

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Symbol 3 - The picture of a tepee which is perforated by arrows, as a reminder of the winter of 1839/40 when the Dakota destroyed a village of the Shoshone;

Symbol 4 - The picture of shaking hands, a custom which was adopted from the white people as a symbol of agreement, in this connection recalling the winter of 1840/41 when peace was made between the Dakota and the Cheyenne; Symbol 5 - The picture of a horse, a reminder of the winter of 1841/42 when the Dakota captured about 30 horses in a successful raid.

In the Sioux calendar, information about happenings is densely accumulated in individual pictures each of which symbolizes an important event. The alignment of pictures in a sequence makes this calendar a mnemotechnical device which may, effectively, support the memory of the one who relies on it. As a result of the selection of typical features expressed in the pictures, this kind of pictorial technique called Kekewin (originally an Ojibwa term; Pinnow 1964: 106) is rigidly associated with the contents of events. Therefore, the Kekewin technique may be described as a contextually immanent device of recording a happening. There is no direct connection with the Sioux language, and somebody who does not know this Indian language can interpret the symbols of the calendar, provided he/she has a knowledge of what happened. Another pictorial technique used among the North American Indians was the Kekinowin (this also an Ojibwa term). Based on the same principle as Kekewin, the symbols of Kekinowin were preferred to memorize oral texts of a narrative nature (e.g. myths, magic chants, tales). With good reason, one can define the Kekinowin as a more refined and sophisticated technique than the Kekewin since Kekinowin symbols usually correspond to individual sentences or parts of sentences in a coherent context. As an example of this, the creation myth of the Delaware Indians is presented in Figure 14. This is a portion of a more recent cosmology which was added to the Walam Olum (lit. 'truthful painting'), the tribal chronicle of the Dela-

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73

ware. The symbols which, in terms of their mnemonic impact, could be called 'supersigns' were drawn on the bark of birch trees. The pictures symbolize individual text units, and "the relationships between the successive drawings, which are sometimes extremely close (e.g. nos. 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10), suggest a continuous metamorphic chain: the syntax of a fundamental grammar of forms" (Maclagan 1977: 79). Pictorial literacy as it crystallizes in the techniques of Kekewin and Kekinowin, which were widely used by Algonquians and other Indians in pre-Columbian times as well as after the arrival of the white people, distinguishes itself from pictographic literacy in that the latter knows a one-to-one correlation of iconic symbols and individual concepts (see under type C). There are pictorial techniques used among American Indians which indicate a trend toward the elaboration of pictographic literacy. For example, the kind of pictorial technique known among the Cuna Indians in Panama may be considered as a typological missing link between pictorial and pictographic literacy. The Cuna script which is applied by Cuna magicians for recording magic chants and ritual formulas, has a characteristic property, and this is that individual symbols may serve to render text units (as in pure pictorial literacy such as Kekinowin), on the one hand, and individual ideas (as in pictographic literacy such as the ancient Chinese script). In Figure 15, specimens of Cuna recordings have been presented. The signs and symbols used are not "standardized", and their use by one magician may be unintelligible to another. The Cuna script is not used as a means of communication between a magician and ordinary people. Instead, it functions as a secret mnemotechnical device to support the oral memory of the insider who is familiar with and capable of performing the magic rites. The implications of traditional cultures where the pictorial techniques described in the foregoing were or have been in use may be illustrated in terms of a theoretical construct such as the one in Figure 16. The relationship between mnemotechnics and language (spoken code) is characterized for type (B) in the same way as for type (A; cf. Figure 10) because, as a universal feature, it is significant at any level of cultural evolution. Different from the working of mnemotechnics by oral and iconic means without literacy (as in type A), however, is the elaboration of iconic techniques to achieve a level of pictorial literacy. Although the relation between iconic symbols in a given cultural context (e.g. Kekinowin) and the individual language of its creators (e.g. Delaware in the case of the Walam Olum) is diffuse since the structural units of that language are not rendered in "writing" a narrative text, there is, nevertheless, an associational link to the meaningful elements of the language in which the text is orally reproduced. This kind of an associational link between 'iconic creativity' and 'language (written code)' is indicated for pictorial literacy in terms of a dotted circle and dart. Recalling conceptual items of

74

Chapter 3 1.

Sayewitalli wemiguma wokgetaki In the beginning, at all times, above the earth, in this place,

2.

Hackung kwelik owanaku wak jutali kitanitowit essop Upon the earth there was a huge mist, and there was the Great Manito.

«17

3.

In the beginning, for ever, lost in space, was the Great Manito.

a •

m

Sayewis hallemiwis nolemiwi elemamik kitanitowit essop

4.

Sohalawak kwelik hakik owak awasagamak He made the huge earth and the sky.

5.

.

Sohalawak gishuk nipahum alankwak He made the sun, the moon and the stars.

6.

Wemi sohalawak julikyuchaan He made everything move in harmony.

7.

Wichowagan kshakan moshakwat kwelik kshipehelep Then the wind blew violently, it became lighter, and water flowed strongly and from afar.

8.

Opeleken mani-menak delsin-epit And groups of islands emerged and remained.

Lappinup kittanitowit manito manitoak Once again, the Great Manito spoke, one Manito to other Manitos.

Figure 14

(cont.)

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75

10. Owiniwak angelatawiwak chichankwak wemiwak To mortal creatures, spirits and all.

m

11. Wtenk manito jinwis lennowak mukom And thereafter he was the Manito of men and their grandfather.

12. Milap netami gaho owini gaho He sent the first mother, the mother of all creatures.

13. Namesik milap. tulpewik milap, awesik milap, cholensak

*

milap He sent fish, he sent turtles, he sent wild beasts, he sent birds.

14. Makimani shak sohalawak makowini nakowak amanga-

It

mek

L

But a spiteful Manito made only spiteful creatures, monsters.

15. Sohalawak uchewak, sohalawak pungusak He made flies, he made mosquitoes.

O O

Ol .A

16. Nitisak wemi owini w'delsinewuap

O]

All creatures were friendly with one another at the time.

o 17. Kiwis wunand wishimanitoak essopak Truly the Manitos were very active and considerate.

Figure 14

(cont.)

76

Chapter 3 18. Nijini netami lennowak, nigoha netami okwewi, nantinewak To these first men of all and to these first mothers of all: they found them helpmeets,

19. Gattamin netami mitzi nijini nantine And they gave them to eat when they needed to.

20. Wemi wingi-namenep, wemi ksin-elendamep, wemi wulla-

u

temanuwi All possessed joyful wisdom, all had time to spare and happiness.

-•

21. Shukandeli-kimi mekenikink wakon powako initako

''

But in great secrecy a spiteful creature, a powerful magician, appeared on earth.

# I

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22. Mattalogas pallalogas maktaton owagan payat-chik yutali And with him brought unhappiness, quarrelling and misfortune.

jt^

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Brought bad weather, brought sicknes, brought death.

^ o n w e r n ^ wiwunchkamik atak kitahikan netamaki epit All this happened once upon a time on earth before the great flood, in the beginning.

Figure 14

The creation myth of the Delaware Indians (excerpt from the chronicle Walam Olum; first chant)

The World of Signs and Symbols

77

Safe M^fiiti«^^^ tifgi ttPJfü fr» ,f f

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Figure 15

Specimens of Cuna recordings (source: Haarmann 1990b: 43)

78

Chapter 3

Figure 16

Mnemotechnics and iconic creativity in cultures with pictorial literacy (theoretical construct)

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79

memory which crystallize in a narrative sequence of iconic symbols (e.g. in the creation myth of the Delaware) leaves much space for oral variation in an individual narrator's recitation. In this respect, the relationship between the items of iconic material and the elements of the spoken code remains diffuse, another feature by which pictorial literacy differentiates itself from pictographic literacy. C) Mnemotechnics with oral and iconic means, including pictographic and/or ideographic literacy The distinction between pictorial and pictographic literacy may seem artificial at first sight but, in a closer inspection of the implications of the latter, a higher degree of precision in fixating information is revealed in pictographic literacy. The higher degree of precision is based on the special organizational principle of rigidly correlating an individual pictographic symbol with an individual concept (one sign - one idea). In addition, while pictorial symbols show features of real events and, thus, are bound to the situational conditions of a happening, symbols in pictographic literacy are iconic abstractions with a general-descriptive function which do not depend on specific situations and may be used indiscriminately for describing the general implications of similar concrete situations. In general terms, it is the higher sophistication in organizing the iconic material which distinguishes pictographic from pictorial literacy. The greater effectiveness of pictographic literacy compared with pictorial literacy also results from the higher degree of a conventionalized use of signs. In all pictographic writing systems which emerged in the high cultures of antiquity, there was a clear trend toward the elaboration of conventionalized symbols. The revolutionary step that was taken in this direction culminated in the emergence of a limited inventory of conventional signs which was a mnemotechnical advancement as compared with the multivariational use of symbols in pictorial literacy. In the early pictographs of Mesopotamia, the appearance of which date back to the end of the fourth millennium B.C., the stylized picture of a vulva was chosen to render the concept 'woman' (Sumerian munus\ see Figure 17, b). This was a metaphoric use of the symbol as originally referring to the female pudendum (Sumerian sal). Once this symbol had been introduced as a stylized sign with a conventional association to concepts of the Sumerian culture, every scribe had to follow the established norm. Therefore, it was no longer possible for one scribe to use the picture of a vulva, for another to symbolize a female person by the picture of female breasts, and for a third to create the picture of a sitting woman (which is the iconic basis of the corresponding Egyptian hieroglyph). Writing with pictographic signs is equal to using stereotyped iconic symbols which, by convention, belong to the same culturally specific system of literacy.

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Chapter 3

«

1

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a) Specimen of Sumerian pictographic writing (4th millennium B.C.) (Birket-Smith 1972/3: 154) •head' •hand'

t>

'woman' 'cow'

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b) Sumerian pictographic symbols and their meaning Figure 17

Pictographic writing in the early tradition of Sumerian literacy

reed

The World of Signs and Symbols

OX

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¿oat, sheep

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tree

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Note: In the overview, a selection of pictographic signs is presented, as found on the oracle bones (late Shang period). The pictographs are accompanied by a translation (above) and by the equivalents of modern Chinese characters (below).

Figure 18

Early pictographic literacy in China

The phenomenon of an abstract selection of significant features has been emphasized for ancient Sumerian pictography (see Figure 17). A similar tendency toward selecting features is present in the formation of early Chinese pictographs which, until the period of the Han dynasty (202 B.C. - 220 A.D.), experienced a highgrade stylization (see Figure 18). On the other hand, pictographic symbols may persist in a naturalistic shape with a low degree of stylization. Such was the basis of pictographic writing in the Aztec civilization (see Figure 19). In the neighboring Mayan civilization, however, pictographic literacy relied on symbols of various kinds, ranging from the very naturalistic to the very abstract (see Figure 20). In the Mayan system of pictographs, features of a unique kind of mystical abstraction are present (see Figure 21 for a specimen of the Mayan script). There are essential preconditions to the emergence and the spread of pictographic literacy: a) There must be the awareness of the need to use pictographs in order to fixate information with a high degree of precision;

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Chapter 3

\ Cipactli

F.hcratl

Calli

Cuetzpallin

Coati

Crocodile

Wind

House

Lizard

Serpent

Miquiztli

Masall

Tochtli

All

Jtzeuintli

Death's-Head

Deer

Rabbit

Water

Dog

Ozomatli

Malinalli

Atatl

Oalotl

Cuauhlli

Monkey

Grass

Reed

Ocelot

Eagle

Tecpatl

Qiiiahuitl

Xóchitl

Flint Knife

Rain

Flower

Cozcaquauhtli Ollin Vulture

Figure 19

Motion

Specimens of Aztec pictographic writing (day signs)

b) There must be the intellectual capacity to understand how practical it is to associate iconic symbols with individual items in the conceptual network which is reflected in the lexical structures of a given language; c) A refined sense of abstraction must be at work which promotes a tendency toward stylizing forms and shapes of iconic symbols or to select characteristic features of real items by leaving out others. d) There must be the authority of individual persons or groups of individuals to prescribe the use of signs as conventional or, at least, to promote a normalization of a pictographic system for practical use. Early writing in the ancient civilizations of the world was controlled by members of the priesthood (Haarmann 1990b, chapter 2).

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e) There must be the resources to train scribes and to organize writing as an activity of members in a professional group. For example, in ancient Sumerian society, scribes were trained by religious leaders for making inventories of temple property and economic resources; f) There must be a fundamental need in a given community to fixate information on a large scale (e.g. for the purpose of ritual and ceremonial activities, holy writings, legal documents and law codifications, for rendering pieces of literature in writing). When inspecting the preconditions of pictographic literacy from the point of view of cultural evolution, it becomes apparent that writing in the ancient civilizations emerged from a kind of cultural thrust by which communities were urged to accumulate items of their cultural knowledge in a practical and persisting way. As a conclusion, the division of labor and power, and the internal differentiation of communities in terms of social classes and professionally specialized groups must be more advanced in a civilization with pictographic literacy than in one at the level of pictorial literacy. Pictographic literacy is typical of the earliest writing of mankind which emerged in the Neolithic civilization of the Danube valley in the sixth millennium B.C. (Winn 1986, Haarmann 1989c), of the oldest phase of Mesopotamian civilizations (i.e. in the early Sumerian society from about 3200 to 2500 B.C., and in the Elamite kingdom of the first half of the third millennium B.C.), of the ancient Indus civilization (from about 2600 to 1600 B.C.), of ancient Crete (i.e. hieroglyphic writing from the late third and second millennium B.C.), of ancient China (since the thirteenth century B.C.), of early Mesoamerican civilization, with the oldest traces found in the Olmek culture of the first millennium B.C. (see Haarmann 1990b, chapter 4 for these ancient stages of literacy). In ancient Egypt, during the time of the 1st and 2nd dynasties (until about 2700 B.C.), literacy was based on the use of pictographic symbols. This early type of literacy, however, was soon replaced by the segmental writing of hieroglyphic Egyptian (see under type D). The phase of pictographic literacy lasted for many centuries in Mesopotamia, in the Indus valley, and in China. The longest-lasting tradition is found in Mesoamerica where Mayas, Aztecs, Toltecs and Mixtecs kept up pictographic literacy until their civilizations were destroyed by the Spaniards. The implications of this stage of cultural evolution involving pictographic literacy are to be specified as in Figure 22. Differing from the configuration of essential components which is typical of types (A and B), the category 'language (written code)' is an independent force of mnemotechnics and, therefore, an independent component in the configuration of this type (C). The relationship between mnemotechnics and the spoken code persists because the oral tradition does

84

Chapter 3

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. This sign denotes the following concepts: 'book', 'to write', 'abstract notion'. The iconic impact of the sign as relating to the latter idea may be paraphrased as 'something which cannot be depicted but can only be rendered in (phonetic) writing'. Logographic signs which kept their character as pictographs were used alongside the phonetically applied hieroglyphic script. Hieroglyphic signs with logographic value denote individual words, as in the Sumerian and Akkadian cuneiform script, and they may also function as determinatives, as markers of semantic classes. For example, many verbs which denote an activity which is related to the head are, in writing, associated with a symbol representing a sitting man who holds his right hand near his head (see Table 8). In the iconic material which is included in the inventory of hieroglyphic signs (i.e. signs with phonetic-segmental value, logograms, determinatives), a broad

The World of Signs and Symbols

Table 8

93

Example of an Egyptian hieroglyph which functions as a determinative

Û

Sitting man holding his right hand near his head

Verbs which, in the written code, incorporate the above element as a determinative of the semantic class: Hieroglyphs

Sound structure

Meaning

mrj

'to love'

sn

'to kiss'

'to drink'

msdj

'to hate'

The semantic differentiation of verbs which belong to this semantic class: a) Verbs denoting a physical activity e.g. c§'to call', sn 'to kiss', swr 'to drink' gr 'to be silent' b) Verbs denoting an emotional reaction e.g. mrj 'to love', msdj 'to hate', rsw 'to be happy' c) Verbs denoting a mental activity e.g. jb 'to think', 'rk 'to swear', nd 'to ask', spr 'to beg'

Note: There are more than thirty hieroglyphs representing a man in different positions and carrying out different activities which function as determinatives. The number of hieroglyphs with the shape of a woman in similar functions (i.e. marking semantic classes) is less than ten. Thus, sex difference is strongly marked in the system of hieroglyphic signs.

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panorama of motives is revealed which reflect cultural items, social relations in phararaonic Egypt and the natural environment of Egyptian civilization which totally depended on the fertility of the Nile valley. In this respect, the symbols of the Egyptian script illustrate an iconic cross-section of the ancient Egyptian culture. The hieroglyphs have been assembled by scholars in different classes. There are signs depicting activities of men and women, symbols featuring parts of the human body and that of animals, representing a variety of animals (e.g. birds, mammals, fishes), trees and other plants (e.g. reeds, cereals, flowers). In addition, there is a great bulk of such symbols which show various objects, among them buildings or parts of constructions, ships and their equipment, temples, graves, and related religious symbols. Other signs depict tools, instruments and weapons associated with warfare, hunting, preparing food, agriculture and handicraft, writing and entertainment (e.g. music, games); see Haarmann (1990b, chapter 3 for a survey). Although the association of individual signs with the sound structure of the Egyptian language revolutionized writing, the use of the hieroglyphic script was restricted to ceremonial purposes. A practical form of writing emerged from the ceremonial script by giving its symbols a cursive shape. This variety of Egyptian writing is called Hieratic (from Greek hieratika grammata 'script of the priests'). Hieratic, the cursive version of the hieroglyphs, was in general daily use and only functioned as a priestly script after another variety of cursive writing, Demotic, had been introduced in the seventh century B.C. The latter was in use for about one thousand years, surviving both hieroglyphic and hieratic writing (see Figure 23 for specimens). Coptic was the last of the Egyptian writing systems which was used in pre-Islamic Egypt. It was derived from the Greek alphabet and used since the second century A.D. After the introduction of the Arabic alphabet in the seventh century, the Coptic script was gradually replaced in public use, but has kept its role as a sacred script among the Coptic Christians of Egypt. Alphabetic writing, as we know it from classical Greece, and later from Etruscan and Roman Italy, originated from a variety of the Phoenician script the initial stage of which can be traced back as far as the seventeenth century B.C. (FoldesPapp 1987: 112ff.). In a typological perspective, the use of individual letters for the purpose of rendering individual sounds in the phonetic sequence of the spoken code is the final step in the evolution of writing systems (see Haarmann 1990a: 51 f. for a typology). Moreover, in alphabetic literacy, the principle of dislocating the means of iconic creativity from those of mnemotechnics in association with literacy becomes apparent. The phenomenon of a dislocation is also present in the configuration of categories which is typical of this type of cultural evolution (see Figure 24). In the theoretical construct, there is an independent relationship between mnemotechnics and iconic creativity, and another between mnemotechnics and the

The World of Signs and Symbols

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d) Coptic Note: The Coptic script is based on the Greek alphabet and incorporates some signs from the Demotic script, for sounds which are unknown to the Greek language (i. e. 24 signs of the Greek alphabet + 8 sings from the Demotic script).

Figure 23

Writing systems used in Egypt (Source: Heine-Schadeberg-Wolff 1981: 153 f.)

96

Chapter 3

Figure 24

Mnemotechnics and iconic creativity in cultures with syllabic or alphabetic literacy (theoretical construct)

written code. There is a dotted dart indicating a relationship between the components 'iconic creativity' and 'language (written code)'. This stands for the evolutionary stage of segmental or syllabic writing in association with the use of logograms as expressed in pictographic symbols. Such a stage is only known from antiquity, and it holds true for all regional syllabic writing systems on the basis of the cuneiform script, for segmental writing in Egypt, for the use of Hittite hieroglyphs and for literacy in ancient Crete based on the Linear B script. In those antique varieties of a logicophonetic script, there was still a partial reminiscence of the pictographic preliminary stage of literacy. This kind of a reminiscence which may be indicated as it is in terms of a vague associational relationship between

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iconic creativity and the written code (i.e. a dotted dart) is apparent in the preservation of the pictorial nature of conventional logograms and, at the same time, in the motivated nature of each individual sign used as such. In pure phonetic writing, syllabic (e.g. the Cypro-Syllabic script for rendering Greek, the script invented by Sequoia for writing Cherokee) or alphabetic (e.g. Semitic, Greek, Latin, Indian varieties), the written sequence of signs becomes as arbitrary as is the phonetic sequence of the spoken code. The variety of differently combined means of mnemotechnics as they have been assigned to basic types of cultural evolution in the foregoing may be further enlarged, and the varieties of mnemotechnical means including and excluding literacy may be further differentiated for individual types. However, in the alignment of the four basic types which have been specified, the essential ingredients of a flexible typology have been provided. The proposed typology must not be confused with a schematic classification. The proposed types are relational and their profile is based on a typical cluster of features, not on a single feature as in most classifications. When describing the conditions of mnemotechnics in terms of its relation to the spoken code (i.e. oral tradition), to iconic creativity (e.g. carving, painting, etc. for conveying information), and to the written code (i.e. varieties of literacy), in a given community, patterns resulting from the specific relations between those variables will be revealed which allow to associate the local culture to one of the proposed types of cultural evolution. For the practical purpose of application, the types have been distinguished by labelling their characteristic configuration (i.e. oral and iconic mnemotechnics in cultures without literacy, oral and iconic mnemotechnics in cultures with pictorial literacy, oral and iconic mnemotechnics in cultures with pictographic and/or ideographic literacy, oral and iconic mnemotechnics in cultures with sound-oriented, that is syllabic and alphabetic, literacy). And yet, the name which is given to an individualtype is less important than the actual information which is provided by the configuration of its essential components. Theoretically, the stage of cultural evolution in any community, historical or existing, can be specified in terms of the typology under discussion. There is a wide range of applications to test the effectiveness of the postulated types and their implications. For example, American Indian cultures are a challenging field of study because they provide much insight into the grading of developmental stages ranging from type (A) to type (D). In addition, the typology may be applied for describing a certain domain in a given cultural environment. For instance, under the conditions of modern industrialized society, mnemotechnics by oral, iconic and literal means operates in terms of a clustered set of capabilities to convey information in certain domains, with one ability depending on the other. This is true for

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mnemotechnical processes in the mass media where the means of "pure" literacy may correlate with that of iconic and oral means (e.g. a sportscast on television, TV advertising). On the other hand, there are certain mass media which rely entirely or predominantly on literacy (e.g. newspaper article without an associated photo). The situation in the mass media may be as complex as to reveal the clustering of different kinds of literacy in one and the same cultural environment. This is true, for instance, for Japan where, in the mass media, there is ideographic literacy (i.e. the Chinese characters for writing Japanese lexemes), syllabic literacy (i.e. the Hiragana syllabary for writing Japanese inflectional elements, the Katakana syllabary for rendering non-Chinese loanwords in Japanese), and alphabetic literacy (i.e. the Latin script for writing English); (see Haarmann 1989a: 53 ff.). Especially when describing cultural settings of the type (D), it might be desirable to further differentiate patterns showing the manner in which mnemotechnical means cluster in varying domains. For this purpose it seems reasonable to elaborate theoretical constructs of configurations to serve as typical subdivisions (i.e. subtypes) to the basic type (D) and, eventually, result in a subdivision of semiotic systems in modern societies. Additional subdivisions may be thought of as derived from the basic types, provided this is required when evaluating findings from a broad experience in comparing cultures on the background of the proposed typology. For the moment, there is not yet much experience in comparative research of this kind which would enhance such subdivisions. It seems daring, if not premature, to grade the relevance of individual mnemotechnical means in the formation of individual culture types although there is some general experience as regards certain correlations. For example, it has been observed that mnemotechnics by oral means, that is the narrative potential in a community as reflected in their oral tradition weakens to the extent that mnemotechnics becomes more and more literacyoriented through the channel of public education and/or the mass media. Since the oral tradition is a stable factor in all types of cultural evolution, it may be possible in the future, by investigating the narrative potential in a variety of communities comparatively, to specify the relative role of the oral tradition for the formation of each culture type, and how much of the impact of mnemotechnics shifts from oral means to literacy. And yet, appropriate methods for measuring this relative role of the oral tradition have yet to be elaborated. A challenging field of application of the typology will be culture contacts, and bicultural and multicultural settings. The contacts between cultures and languages may be interpreted in terms of associating the involved groups with individual types of cultural evolution. The history of colonialism, for example, elucidates the essence of culture contacts which often have carried all the manner of an ethnic conflict. From the confrontation of European cultural traditions with local cultures

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in the Americas, in Africa, Asia and Australia emerged various patterns of a contrast. There still is the misconception among many Europeans and Americans that, in most parts of the colonized world this kind of a contrast was mainly one of the world without literacy being confronted with literacy. This is not true, especially not when taking into consideration a refined notion of literacy. In North America, the confrontation was one between cultures predominantly of the type (B) with the culture of the white people (i.e. of the type D). In the historical contacts in Mesoamerica, contrasts between the Indian cultures of the types (B and C) and the European culture of the type (D) are revealed. In terms of the relative distance between the involved culture types, contrasts are more marked in South America where the history of colonization shows contacts between cultures of the type (A) and, exceptionally of the type (B), with the European type (D). In black Africa, the confrontation between traditional cultures of the type (A) and, occasionally, of the type (B) with varieties of European cultures of the type (D) resembles the conditions in South America. A greater span of contrast variety in the range of cultural evolution can be found in the Asian context where cultures of all types (i.e. A-D) were confronted with the manifestation of European cultural traditions. Australia differs from many other colonial regions of culture contact in that the contrast between cultures of the type (A) as represented in the tribal communities of the aborigines and the type (D) as represented by the Europeans was too sharp to be bridged. Arguably, the proposed typology of cultural stages proves to be especially fruitful when being applied to multicultural settings in modern states as well as to the impact of oral and iconic means and literacy on mnemotechnics in countries of the Third World.

Chapter 4

Communicative competence and the processing of meaning - The cognitive dimension of language

Processes of ethnic identification and the operation of mnemotechnics by means of a variety of sign systems are associated with the normative behavior of the individual who, as a rule, is educated to conform with the social conventions in his/her cultural environment. Conforming to the group, that is being social, ranges among the basic abilities of man in terms of a biological species, not a human being, since social behavior is a property of most animals. It is a matter of common sense that any socially meaningful interaction between human beings and their environment is an orderly process, and that communication is not a coincidental alignment of verbal and non-verbal means at an individual's disposal. Instead, the organized nature of a successful communication which is revealed in the undisturbed and conflict-free production and perception of speech in a cultural context is transparent to everybody willing to use his/her common sense. When pointing to organizational principles as a control of communicative processes this associates the idea of an elementary capacity that enables human beings to interact. As illustrated by the practical experience of anybody's life, this capacity to communicate is innate and activated before any kind of education takes place. A baby expresses basic needs and moods by means of crying or smiling. Unconsciously, the young brain analyzes the effects of its doing on human beings in its surroundings. Learning from experience, the young human being develops body talk into a practical means of communication prior to the acquisition of language as a sophisticated tool for that purpose. What is obvious needs no further explanation. However, knowing that communication is based on organizational principles which guarantee its success is one thing, finding ways to formally describe them is another. As far as language is concerned, social behavior by means of speech is viewed as operated by a control center in the human brain. This control center will be referred to here as communicative competence. The concept itself is not new, but has been well known and widely accepted ever since Hymes (1971) proposed it as a methodological tool to compensate for the exclusively formal notion of competence in the terminology of

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transformational grammar. Although not a new term, its implications have to be refined, thus compensating for the diffuse definitions and limited applications attributed to it as of now. In the following an attempt will be made to elaborate a novel interpretation of both the concept and its usefulness within a general theore-tical framework. Communicative competence has to be understood, in a broad sense, as a function of social, cultural, conceptual, psychological and intentional factors in their relation to linguistic structures. The role played by communicative competence in the establishment of human relations through interaction is one of processing the knowledge about such relations in general, and the means of verbal and non-verbal behavior in particular. Since the ability of human beings to engage in meaningful interaction under varying environmental conditions is comprehensively coordinated by communicative competence, it is, arguably, uncontroversial to compare the operation of this control center to that of a central processing unit, a module, in an electronic device. Before going into details about the operation of this central processing unit in human interaction, I would like to point out some preliminaries which are essential for the understanding of why the model of communicative competence proposed below is more comprehensive than any previous approach for specifying this notion against a sociolinguistic background. The comprehensiveness relies on a basic hypothesis about the emergence of meaning and the working of meaningful communication. The utterance of even the simplest spoken text requires much more than a mere "technical" alignment of linguistic signs which may be described in syntactic terms. The following sample sentence was widely quoted in the linguistic literature for years, and it was used to demonstrate the practical use of formal linguistic descriptions: John kicked the ball. However, formal description of a sample sentence of this type implies, in the first place, the danger of analysing it as isolated as a laboratory substance. Any formal description of this sample sentence is equal to the enforcement of formalism on a specimen of atomized human speech, and this is the equivalent of a distortion of the essence of language, namely its social nature. There is no need to elucidate the well-known fact that any sentence which is uttered is placed into a social context. Regardless of these implications which would have to be clarified before any formal description takes place, there is the cultural background which is a necessary requisite to making the sample sentence meaningful in any way. A considerable amount of cultural knowledge has to be processed by both speaker and hearer before the implied proposition can be given a sense. To name but a few of these implications:

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a) The sentence is only meaningful in cultures where there are games involving a ball-shaped object and, in particular, games which involve the kicking of a ball. In the pre-Columbian Maya culture, the notion of 'kicking' a ball would have been strange, since the rules of the domestic ball game which formed part of a ritual allowed the ball to be hit only with the hip-bone or the elbow. b) Provided that the sample sentence makes reference to football, it can make sense after the rules of football - including the requirement that the ball be kicked and not thrown - had been established in England in 1849. Before that time, an utterance about kicking the ball would have, most probably, caused some puzzlement among English-speaking people. c) The sentence structure presupposes that the speaker and the hearer for whom it is intended share the notions 'subject' and 'object', that is that the person called John does something to an object, and not the object to the person. d) The identification of the phonetic sequence as a reference to a person presupposes the knowledge that it is a name (i.e. a linguistic sign to refer to an individual) and not a denotation of a non-living thing. In particular, ball games are associated with human beings rather than with animals, another item of cultural knowledge which is required for the understanding of the sample sentence. Moreover, the speaker can expect the hearer to share the knowledge that John is the name of a male rather than a female person. e) The temporal reference in the verb form (kicked = imperfect) presupposes a cognitive experience of the notion 'time' and, in particular, of temporal categories such as 'present', 'past', etc. The forms of the imperfect in English indicate a category of absolute time (i.e. reference to an event in the past) which is a typical feature in a culture which operates with "pure" temporal categories. Furthermore, a category of absolute time is not equivalent to one of relational time (i.e. reference to one event in relation to another one.) The translation of the sample sentence into Navaho would require a propositional structure expressing relational time. As for another facet, the translation of the sample sentence into Russian, for instance, would automatically include an aspectual reference (see chapter 7 for temporal and aspectual relations). There are still more items of knowledge involved which provide a kind of "selfunderstood" background for the utterance to be meaningful, but the mention of the basic implications in the foregoing may suffice to make my point. Actually, meaning can emerge from the sentence, but only by correlating items of cultural knowledge with the elements of linguistic structures which symbolize human relations in the real world. Cultural knowledge is based on a cognitive perception of human

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relations, and this is a matter of how they are interpreted, rather than one of a "neutral" (i.e. value-free) orientation. As a means of emphasizing the circumstance that the interpretation of human relations in the real world by the members in a community is definitely culture-related, I would like to give sample sentences in a short dialogue (with participant-1 being a man, and participant-2 , a woman), thus providing a minimum of a social context. The following sentences may be familiar to many individuals, in the past, present or in the future: Participant-1 : I love you. Would you like to marry me? Participant-2 :

Yes, I would like to.

The specific cultural background becomes recognizable in the relationship between key concepts such as i o v e ' , 'I (man)' and 'you (woman)', between the notions i o v e ' and 'marry' and between the sex roles (i.e. the man asking, the woman answering). When the man makes reference to his feelings toward the woman, the term i o v e ' expresses his subjective experience which cannot be expressed in objective terms, and it is equal to an interpretation of his emotional relationship. The love declaration as a meaningful statement is bound to those cultural settings where a man is allowed or expected to reveal his feelings. In a society where male persons are educated to keep their feelings to themselves, a declaration of love might cause irritation on the side of the female participant in the dialogue. Such a reaction can be expected in a traditional Japanese cultural surrounding. Traditional Japanese education allows the woman to express her feelings toward her fiancee or her husband, but he, in turn, never expresses his toward her. Therefore, in a traditional Japanese surrounding, the man would ask for marriage without the introduction of a love declaration. The reference to marriage as a social institution in the dialogue can only be perceived in its relative relation to specific cultural settings and, thus, the key concept 'marry' implies a culturally specific interpretation of ceremonial, social and kinship relations. 'Marriage' may associate all kinds of religious customs, depending on whether the participants are members of a Christian, Islamic, Buddhist or other community, whether they are atheists or live in a state where a formal bureaucratic procedure is required. The term 'marry' additionally associates numerous relations of kinship, of the position of the participants, and of the role of the sexes in the family, in particular. A European or American who has been raised in a Christian environment will associate, as though it were self-evident, that the relationship between 'marry' and 'man (future husband)' is individual, as is the one between 'marry' and 'woman (future wife)'. However, in most Islamic communities, a man

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Figure 41 The signs of the Hiragana syllabary and their derivation from Chinese characters (Source: Haarmann 1990b: 399)

B) Sex convergence and difference on the level of speech behavior It has been emphasized under (A) that sex difference, as an anthropological phenomenon in all ethnic groups, may be perceived quite differently in the net-

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work of human relations in terms of social conduct. Similarly, patterns of sex difference in a given community on the level of social behavior may be reflected in many different ways with respect to the usage of language among w o m e n and men. In a cross-cultural view, some general observations may be presented about language and the sexes, and also about the correlation of social and verbal behavior. It seems reasonable to assume that the higher the degree of sex convergence is apparent in terms of the social behavior in a speech community, the less significant will be the marking of sex difference in the structures of the associated language. Scandinavian societies offer examples of this. Since there is a relatively high level of social emancipation in Swedish, Norwegian, and Finnish society, this being an indicator of sex convergence in social behavior, one is not surprised to find that the language used by Swedish, Norwegian, and Finnish women and men is highly homogeneous as regards the marking of sex difference. On the other hand, it is plausible that the more strongly sex difference is marked in patterns of social behavior, the more substantial are the differences which may be expected in the language usage of women and men. For instance, settings such as those in Japanese society illustrate the working of sex difference in social behavior and its reflection in the linguistic structures of female and male speech varieties (see Haarmann 1990a: 127 ff. for a spotlight on honorific categories in Japanese w o m e n ' s speech). Many other concrete settings could be referred to where the correlation between sex difference as regards social behavior, on the one hand, and verbal behavior, on the other hand, reveals varying degrees of intensity. In this respect, the Japanese settings may be considered an example of an intense correlation of sex difference on the two levels. This is also true for the situation in Scandinavian societies where the correlation is comparably intense, although in terms of a negative manifestation of sex difference in social and speech behavior. An example of a diffuse correlation may be found in Spanish society where the marked sex difference in social behavior does not have a correlate on the level of speech behavior. The Spanish example is indicative of the circumstance that sex difference in social behavior does not necessarily associate sex difference in language. On the other hand, it is true that sex difference in speech behavior always reflects boundary marking between female and male social behavior. As such, this universal correlation is timeless, and its essence is valid, regardless of chronological stages in the evolution of human society. As far as linguistic evidence is available, the validity of the universal correlation may be illustrated for one of the oldest civilizations of mankind. In the following, I will refer to a language in its cultural context, as it has been preserved in the written recordings of Sumerian. The oldest literary texts in which a distinction is displayed between an ordinary variety of Sumerian (i.e. Emegir) and a specific variety for recording female

Human Relations in Community Life Table 14

Sound variation in Sumerian (according to Thomsen 1984: 287 ff.)

Consonants: Main Dialect

Emesal

Examples:

d

>

z

g

>

b

g

>

m

g h m m

> >

n g n

n n n

> > >

1 m s

s s

> >

z s

sum = ze.eg 'to give' sig4 = se.eb 'brick' sag = se.en 'head'

a i i u

>

e e u e

alim = e.lum 'deer' inim = e.ne.eg 'word' i = u5 'fat' udu = e.ze 'sheep'

> >

g

udu = e. ze 'sheep' dug = ze.eb 'good, sweet' dugud = ze.bi-da 'heavy' igi = i.bi 'eye' nu.gig = mu.gi4.ib 'hierodule' sig4 = se.eb 'brick' s&-g = sa-b 'heart' digir = dim.me.er. 'god' g£-e = ma-e 'I' gal = ma.al 'to be' gar = mar 'to place' gir = me.er 'dagger' giri3 = me.ri 'foot' gis = mu 'tree' sag = se.en 'head' ha.lam = ge.le.eg 'to destroy' munus = nu.nus 'woman' ha.lam = gel.le.eg 'to destroy' nam = na.ag sum = ze.eg 'to give' kalam = ka.na.ag 'land' nigir = li.bi.ir 'herald' nu.gig = mu.gi4.ib 'hierodule' nin = sen 'lady' nir = se.er d Nirah = dSe.ra.ah, the snake god nundum = su.um.du.um 'lip'

Vowels:

> > >

189

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Table 15

Lexical variation in Sumerian (according to Thomsen 1984: 288 ff.)

Emesal

Emegir

as.te/ti

gu.za turn or de 6 nin

ga gasan, ga.sa.an mu.ud.na

ag

gitlam, nitadam etc. lu en a.na(-am) a.gar e.gar 8 nig

D

Am.an.ki as...tar a.se.er da-, de-, du 5 -

D

En.ki en... tar a.nir /ga-/, ha-/

da.ma.al di.im dim.me.er di.ta, di.id du 5 .mu e.lum e.mar e.ne.eg e.ri e.ze gel.le.eg

dagal

mu.lu u.mu.un, umun ta(-am) a.da.ar a.mar

gi 4 - in i.bi ka.na.ag li.bi.ir ma(-e) ma.al ma-ma mar mar.za

gin 7 digir dis dumu alim e.gar 8 inim ir, arad udu ha. lam geme 2 igi kalam nigir ga-e gal ga-ga gar gar.za

'throne' 'to bring' 'lady', cf. Ga.sa.an.an.na = D Inanna 'spouse' 'man' 'lord', 'en-priest' 'what?' 'field' 'figure' 'thing' Enki 'to ask' 'lament' the cohortative and precative/ affirmative prefixes 'wide' the equative postposition 'god' 'one' 'child, son' 'aurochs' 'figure' 'word' 'slave' 'sheep' 'to destroy' 'slave-girl' 'eye' 'land, Sumer' 'herald' 'I' 'to be' 'to place', marfl 'to place', hamtu 'rite'

Human Relations in Community Life

Table 15

(cont.)

Emesal

Emegir

D

D

Ma.zé.eb.zib me.er me.ri mu(.us) mu.du.ru mu.gi 4 .ib mu.nu ]0 /nu 12 mu.tin D Mu.ul.lfl mu.un gàr/gar mu.us'túgp, na.ma nu.nus si.mar su 8 .ba sà.ab se.eb se.en se.en.bún.na se.er.ma.al D Se.ra.ah Su.um.du.um U

5

zé.eb zé.ed zé.bi.da zé.èg

191

Gá.tüm.düg mer gin 3 gis gidru nu.gig unu3, utul gestin °En.líl engar |estug 2 naga munus si.gar sipa sá.g sig 4 sag níg.bún.na nir.gál °Nirah nundum 1 düg túd dugud sum

The goddess Gatumdug 'anger' 'foot' 'tree' 'sceptre' 'hierodule' 'shepherd' 'wine' Enlil 'farmer' 'ear' 'soap' 'woman' 'bolt' 'shepherd' 'heart' 'brick' 'head' 'tortoise' 'prince' (= etellu) The snake-god 'lip' 'grease' 'sweet', 'knee' 'to hit' 'heavy' 'to give'

speech (i.e. Emesal) date back to the Old Babylonian period (twentieth to seventeenth century B.C.). There is ample evidence that the Emesal variety is derived from the Emegir which can be considered the normal language (see below). The Emesal carried all the attributes of a prestigious variety, and its social connotations are clearly revealed in the Sumerian loanword in Akkadian, emesallu 'fine taste, fine tongue, genteel speech'. Such an awareness of the finery associated with the variety matched its literary function well since it was used in cult songs, laments and love songs (in the so-called sacred marriage texts) to render the speech of female persons or goddesses. All literary texts where Emesal is used alongside Emegir have a religious contents or are associated with a mythological context. Emesal texts continued to be written after the end of the Old Babylonian period, and they

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occur in the Neo-Assyrian and Seleucid periods until the second century B.C. In fact, most Emesal texts were produced after Sumerian had died out as a spoken language. In the cult songs of the Neo-Assyrian and Seleucid periods, the use of Emesal is associated with the speech of the kalu priests who were not women. "The occurrence of Emesal in cult songs is thus explained as due to the fact that the kalu priests who recited these songs were eunuchs, and not being regarded as men, they had to use women's language" (Thomsen 1984: 292). The Emesal variety can be recognized by its phonetic and lexical features, these distinguishing it from Emegir. On the other hand, there are no grammatical differences between Emesal and Emegir. As regards the phonetic alterations, it is noteworthy that the sound changes in Emesal compared with the normal forms in Emegir are deliberately caused by a forward shift of the basis of articulation: e.g. Emegir u (high back) changed to Emesal i (high front); (see Parpola 1975: 254). Obviously, "forward-flanged" phonemes such as narrow vowels, and labial or dental consonants were evaluated as "finer" than their "backward-flanged" counterparts (see Table 14 for some phonetic alterations). As regards the lexicon, variation in Emesal is partly due to the phonetic changes (e.g. Emegir munus : Emesal nunus 'woman'). In other cases, lexical differences are displayed in the parallelism of words of different origin in the two varieties (e.g. Emegir turn : Emesal ga 'to bring'; Emegir a.na : Emesal ta 'what?'). Lexical variation due to phonetic alteration is of a more frequent occurrence than the use of expressions with different roots (see Table 15 for examples). Sumerian with the world's oldest evidence for women's language as a specific variety does not stand isolated. Especially the characteristics of phonetic and lexical variation excluding grammatical differences is known from other languages. "Both internal evidence and anthropological analogies seem to suggest that Emesal, (...), was actually a women's language. Tabus on the use of "men's" words and "men's" pronunciation is known the world over, particularly among peoples speaking structurally archaic, "ergative" "languages" (Diakonoff 1976: 113 f.). In many communities with a traditional culture, there is a specific female variety of speech, a so-called tabu language, which distinguishes itself from the normal language solely by its deviant vocabulary. Among the Dyirbal who live in the Northeast of Australia, for example, family members, when talking to a relative of the opposite sex, use a different variety of speech (e.g. a man communicating with his mother-in-law); (Dixon 1972: 32 ff.). Although the features of the Sumerian Emesal resemble those of tabu languages in traditional cultures, the conditions differ fundamentally since it is a written variety of literature. Literary Emesal survives into a period when spoken Sumerian was already extinct, and little is known about the relation of Emesal to the everyday spoken language among Sumerian women.

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As a literary variety, Emesal is different from Emegir also as regards its orthographic conventions. In the ordinary cuneiform writing of Sumerian, ideographic symbols were used to render logographic concepts and determinatives, and syllabic signs to write inflectional elements. This is true for all Emegir texts, while Emesal is overwhelmingly syllabic. A sample of a Sumerian text in Emesal (with the corresponding Emegir variant in brackets) is given in Table 16. In the transliterated version however, the orthographic differences explained in the foregoing are not visible. There are comparatively few languages in the world with structures requiring sex difference to be marked more extensively than in Sumerian or Dyirbal, that is, beyond the range of phonetic and lexical variation. Japanese is among those languages where female speech is marked on practically all levels: a) Phonological features: Female intonation is among the most prominent features by which women's language distinguishes itself from men's language. Women's intonation is more "melodious" than that of men, and this is closely related to the norms of polite speech (see Coulmas 1987: 61 for the intonational style of okusan kotoba 'the language of housewives'). b) Morphological features: The most significant differentiation between female and male speech are found in the pronominal system. While forms such as atashi or atakushi (for the 1st pers. sing, of the personal pronoun) are used by women, the corresponding form in male speech is boku 'I'. Japanese women's language is characterized by a highly diversified set of pronominal elements to express varying degrees of formality and politeness. c) Syntactic features: Paraphrasing by applying different techniques (e.g. inserting hedges, putting a directive into a negative question, using final particles to "soften" sentences) is a strategy which is frequently used in women's language to make expressions indirect, less straightforward and/or imposing. d) Lexical features: To a certain extent, one can distinguish between a specialized vocabulary of women's language and a general lexicon of men's language. For example, when women refer to the stomach, they use the term onaka (e.g. in the expression onaka-ga suita 'I am hungry'). Men use the expression hara, instead. Against the background of such a terminological difference, a term such as harakiri 'cutting one's stomach' (suicide committed as a symbol of social

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Table 16

A Sumerian love song in women's language, Emesal

ga.sa.an-gen sa.ga.ba-ta ud zal-la-gu 1 0 -de (*nin-me-en etc.) Ga.sa.an.an.na-gen sa.ga.ba-ta ud zal-la-gu 1 0 -de (* D Inanna-me-en etc.) ud zal-la-gu | 0 -de e.ne di-da-gu, 0 -de (Emegir: the same) ud zal gi 6 -di-a-se en.du dug 4 -ga-gu 1 0 -de (Emegir: the same) gaba mu-un-ri gaba mu-un-ri (Emegir: the same) u.mu.un ku.li An-na gaba mu-un-ri (*en ku.li An-na etc.) u.mu.un-e su-ni-a su im-ma-an-dii (*en-e etc.) D

Usum.gal.an.na gu-ga-a gu-da ba-an-la (Emegir: the same)

me-a am su ba-mu-u 8 e-me-se da-gen (*me-a am su ba-mu-u g e-gu 1 0 -se ga-gen) ku.li D Mu.ul.lfl-la su ba-mu-u g e-me-se da-gen (*ku.li D En.lfl-la su ba-mu-u g e-gu 1 0 -se ga-gen) ama-[gu 1 0 ] lul-la-Se ta mu-na-ab-be-en (*ama-gu 1 0 lul-la-se a.na mu-na-ab-be-en) ama-gu 1 0 °Ga.sa.an.gal-e lul-la-se ta mu-na-ab-be-en (*ama-gu 1 0 D Nin.gal-e lul-la-se a.na mu-na-ab-be-en) 'I, the lady, having whiled away the time since yesterday, I, Inanna, having whiled away the time since yesterday, having whiled away the time, having danced, having sung songs all day to evening, he met me, he met me! The lord, the friend of An, met me, the lord took my hand in his, Usum-gal-ana embraced me, where (are you taking me)? wild bull set me free! let m e go to my house! Friend of Enlil, set m e free! Let m e go to my house! What shall I say to my mother as a lie? What shall I say to my mother, Ningal, as a lie? Source: Thomsen 1984: 293 f.

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shame) makes reference to male social relations in Japanese society. The expression of social shame among women was cutting one's throat with a dagger. Women's language and polite speech are intrinsically interwoven, especially in view of the fact that Japanese women are more strongly subject to societal constraints than are men. One of the keys to the understanding of women's social and verbal behavior in Japanese society is the concept wakimae which may be paraphrased in English as 'observing expected norms' or 'behaving in conformity with accepted standards'. Interaction in Japanese society has kept up a high level of formalization in social relations and, essentially, a Japanese woman is expected to closely observe the social distance between the speaker and the hearer, role relations which include different implements of power, and her own status in society which, as a rule, is evaluated as being inferior to that of a man. Societal norms in Japan require that a woman not only behave socially like a female, but that she also talk like a woman. Basic implications of women's language and polite speech in the Japanese cultural context may be exemplified by making use of the model of communicative competence (see Figure 42). C) Sex convergence and difference as regards language attitudes in terms of preferences When discussing attitudinal phenomena it is necessary to be aware of the crucial circumstance that many of the related concepts are ambivalent. The term 'preference', for instance, carries two basic meanings, each with differing connotations. On the one hand, preference denotes the concrete result of an individual's decision-making (i.e. the selective choice among alternatives). In bilingual communities, individuals are easily confronted by a variety of ecological factors which governs the selection between one of the languages involved. Under such conditions, the use of a specific language as the preferred means of communication is the concrete manifestation of the individual's preference (related, as it is, to the domain of B in the model of interaction; see chapter 5). Any kind of manifested preference, however, is the result of a previous decision-making which may be an intuitive or volitional mental process triggering the concrete selection (related to the value system, AAb, and to the range of emotions and intentions, AAc, in the model of communicative competence; see chapter 4). In other words, any concretely manifested preference results from a selective mental activity which precedes it. Both aspects of preference are of interest for the present discussion, and one could argue that the one cannot be analyzed without taking the other into consideration. In fact, the concrete manifestation of a preference is observable by its results. The mental process of selection, however, can only be concluded on the basis of the concrete evidence.

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Notes: 1 Set of internalized social rules which govern politeness and which have been implanted in the individual's mind as part of her cultural knowledge. 2 The Japanese ethic principle of social relations, wakimae, forms part of the individual's value system (i. e. discernment as an ethic force to conform to expected norms of politeness). The awareness of wakimae makes the observation of the politeness rules under (1) compulsory for the individual. 3 Beautification is volitional and ranges among the individual communicative intentions which can be facultatively selected. 4 The selection of verbal means which depends on the working together of wakimae (see 2) and volition (see 3). 5 The selection of non-verbal means which also depends on the working together of wakimae and volition. 6 Produced behavior results from the coordination of selected verbal and non-verbal means of communication. The role of produced behavior in terms of communicative performance and contextualising behavior is illustrated in the model of interaction (see figure 32).

Figure 42

The processing of Japanese w o m e n ' s social and speech behavior as regards politeness in terms of their communicative competence

In the following, data related to the concrete manifestation of language preferences will be presented, and they will be interpreted for the purpose of clarifying the mental profile of preference (i.e. inclination) which is the cause of the latter. In the context of language preferences, the opposite forces of language maintenance and language shift decisively determine human relations in bilingual (and multilingual) communities. The Soviet Union ranges among those countries in the world where an abundance of empirical data is available for studying related subjects. Structures of bilingualism in Soviet society can be illustrated by critically interpreting the statistics of Soviet censuses related to language and ethnicity. So far, the Soviet census for 1970 has been the most exhaustive source of statistical data because it is based on an extensive grid of variables, including sex difference (see Itogi 1973). In the census for 1979, variables such as sex difference and the demographic milieu (i.e. urban versus rural population) are not indicated, an unfortunate circumstance which does not allow for a breakdown of the available data for the

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purpose of comparing them with the results of the previous census. Therefore, any analysis of figures which are related to sex difference has to rely on the census of 1970. The criteria on which the statistical material is based allow for the interpretation of language preferences in many respects. Among others, there is the basic aspect of language maintenance (versus language shift), and of the distribution of knowledge of a second language (e.g. the spread of Russian as a second language in patterns of bilingualism). The problematic duality of sex convergence and sex difference will be discussed in the following with respect to a basic criterion, namely language maintenance among the ethnic groups in the Soviet Union. Reference will be made to the average data (i.e. to the figures for all the Soviet Union) as well as to the conditions among the urban population, in particular. It can be generally observed that, for most ethnic groups, the level of language maintenance among the urban population differs, sometimes considerably, from the average level of data for all of the Soviet Union. This basic divergence is also reflected in the breakdown of the figures for the sexes. For instance, the average level of language maintenance is 88.6% among Chuvash women, 79.6% among Mordvin women, and 65.3% among Karelian women, while the rates among the urban population are 70.6% for Chuvash women, 59.3% for Mordvin women, and 53.5% for Karelian women. Sex convergence and sex difference are both reflected in the conditions of language maintenance. In Table 17, sex convergence is illustrated for ethnic groups in different regions of settlement within the Soviet Union. The interpretation of data in terms of sex convergence is based on the assumption that equal rates for the female and the male population are indicative of convergence. In the table, the absolute data are omitted because the level of language maintenance is of no interest for the present discussion. It is obvious that neither the size of an ethnic group in terms of the total number of its members nor the racial affiliation of people are basic factors which would favor sex difference in language preferences. Among the ethnic groups for which sex convergence as regards language maintenance is characteristic, there are communities with millions of members (e.g. Russians, Uzbeks, Kazakhs) as well as small communities with only a few thousand or hundred speakers (e.g. Tabasarans, Izhorians, Karaims), and the members of the mentioned ethnic groups belong to a number of different races (e.g. Europides such as Russians, Lithuanians or Moldavians, Turkic peoples such as Uzbeks, Azeri or Karakalpaks, Koreans, Semitic Assyrians, etc.). It is remarkable, furthermore, that sex convergence is also observable among those groups for which the average figures may differ considerably from those for the urban population (cf. rates for language maintenance among Armenians: average 92% - urban 88%, Mansi: average 53% urban 31%, Yakuts: average 96% - urban 87%).

198

Chapter 6

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language breaks down into social varieties which are specified on the level of subsystems in the graph (e.g. subsystem-1: standard language, subsystem-2: colloquial variety). The structural micropattern of an individual subsystem (or language variety) incorporates a cluster of features falling within the range of norms. These norms may be implicit, that is, historical norms which have shaped the phonological, grammatical, and lexical structures of a language variety and which are internalized in the speaker's competence. The relevance of this latter notion of norm has been emphasized, among others, by Coseriu (1975) and by von Polenz (1972) for whom implicit norms may be identified even in statistical terms. Norms may also be explicit, that is, as social conventions of language use which are observed by the speakers in a community. In the case of language planning, the number of explicit norms may enlarge considerably. It is always necessary to take the duality of implicit and explicit norms (Hartung 1977: 16 ff.) into consideration. Each language variety has its own set of norms, implicit and explicit, and there are norms for written (e.g. the standard language) and for spoken varieties (e.g. a local dialect). Norms are a criterion in the redundancy of natural languages. Out of the linguistic techniques which could potentially be materialized in the structures of a given language according to the features of a type, a selection is given preference by the norms. Some examples will be discussed in the following to illustrate the working of norms and the selection of structural features in the micropattern of a subsystem through the filter of norms which is indicated in the figure. I would like to make reference here to German, and point at differences in the norm orientation which are valid for the varieties of that language. For example, the following two sentences may be uttered by speakers of German and they fall within the norms of language use, but each in relation to a different variety: a) Wegen des Regens konnte er nicht nach Hause kommen 'He could not come home because of the rain' b) Wegen dem Regen konnte er nicht nach Hause kommen (same translation) The sentences differ grammatically with respect to the construction involving the conjunction wegen 'because' followed by the genitive case in sentence (a), and by the dative case in sentence (b). The norms of the standard variety of German require the construction with the genitive case (i.e. under a), while the construction with the dative case is accepted on the level of colloquial German (i.e. under b). The following sentences (c) and (d) involve subsystem contrasts which differ from those illustrated for the sentences (a) and (b):

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c) lch erinnere mich gut an unsere erste Begegnung 'I remember our first meeting well' d) lch erinnere unsere erste Begegnung gut (same translation) The version (c) with the verb in the reflexive construction conforms with the norms of the standard language as well as those of the colloquial variety of German. Version (d), instead, is accepted according to the spoken norms of a regional variety of German, namely in the north of Germany (i.e. northern Lower Saxony, Hamburg, Bremen). The transitive use of erinnern 'to remember', however, is accepted neither in standard German nor in the colloquial (interregional) variety. Analysing linguistic structures of languages in a multilateral comparison requires a careful inspection of both the social differentiation of varieties and the functioning of the filter of norms for each subsystem. Features which are absent from the standard variety may be present in another variety, and there may be competing grammatical constructions in different subsystems of the same macrosystem (see examples above). Paying attention to this sort of "intralingual diversity", the typological analysis will become more refined and will definitely yield highly precise findings as regards the organizational patterns of linguistic diversity. In addition to the analysis of equivalent subsystems (e.g. comparing the standard varieties of Lg-1, Lg-2, Lg-3, ... Lg-n), differing subsystems may be compared across languages (e.g. comparing the linguistic structures of the standard variety of Lg-1, of the colloquial variety of Lg-2, of a dialect of Lg-3, etc.). Furthermore, the structural analysis may imply a multidimensional comparison, for example, comparing languages as regards the degree of relative difference they exhibit between the standard and the colloquial varieties. In the case of French as compared to German, the dichotomy of "standard versus colloquial variety" yields more structural differences for French than for German. A further perspective for typological analysis opens when comparing the structures of subsystems within the frame of the same macrosystem, that is, comparing linguistic techniques of the standard variety, the colloquial variety, dialects and/or sociolects of Lg-1. Exploring the microcosmos of intralingual variation is as important as investigating the macrocosmos of linguistic diversity across languages. The way in which languages and their subsystems may be associated to types of languages largely depends on the analyst's perspective. Those scholars who are impressed by the multitude of linguistic variation in natural languages would most probably tend to underscore the manifestation of a greater number of language types. Representatives of this tradition in linguistic typology are F. Misteli or E. Sapir. Others who are aware of the boundaries set by the organizing principles, dif-

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ferentiate a smaller number of flexible language types. This attitude is characteristic of W. v. Humboldt or V. Skalicka. It is the former who, for the most part, analyze structural features and linguistic techniques for the purpose of class distinctions, while the latter pay proper attention to the fact that linguistic diversity is the expression of a varied clustering of individual features, rather than a manifestation of mutually exclusive ones. The notion of type suggests that the features of one type do not necessarily exclude those of another type. Already more than one and a half centuries ago, W. v. Humboldt was aware that one can associate individual languages to types most appropriately by analysing the clustering of features in terms of their relative dominance, that is, in their stronger or weaker manifestation. However, in the tradition of linguistic typology, the distinction of classes of languages with mutually exclusive features has been of a great concern. Many attempts to typologize the languages of the world have resulted in classifications rather than genuine typologies in the true sense of distinguishing types. In Table 38, an overview of the classificational and typological concepts has been presented, pointing at main trends of methodological development since the eighteenth century. The fundamental weakness of all the proposed classificational distinctions consists in their exclusive schematism. According to a class distinction of languages, an inflectional language cannot incorporate features of an agglutinative or an isolating language because the classes and their features mutually exclude each other. How, then can a language such as English be specified in a classificational framework? Whereas Old English is a language which may fit into the molds of the inflectional type in the older tradition of linguistic typology, modern English does not because it deviates considerably from the older type. In modern English, only traces of the old inflectional structures have survived (i.e. the element -s in plural formation, the inflection of verb forms in the third person singular, prefixation and suffixation). What actually makes modern English a linguistic variety clearly distinct from Old English is its typically isolating component, manifested in the formation of syntactic structures by the alignment of uninflected elements). With respect to the linguistic techniques it utilizes modern English resembles Classical Chinese or modern Vietnamese rather than Old English, its evolutionary predecessor. Another example of a language which cannot be adequately associated to a traditional typological class is Finnish. Within the framework of this classification Finnish is an agglutinative language, a notion which distorts the reality that Finnish possesses verbal and nominal stems like the inflectional Indo-European languages. The only way to overcome the lack of flexibility evident in a classification leads in the direction of inspecting the manner in which features either dominate or fail to do so which allows a flexible association of natural languages to types and

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the specification of type components in the structures of one and the same language (e.g. English with a predominant isolating and a marginal inflectional component). A crucial problem in the elaboration of a genuine typology is the selection of relevant features which are attributed to each type. Far-reaching in this respect are the concepts of the so-called ideal typology which operates with a set of ideal postulated features for a type. In Table 39, the clustering of ideal features in the structural pattern of types has been illustrated. The ideal language types proposed by V. Skalicka, the agglutinative, inflectional, isolating, polysynthetic, and the introflexive types, lean terminologically primarily on the differentiations of classes, a fact which makes ideal typology subject to misinterpretations. Although terms such as 'agglutinative' or 'isolating type' resemble the names of traditional classification, their conception is fundamentally different from the notion of a classificational distinction. For the types which are theoretical constructs, ideal features have been postulated. The theoretical assumptions about the structures of a type have been based on the empirical findings from many previous typological descriptions. The formulation of a type, thus, relies on the sum of empirical experiences as regards the potential manifestation of its features in natural languages. Given the fact that the type itself is an abstraction, the "ideal" configuration of its features will, most probably, not be identified in any natural language. Any natural language, however, may be associated to a type according to the dominance of concretely manifested structural features. "As has been stated, in natural languages, these types are not documented in a pure form because they cannot, in some dimensions, be manifested. When describing a language we can identify a type as a dominant component, for example, the agglutinative component dominates in Hungarian, the inflectional component dominates in Latin and in the Slavonic languages, the isolating component in English and in French, etc. In each of these languages, features of the other types also occur" (Skalicka 1968: 4). Although the theoretical basis of ideal typology is well conceived, a number of practical problems remain. Among the weak points is the partly vague association of structural features to a type. For instance, a great number of phonemes has been postulated for the agglutinative type, and the feature 'great number of vowel phonemes' has been attributed equally to the inflectional and the isolating types of language. As such, these phonological features stand isolated within the pattern of ideal features because they are not related to other structural elements of the phoneme system. In addition, their connection with morphological and/or syntactic features of the corresponding type remains unclear. The vagueness of a number of postulated relations among single features in the pattern of ideal types reveals itself to be an impediment when applying them in a practical investigation. Ideal typology is nonetheless an important step in the direction of elaborating

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Table 39

The clustering of structural features in the hypothetical patterns of language types in ideal typology (according to Skalicka 1966b: 29 f.)

A The agglutinative type 1 Marked contrasting of roots and auxiliary elements 2 Weak contrasting of word formative elements and endings 3 Weak contrasting of parts of speech 4 Small number of formatives (postpositions, conjunctions) 5 Restricted amount of grammatical congruence 6 Strongly determined word order 7 Great number of word formative elements 8 Small number of compound words 9 Lack of synonymy and homonymy in grammatical elements 10 Weak clustering of sentences (restricted number of subordinate clauses) 11 Clear distinction of the category of the word 12 Ordinary syntactic structure: S-O-V 13 Numerous nominal forms of the verb (infinitives, participles) 14 Great number of consonant phonemes

B) The inflectional type 1) Marked contrasting of roots and auxiliary elements 2) Marked contrasting of word formative elements and inflectional endings 3) Marked contrasting of parts of speech 4) Great number of formatives 5) Strongly marked grammatical congruence 6) Free word order 7) Limited number of word formative elements 8) Small number of compound words 9) Strongly marked synonymy in grammatical elements 10) Existence of grammatical gender and/or of nominal classes 11) Existence of inflectional classes of the noun and the verb 12) Clear distinction of the category of the word 13) Existence of sentence clusters 14) Ordinary syntactic structure: S-V-O 15) Frequent use of subordinate clauses 16) Great number of vowel phonemes

C The isolating type 1 Clear distinction of roots and auxiliary elements 2 Marked contrasting of word formative elements and endings 3 Relative shortness of the word 4 Weak contrasting of parts of speech (e.g. conversion) 5 Use of formatives instead of endings 6 Weak grammatical congruence 7 Determined word order 8 Limited number of word formative elements 9 Small number of compound words 10 Weak synonymy and homonymy in grammatical elements

D) The polysynthetic type 1) Weak differentiation of roots and auxiliary elements 2) Existence of long words 3) Roots instead of endings 4) Use of root morphemes as derivational suffixes 5) Use of root morphemes as formative elements 6) Weak contrasting of parts of speech 7) Weak grammatical congruence 8) Determined word order 9) Great number of compound words 10) Synonymy and homonymy of roots (basic morphemes)

Elements of a Bioprogram of Linguistic Diversity C) Isolating type (cont.) (11) No clear distinction of the word as a unit 12) Clear differentiation of sentence structures 13) Ordinary syntactic structure: S-V-O 14) Frequent use of subordinate clauses 15) Great number of vowel phonemes

289

D) Poly synthetic type (cont.) 11) Weak distinction of the category of the word as a linguistic unit 12) Frequent use of the technique of incorporation 13) Predominance of simple (short) morphemes

E) The introflexive type 1) Marked contrasting of roots and auxiliary elements 2) Weak contrasting of word formative elements and endings 3) Small number of word formative elements 4) Small number of compound words 5) Discontinuity of morphemes (e.g. the change of meaning effected by splitting up the syllable structure of a morpheme and insertion of real phonemes) 6) Potential mutability of the internal structure of basic morphemes in the process of word formation 7) Insertion of grammatical elements into the inner structure of basic morphemes

an effective relational typology. Empirical findings based on the description of languages according to ideal typology might prove to be most fruitful when transferred into quantitative terms, in which case it would be possible to put all findings into quantitative measures. "An encompassing quantification which Skalicka himself calls for (1966b) would assign to this system a high explanative and predictive value, and the extension of the number of features beyond the seven to sixteen selected by Skalicka (1966a, 1966b), would lead to a linguistic theory based on regularities which does not yet exist" (Altmann - Lehfeldt 1973: 71). Seemingly, there is little reason for hoping that such a quantification would ever be provided, this being partly due to the unresolved problem of whether any linguistic technique could possibly be expressed in quantitative terms or not. Recall the analysis of temporal and modal markers in the verb system, the structures of which are difficult to quantify. The theoretical perspectives of a quantified ideal typology are nevertheless fascinating.

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Although linguistic typology, in theory and practice, has predominantly concentrated on the clarification of problems relating to a synchronic description of natural languages, its explanatory capacities can also be exploited for the analysis of linguistic structures in a diachronic view. Already in the last century scholars became aware of the fact that a change in linguistic structures may result in a drift from one type to another. In a linear perspective, the direction of drift from the isolating to the agglutinative and, further extended, to the inflectional type was assumed. The linear perspective on drift has been further expanded to include the assumption that the inflectional type eventually develops into the isolating type. Such an interpretation, thus, results in a cyclic explanation of language change in terms of types of languages. The first to formulate such a cyclic perspective was Gabelentz (1891: 251 ff.). The dispute about the linear and the cyclic interpretation of drift which has marked the typological discussion following Gabelentz's outline seems futile, since the cyclic view does not stand against the linear view. Instead, the cyclic interpretation of drift includes the notion of a linear development, with only the last developmental step, the drift from the inflectional to the isolating type, being associated with the initial stage of the chain. More recent studies tend to favor the cyclic interpretation (e.g. Vennemann 1975, Anttila 1977: 124 ff.) and, thus supporting the expanded perspective in diachronic typology. There is clear evidence for all of the developmental steps involved in the cycle. The development from the isolating type to the agglutinative type can be documented by referring to Chinese, with ancient Chinese representing the isolating type in a "pure" form while modern Chinese exhibits clear agglutinative features. In some Finno-Ugric languages, a drift from the original agglutinative type to the inflectional type has occurred. This is true for languages such as Lappish, Estonian and Livonian which clearly represent the inflectional type. Nevertheless, an inflectional component is also characteristic for other languages of the Balto-Finnic group such as Finnish (see Korhonen 1979). The crucial drift from the inflectional to the isolating type is well known from the evolution of English from the inflectional stage of Old English and its isolating equivalent in modern English. And although separate developmental steps in the drift can be well documented for individual languages, it is impossible to establish a comprehensive cycle of drift for any natural language or a group of languages, and this for various reasons. An impediment to the establishment of an encompassing cycle is the fact, corroborated by empirical observations, that in a given language, components of different types may be present which obscure the evolution of linguistic structures in terms of a straightforward drift. Moreover, a total cycle including all potential stages of drift may encompass a span of time, probably many thousands of years, which can hardly be reconstructed.

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"The span of time of at most 10,000 years which may best be covered by historical-comparative linguistics is meaninglessly short from the standpoint of the evolution of language. It practically comprises the "present" in the sense that we cannot assume that any relevant changes would have taken place in the universal structure of language. Thus, we cannot assume even the oldest reconstructed protolanguages to have contained structural features which would not in principle be possible in any of the recent languages" (Korhonen 1980: 91).

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304 Vennemann, T. 1975 "An Explanation of Drift", Linguistics, 269-305 Vinogradov, V.V. (ed.) 1967 Jazyki narodov SSSR, t. IV: Iberijsko-kavkazskie jazyki. Moscow: Nauka Voegelin, C.F. & F.M. Voegelin 1977 Classification and Index of the World's Languages. New York & Oxford & Amsterdam: Elsevier North-Holland Weber, U. 1989 "Zur Entwicklung von Diskursfähigkeit in der späteren Kindheit", Zeitschrift für germanistische Linguistik 17: 1-21 Weinreich, M. 1980 History of the Yiddish Language. Chicago: University of Chicago Press Weinreich, U. 1953 Languages in Contact - Findings and Problems. New York (2nd ed. The Hague: Mouton 1963, 3rd ed. 1968) Whorf, B.L. 1956 Language, Thought, and Reality. New York: Wiley & Sons Wilken, G.C. 1979 "Whistle Speech in Tlaxcala (Mexico)", Anthropos 74: 881-888 Winn, M.M. 1981 Pre-Writing in Southeastern Europe: The Sign System of the Vinca Culture, ca. 4000 B.C. Calgary: Western Publications 1986 The Signs of the Vinca Culture: An Internal Analysis; their Role, Chronology and Independence from Mesopotamia (facsimile text of the dissertation manuscript of 1973). Ann Arbor, Michigan: University Microfilms International Wolff, E. 1981a "Die Berbersprachen", in: B. Heine & T.C. Schadeberg & E. Wolff (eds.), 171-185 1981b "Die tschadischen Sprachen", in: B. Heine & T.C. Schadeberg & E. Wolff (eds.), 239-262 Zwernemann, J. 1979 "Die Oberniger-Provinz", in: H. Baumann (ed.), 4 6 1 ^ 9 4

Subject Index

Ainu 130, 132, 175 Akkadian (language) 89, 191, 232 f., 242, 263 Akkadian writing 88 f. Albanian (language) 238, 240 f. Algonquian(s) 69 Allied fields (of sociolinguistics) 6 f. Alphabetic writing 85, 96 ff. Alur (language) 165 Amalgamation (ethnic process) 39 American Indians 21, 47, 55 f., 65, 97 Apache(s) 31 Arabic (language) 22, 29, 141, 215, 228, 263 Arabic script 58 Aramaic script 57 Armenian(s) 16, 21 f„ 197 Armenian (language) 21 f., 246 Armenian script 21 f. Article 141 ff. prepositional 141 f. postpositional 142 f. Aspect 261 ff., 279 Associativity (of phonemes) 251 ff., 261 Assumptions (about the nature of language 2 f. Australian aborigines 44, 62 Avar (language) 107 Azeri (language) 29 Aztec (s) 83, 217 Aztec writing 82,214 Babylonian literature vii, 191 f., 194 Bantu (languages) 165 Basque (community) 18, 39 Basque (language) 143 ff., 238, 240 Behavioral competence 3, 120 ff.

Bilingualism 12 ff., 18, 129, 130 f „ 162 f„ 164, 166, 199,242 Breton (language) 18, 130, 240 f. Bushmen 62 Cambodian (language) 234 ff. Catalan (language) 16, 130, 280 Caucasian (languages) 259 Chadian (languages) 260 Cherokee (language) 97 Chinese (community) 155 Chinese (language) 260, 286, 290 Chinese script 23 ff., 27, 57, 73, 81, 185,229 Choctaw (language) 257 Chontal (language) 257 Cognitive processes 1, 2 f., 8, 100, 103, 106 ff. Communication ix, 1, 47, 49 f., 55, 62, 100, 244 verbal 41 f„ 120 ff. non-verbal 41 f., 132 ff. Communicative competence 100 ff., 104, 151, 196 Communicative intentions 116 ff., 274 regulative 118 constative 118 strategic 118 f. expressive 118 f. Conceptualization 144 ff. Conglomeration (ethnic process) 39 Contextualization 144 ff. Copt(s) 19 f. Coptic (language) 20, 94 Coptic script 95 Crow system (in kinship relations) 32 Cultural embedding (of language) 146, 149, 210, 243

306 Cultural knowledge 102 f., 105 ff. Cultural pattern(s) 2, 11, 13, 28, 30, 181 ff., 244 Cuna script 73, 77 Cypro-syllabic script 97 Cyrillic script 29 Danish (language) 22 Dargin (language) 107 Delaware Indians 68 f., 72 ff. Demotic script 95 Definiteness 141 ff. Dialect 120 f., 122, 124, 126 f. Dravidian (languages) 243 Dungan (language) 247,251 Dutch (language) 130,132 Dyirbal (language) 192 f. Ecological conditions 151,160 f., 215 f. Egyptian hieroglyphs 57, 79, 85, 90 ff., 93, 95 Emotional disposition 116 ff., 134 English (language) 22, 26, 31, 98, 107, 111, 123, 126, 135, 140, 141 f„ 152, 165, 167, 172, 203, 211, 215, 222, 245, 262, 266 f„ 270, 286 Eskimo(s) 61 Eskimo (language) 107, 171, 261, 268 f. Eskimo system (in kinship relations) 33,35 Estonian (language) 211,216, 224, 246, 290 Ethnic boundaries 16, 37, 39 Ethnic fission 39 Ethnic fusion 39 Ethnic group 15 ff. Ethnic identification 2 f., 8, 11 ff., 100,210 Farsi (language) 269 Finn(s) 13 f., 26

Finnish (language) 12 f., 14 f., 135, 140 f„ 143, 154, 173,211,215,226, 252, 261 f„ 286, 290 Fore (language) 107 French (language) 18, 26, 127, 130, 132, 141 f., 152, 165, 203, 209, 211, 251,265, 285 Frisian (language) 130, 132, 163, 247 General theory vii, ix, 1 ff. Georgian (language) 19, 22, 223, 257 German(s) 12, 199 German (language) 12, 15, 31, 111, 121, 123, 126, 130, 132, 135, 141 f., 176, 209, 216, 224 f., 239, 251, 261 f„ 267, 269 f., 284 f. Gestures 41 f., 52 Goals (of theory-making) 9 f. Grammar viii, 124 ff., 138 ff., 209 ff., 238 ff., 261 ff. Greek alphabet 94 Greek (language) 85,94,97, 111, 141, 224, 238 Guarani 130,282 Gwanche (community) 42 Gypsies 176 Haida (language) 282 Hangul 24, 27 f. Hausa (language) 105, 260 Hawaiian (language) 246 Hawaiian system (in kinship relations) 32 Hebrew (language) 20, 22, 54, 141, 186, 223, 263 Hieratic script 94 f. Hiragana 25, 27, 98, 186 f. Hittite (language) 232 f., 237, 242 Honorific expressions 37 f., 196 Hopi Indians 47 Hungarian (language) 287 Iconic creativity 62 f„ 78, 87, 96 Ideal typology 281, 287 f.

307 Incorporation (ethnic process) 39 Indefiniteness 141 ff. Indo-European (languages) 263 Indonesian (language) 254, 257 Interaction ix, 2, 44, 101, 148 ff., 193 f. ingroup 161 f„ 164, 167 outgroup 165 f., 167 f. Irish (language) 16, 107 f. Iroquois system (in kinship relations) 33, 35 Italian (language) 111,215, 222, 224, 257 Ivrit 2 0 , 2 2 Izhorian (language) 161, 222, 227 Japanese (community) 15, 16, 20, 103, 110, 155, 186 Japanese (language) 22, 37, 57, 98, 154, 155 f., 172, 193, 206, 228, 247, 261,273 Jew(s) 18, 19, 173, 176 Jewish (languages) 19 Kachina dances 47 Karelian (language) 130, 132, 173 Katakana 25, 2 7 , 9 8 Kazakh(s) 29 Kekinowin 72 f. Kirghiz (language) 107 Khoisan (languages) 209 Kinship relations 11, 30, 40, 103, 210 Kinship terminology 34, 35, 36, 38 Knowledge of language 105 ff., 120 ff., 244 Komi (language) 211,268 Korean(s) 155, 173, 197 Korean (language) 24, 27, 130, 132, 157, 163 Lahndi (language) 176 ff. Lak (language) 107 Language spoken code 62, 63, 64, 87, 122, 124, 266

written code 62, 63, 83, 87, 122, 124,

266 Language and culture 1, 30 Language as a bioprogram 2, 243 ff. Language attitudes 195 ff. Language change 154 Language contact(s) 221, 222 ff. Language maintenance 199, 200 f. Language typology 5, 243 Lapp(s) 34 Lappish (language) 34, 35, 36, 130, 132, 212 f„ 215, 246 f„ 250, 261, 290 Latin (language) 226 f„ 238, 261, 264 Latin script 2 6 , 2 8 , 2 9 Linguistic diversity 245 ff., 277 ff. Linguistic structures 181 ff., 245 ff. Literacy 26, 27 f., 29, 55, 70 ff., 99, 130 f„ 243 Maltese (language) 29, 141 f„ 212, 215, 222, 226, 231,264 Manipulation (of language) 139 f. Maori (language) 131,246,255 Maya(s) 83, 102 Mayan hieroglyphs 84 f., 86 Mayan (language) 218, 219 ff. Meaning viii, 10, 100 ff., 138 ff., 147 Methodological theorems 8 f. Mixtec(s) 83 Mnemotechnics 58 ff., 63, 78, 87, 94, 96, 99 Modality 267 ff., 272 Na-Dene (languages) 282 Nahuatl (language) 217, 242 Nature of language 1, 2, 138 f„ 209 ff. Navaho Indians 47, 65, 66, 175 Navaho (language) 102,130,257 Nilotic (languages) 209 Norms of language 282 ff. Numeral classifiers 218, 219 ff. Nubian(s) 174 Occitan (language) 16, 18, 130, 132 Omaha system (in kinship relations) 33

308 Pali (language) 127 f„ 234 ff. Part system 125,129,283 Paternity 11,13 Patrimony 11, 13 Phenomenology 11, 13 Phoenician script 54, 94 Pictographic writing 46, 57, 79 ff., 87 Pinyin 28 Politeness 153, 172 Portuguese (language) 165, 224, 280 Primary sign systems 43 f. Principles of language ix, 243 ff., 276 Profilation (ethnic process) 39 Proliferation (ethnic process) 39 Properties of language 2 f. Proto-language 263, 291 Pygmy community 65 Quipu 42 Register 104, 124 f „ 126 Romaji 28 Romance (languages) 39, 257, 258, 264,280 Rumanian (language) 141 f., 264, 280 Russian (language) 12, 22, 102, 123, 127, 161, 165, 222, 227, 228, 238, 251, 253, 262, 264 f. Sanskrit (language) 234 ff., 281 Sardinian (language) 130,132 Secondary sign systems 43 f. Self-identification 13 f„ 15, 17 Semitic alphabet 50, 54 Semitic (languages), 97, 260, 263 f. Separation (ethnic process) 39 Serbo-Croatian (language) 39 Sex difference in language 153, 182 ff. Shawnee (language) 257 Sign systems 41 ff. elementary 46 ff. language-related 45, 46 non-verbal 45, 46 specialized 46 ff. Sioux (community) 55, 70 f.

Sioux (language) 282 Slavonic (languages) 257, 259, 263 Social behavior 151, 170 ff., 184 ff., 208 Social and cultural competence 3, 105 ff., 150 f. Sorbian (language) 130, 132 Spanish (community) 26 Spanish (language) 18, 22, 107, 111, 165,211,217, 230, 242,267 Speech 148 ff., 181, 187 ff., 274 Speech community 1 7 , 1 8 , 1 5 3 , 2 2 2 Speech event 118, 126, 134, 149, 159 Standard language 121, 122, 123, 126 Subsystem 125, 129, 131, 283 Sudanese system (in kinship relations) 32, 35 Sumerian(s) 83 Sumerian (language) 79, 188 ff., 232 f. Sumerian writing 57, 80, 88, 92 Swahili (language) 22, 142, 222 f., 227 Swedish (language) 12, 130, 132, 154, 174, 226, 262 Syllabic writing 85, 88, 96 f. Tadzhik (language) 19, 22, 29, 39 Tagalog (language) 230 Tahitan (language) 246 Tarascan (language) 255 Tat (language) 19,22 Tatar (language) 29, 270 f. Tense 262 ff., 279 Thai (language) 236,237 Theory-making ix, 1 f., 8, 100 ff., 139 f. Tibetan (language) 130 Tonemes 260 f. Turkish (language) 29, 176, 223, 269 Types of languages 276 ff. Ubykh (language) 246, 248 ff., 255 f., 257 Uzbek(s) 29

309 Uzbek (language) 29 Value system 104,109 ff., 184 Variation ix, 2, 121 ff., 131, 189 ff. Variety 121 f., 125, 129, 283 f. historical-natural 122 intentional-functional 122 Verb system 261 ff. Vietnamese (language) 260, 286

Wampum 69 Welsh (language) 226, 240 f. Yiddish (language) 19, 22, 130, 132, 186, 239 Yoruba (language) 22 Yurak (language) 142,269

Index of Names

AI Samman, T. 58 Altmann, G. 254,289 Andersson, S.-G. 230 Anttila, R. 290 Aoki, H. 186 Apresjan, J. u. D. vii Bammesberger, A. 108 Baraskov, P. P. 242 Bargatzky, T. 3 0 , 3 5 Bartsch, R. 154 Baumann, H. 21 Baziev, A. T. 29 Beauzee, N. 281 Bell, R. 7 Birket-Smith, K. 6 1 , 8 0 Bodrogi, T. 4 1 , 6 2 Bourhis, R. Y. 17 Bromlej, J. V. 37 Bruce, B. 149 Bynon, T. 230 Campbell, J. 2 1 , 4 1 , 4 4 , 6 5 , 6 7 Chomsky, N. viii, 138 Clark, E . V . 105 Clark, H . H . 105 Cobanzade, B. 29 Comrie, B. 127 Cooper, R. L. I l l Coseriu, E. 280,284 Crystal, D. 40, 43, 52, 244 Diakonoff, I. M. 88, 192 Dirven, R. x Dixon, R. M. W. 192 Eibl-Eibesfeldt, I. 137

Finck, F. N. 281 Fishman, J. A. 8, 19, 111 Földes-Papp, K. 94 Friedrich, J. 242 Fujiwara, M. 172 Gabelentz, G. v. d. 290 Geiser, P. 170 f., 174 Giles, H. 17 Gimbutas, M. 243 Girard, G. 281 Greenberg, J. H. 127 Grimes, B. 123 Grimshaw, A. D. 10 Gumperz, J. J. 242 Guttorm, I. 34, 213 Gusejnov, M. M. 41 Haarmann, H. 3, 17, 22, 40, 55, 77, 83, 107, 123, 145, 159, 173, 204, 230, 263,278 Haarmann, P.-L. 12, 14 Haarmann, S. 14 Habermas, J. 117 Härtung, W. 284 Heine, B. 9 5 , 2 0 9 Hill, J. H. 238 f., 242 Hill, K. C. 238 f., 242 Hinnells, J. R. 64 Hirschberg, W. 62 Huber, H. 58 Hudson, R. A. 7, 10 Humboldt, A. v. ix Humbold, W. v. 281,286 Hymes, D. H. 5, 7, 10, 100

Ide, S. 104, 153 Ifrah, G. 85,86 Isaev, M. I. 29

Parpola, S. 192 Petrella, R. 18 Pinnow, H.-J. 72 Polenz, P. v. 284

Jernsletten, J. 34,213 Kamil, J. 20 Keesing, R. M. 35 Kendon, A. 44 Kho,S. 28, 173 Kiparsky, P. 263 Kiparsky, V. 142,239 Klimov, G. A. 282 Kloss, H. 22,55, 113 Körner, K.-H. 280 Korhonen, M. 290 f. Kumachov, M. A. 248 Kurytowicz, J. 239,264 Labov, W. 7 Lehfeldt, W. 289 Lindqvist, S. 57 Lipin, L. A. 92 Long, J. 58 Lowie, R. H. 30 Maclagan, D. 64, 73 Mallery, G. 70 Marshack, A. 42 Miller, R. A. 27, 110 Misteli, F. 281,285 Müller, K.E. 40 Müller, M. 281 Murdock, G. P. 30,31,33 Myreeva, A. N. 242 Newmeyer, F. J. 244 Nicholson, I. 217 Nickel, K.P. 34,213 Nieminen, L. 114 Nzimiro, K. 172 Okere, B. O. 114 Opler, M. E. 31

Ramat, P. 5 Reichard, G. A. 65 Rjagoev, V. D. 173 Romanova, A. V. 242 Ross, A. S. C. 225 Sapir, E. 281,285 Saussure, F. de 4 Schadeberg, T. C. 95 Schleicher, A. 281 Schlegel, A. W. 281 Sequoia 97 Schaumyan, S. 1,4, 139, 246 SkalickaV. 281, 286, 287, 288 f. Smirnov, U. A. 179 f. Smith, A. 281 Söll, L. 26, 127 Solecki, R. S. 41 Steinthal, H. 281 Stephens, M. 19 Stiebner, E. D. 58 Stutterheim, C. v. 176 Swadesh, M. 230 Taylor, A. R. 55 Taylor, D.M. 17 Thernstrom, S. 173 Thompson, S. 65 Thomsen, M.-L. 153, 189 f., 192 Thumeysen, R. 263 Tozzer, A. M. 218,221 Turnbull, C. M. 65 Vennemann, T. 290 Vives, J. L. 4 Voegelin, C. F. 243 Voegelin, F. M. 243 Vogt, E. Z. 249,256 Vossen, R. 209

312 Weinreich, M. 239 Weinreich, U. 238 Whorf, B. L. 140 Wilken, G. C. 42 Wilson, R. 242

Winn, M. M. 83,243 Wolff, E. 95,260 Zahn, H. 58 Zwernemann, J. 65

m

Harald Haarmann

m Language in Its Cultural Embedding m m m m m m m m m m m m m

Explorations in the Relativity of Signs and Sign Systems

1990. XIV, 276 pages. Cloth. DM 148,ISBN 311012086 0 (Studies in Anthropological Linguistics 4) This research monograph examines the embedding of language in the culturally specific environment of a given speech community. The functioning of language relies on the meaningful assembling of linguistic signs which are always embedded in a cultural context. A differentiation between the linguistic sign as a component of the spoken code and as a component of the written code is proposed. In particular, the cultural specifics of linguistic signs are both highly visible and well-documented in the organization of writing systems, since these signs contribute to the image of the world which each person has. The image of the world and its interpretation as viewed by members of one speech community may change in the course of contact with other cultures and with speakers of different languages. Based on the discussion of sociolinguistic and semiotic implications of linguistic signs, an interpretative approach to ancient and modern cultures is presented.

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mouton de gruyter Berlin • New York

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Anna Wierzbicka

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Cross-Cultural Pragmatics

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The Semantics of Human Interaction

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1991.15.5x23 cm. XIV, 502 pages, 2 illustrations. Cloth. DM 188,ISBN 311012538 2 (Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs 53) This research monograph develops a framework for studying language as a tool of human interaction. It shows that we interact with other people by expressing certain meanings—and it develops a method for revealing and stating these meanings in a way which is clear, simple and rigorous and which is free from ethnocentric bias. The theory described here is based on universal or nearuniversal semantic primitives and relies on a 'natural semantic metalanguage'. This metalanguage is employed to explore and analyse different modes of human interaction and different interactive strategies associated with different languages from a universal, language-independent perspective. The data on which this framework is based come from a wide range of languages, including English, Italian, Russian, Polish, Yiddish, Hebrew, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Walmatjari (an Australian Aboriginal language) and many others. The metalanguage developed to describe these different languages and communicative styles can also be used as a basis for teaching successful cross-cultural communication.

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mouton de gruyter Berlin • New York