Anthropological Linguistics [AL]

Speakers of Dyirbal in North Queensland, Australia, have an everyday language style which has been well described. They also have an avoidance style, called Jalnguy, which must be used in the presence of certain ‘tabooed kin’ such as the mother-in-law. Jalnguy has the same grammar and phonology as the everyday style, but the vocabularies are entirely different. Jalnguy has only about one-sixth as many lexemes as the everyday style, with various techniques used to create a Jalnguy correspondent for each everyday style word. The underlying semantic system of Dyirbal is thus realised at two levels of generality and is revealed through detailed study of the correspondences between them. This monograph is the first comprehensive study of this in-law avoidance language, providing fascinating new insights into register variation and the complexities of kinship in Australian languages.

Language and place are intimately connected: depending on where we are, what the context is and what our aims are, we will adjust our language accordingly. Yet linguistics defines itself by a framework that determines which kind of language is worth investigating. Within that framework, linguistics constructs both language and place in multiple ways: language as a sequestered thing belongs to the field site or the classroom; language as fluid practice is associated with the street; language as reconstruction belongs to migration corridors. What about the places that tend to fall between the cracks? This volume explores language in strange and familiar places, from Europe to Africa, Amazonia, Australia and the Pacific, in order to shed light on them.