MA Dissertation Abstract
School of African and Oriental Studies
Language Documentation and Description
| Student: | Jenny Lindwall |
| Submitted: | 2006 |
Approaching avoidance registers
from the perspective of documentary linguistics |
| In many Australian Aboriginal as well as some Southern African speech communities, specific
language varieties are used between, in reference to, or in the presence of certain kin relations.
These varieties, by some labelled ‘avoidance registers’, deviate from the neutral
registers in various ways: by substituting all or some lexical items, by manipulating grammatical
categories, and/or by distinctive stylistic modifications. The avoidance registers are part of a
wider social avoidance behaviour which is prescribed between specific kin relations. In this
dissertation, I approach avoidance registers from the perspective of documentary linguistics. More
specifically, the aim is to discuss whether there is a place for them within a larger language
documentation, and also which specific issues surround their documentation. Avoidance registers are
shown to display a wide array of unique and intriguing features, which make them strong candidates
for inclusion in the documentation of a language, not to mention the value they may have for
individual communities. Their documentation involves difficulties relating to their endangerment and
to the fact that they are inseparable from the context in which they are used, immediate as well as
cultural. However, insights gained from the documentation of avoidance registers and associated
behaviour can be extended to language documentation in general, and may aid theory-building within
the field of documentary linguistics. |
Full dissertation: ...PDF
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