Presentations

Abstract

Children on the Trobriand Islands are breastfed until they can walk - usually at about the age of 2 years. When they have reached this stage of their development, they are abruptly weaned and the parents – especially the mothers – dramatically reduce the amount of pervasive loving care and attention that their children experienced before this traumatic moment in their lives. To compensate for this deficit in their experience of intimate social bonding, the children have to find a place and position within the children’s groups in their village. In these groups the children gradually take over specific roles which they internalize and thus secure the continuance of norms that are accessible by appearance alone. In the various playgroups and in their children’s group the children also learn that they have to obey and follow certain norms which as implicit social rules govern social life and interaction within their community. Norms which affect the understanding of gender roles and sex differences are directly experienced by children when they are playing together. Between the age of two and 7 years the children also learn to control their emotions in order to behave according to the norms, rules and values that are valid for the Trobrianders’ community. During this time of their life they acquire a relatively strict form of self-discipline, which is necessary to keep the balance between the individuals within their open and very public society. This implies that they also have to learn to laugh about themselves, even in situations when they feel deeply insulted. During this acquisition process the pragmatic concept of the "biga sopa" - the joking language, the language which is not vouched for (see Senft 2010: 149ff) - plays the most important role for the overall socialization process on the Trobriands. By gradually acquiring the basic concepts and the rules and norms of language use that is manifest in the biga sopa concept, children realize more and more that they can behave properly and adequately with respect to all situations they experience not only in their everyday life, but also in the ritualized forms of life within their community. This provides them with an important emotional security and with a general aplomb. The practicing of the forms of verbal and non-verbal behavior that conform to the Trobrianders’ social norms takes place while playing with other children in the playgroups; it is controlled by older members of the children’s groups. Thus, it is the children's "small republic" ” (Malinowski 1929: 44f.) which provides the most important framework for their socialization into their culture. The attempts of parental education are confined to a minimum.

References:

Malinowski, Bronislaw. 1929. The Sexual Life of Savages in Northwestern Melanesia. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Senft, Gunter. 2010. The Trobriand Islanders' Ways of Speaking. Berlin: de Gruyter Mouton.

Abstract

This talk provides an inevitably subjective summing up of experiences I made during 30 years of field research on the Trobriand Islands. I first provide some information about how I came to do this kind of research. Then I briefly introduce the Trobriand Islands, their inhabitants and some central aspects of their language and their culture. To illustrate my situation as a greenhorn in the Pacific at the beginning of my staying in the field, I briefly mention some of the mistakes I made, some misunderstandings and some forms of my misbehavior with respect to Trobriand etiquette and conventions. A brief survey on the research I carried out there is followed by a discussion of aspects of language and culture change which I witnessed and documented between 1982 and 2012. The presentation ends with some unfortunately pessimistic prospects on the Trobrianders' future which is severely challenged by overpopulation and climate change affecting the Islands.

Abstract

Kilivila, the Austronesian language of the Trobriand Islanders of Papua New Guinea, has a rich inventory of terms - nouns, verbs, adjectives and idiomatic phrases and expressions - to precisely refer to, and to differentiate emotions and inner feelings. This paper describes how the Trobriand Islanders of Papua New Guinea deal with the public display of emotions. Forms of emotion control in public encounters are discussed and explained on the basis of ritual communication which pervades the Trobrianders' verbal and non-verbal behavior. Especially highlighted is the Trobrianders' metalinguistic concept of "biga sopa" with its important role for emotion control in encounters that may run the risk of escalating from argument and conflict to aggression and violence.

Abstract

Pragmatics is the discipline within linguistics that deals with actual language use. Language use is not only dependent on linguistic, that is grammatical and lexical knowledge, but also on cultural, situative and interpersonal contexts and conventions. One of the central aims of pragmatics is to research how context and convention – in their broadest sense – contribute to meaning and understanding. Thus, the social and cultural embedding of meaning is a central prerequisite for understanding pragmatics. Research in linguistic pragmatics deals with how speakers use their language(s) in various situations and contexts: what speakers do when they speak and why they do it. Pragmatics focuses on the actual language users, their communicative behavior, their world and their point of view. Pragmatics studies language and its meaningful use from the perspective of language users embedded in their situational, behavioral, cultural, societal and political contexts, using a broad variety of methodologies and interdisciplinary approaches depending on specific research questions and interests. Indeed, if we look at core domains of the discipline, we realize that linguistic pragmatics can be regarded as a transdiscipline that is relevant for, and has its predecessors in, many other disciplines such as Philosophy, Psychology, Ethology, Ethnology, Sociology and the Political Sciences. In this talk I take up this point and discuss a selection of core issues of Pragmatics that were introduced into the field via these six disciplines.

Abstract

Dieser Vortrag gibt zunächst einen Überblick darüber, wie die Trobriander im Alltag sprachlich auf „Zeit“ und auf „Aktionen & Handlungsabläufe in der Zeit“ verweisen; dann wird das trobriandische Konzept von „Zeit“ vorgestellt, wie es sich in der wichtigsten Periode im Jahresverlauf, nämlich im Zeitraum der „milamala“ genannten Erntefeiern und in all den diese Feiern begleitenden Ritualen und Zeremonien manifestiert.

Abstract

This talk reports on the results of my research in 2006 and 2008 on the verbal expressions - the lexical means - Kilivila, the language of the Trobriand Islanders, offers its speakers to refer to and to describe emotions and inner feelings. Data were elicited with 18 so-called "Ekman's faces" in which the faces of three persons (one woman, two men) illustrate six allegedly universal basic emotions (anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, surprise) and film stimuli staging and demonstrating standard emotions based on English. This latter stimulus set is called “Mind Reading Emotions Library (MREL)”. It was developed by Baron-Cohen and his co-workers in 2004. After the presentation of the data elicited with the "Ekman faces" and the MREL film clips I will discuss them on the basis of the following three research questions: How "effable" are emotions or can we observe ineffability - the difficulty or impossibility of putting experiences into words - within the domain of emotions? Do consultants agree with one another how they name emotions? Are facial expressions or situations better cues for labeling? In addition to the data elicited with these tools I also present lexical means the Trobriand Islanders use to refer to emotions and inner feelings which are documented in my overall corpus of the Kilivila language.

Abstract

The Trobriand Islanders' eschatological belief system explains in detail what happens when someone dies. Bronislaw Malinowski described essentials of this eschatology in his famous articles "Baloma: the Spirits of the Dead in the Trobriand Islands" and "Myth in Primitive Psychology" There he also presented the Trobrianders' belief that a spirit of the dead, a "baloma" can be reborn; he claimed that Trobrianders are unaware of the father's role as genitor. In this talk I present not only a critical review of Malinowski's ethnography of Trobriand eschatology, finally settling the "virgin birth" controversy, I also document highly ritualized songs - the "wosi milamala" - the harvest festival songs. They are sung in an archaic variety of Kilivila - the "biga baloma" - the language of the spirits of the dead. Malinowski briefly refers to these songs but does not mention that they codify many aspects of Trobriand eschatology. The songs are still sung during the harvest festival and after the death of a Trobriander, but there are only a few people left who still understand the "wosi milamala". They are a moribund genre of Kilivila - and with them the Trobriand Islanders' complex indigenous eschatology will vanish.