Gunter Senft

Publications

Displaying 1 - 13 of 13
  • Senft, G. (2020). “.. to grasp the native's point of view..” — A plea for a holistic documentation of the Trobriand Islanders' language, culture and cognition. Russian Journal of Linguistics, 24(1), 7-30. doi:10.22363/2687-0088-2020-24-1-7-30.

    Abstract

    In his famous introduction to his monograph “Argonauts of the Western Pacific” Bronislaw
    Malinowski (1922: 24f.) points out that a “collection of ethnographic statements, characteristic
    narratives, typical utterances, items of folk-lore and magical formulae has to be given as a corpus
    inscriptionum, as documents of native mentality”. This is one of the prerequisites to “grasp the
    native's point of view, his relation to life, to realize his vision of his world”. Malinowski managed
    to document a “Corpus Inscriptionum Agriculturae Quriviniensis” in his second volume of “Coral
    Gardens and their Magic” (1935 Vol II: 79-342). But he himself did not manage to come up with a
    holistic corpus inscriptionum for the Trobriand Islanders. One of the main aims I have been pursuing
    in my research on the Trobriand Islanders' language, culture, and cognition has been to fill this
    ethnolinguistic niche. In this essay, I report what I had to do to carry out this complex and ambitious
    project, what forms and kinds of linguistic and cultural competence I had to acquire, and how I
    planned my data collection during 16 long- and short-term field trips to the Trobriand Islands
    between 1982 and 2012. The paper ends with a critical assessment of my Trobriand endeavor.
  • Senft, G. (2020). Kampfschild - vayola. In T. Brüderlin, S. Schien, & S. Stoll (Eds.), Ausgepackt! 125Jahre Geschichte[n] im Museum Natur und Mensch (pp. 58-59). Freiburg: Michael Imhof Verlag.
  • Senft, G. (2020). 32 Kampfschild - dance or war shield - vayola. In T. Brüderlin, & S. Stoll (Eds.), Ausgepackt! 125Jahre Geschichte[n] im Museum Natur und Mensch. Texte zur Ausstellung, Städtische Museen Freiburg, vom 20. Juni 2020 bis 10. Januar 2021 (pp. 76-77). Freiburg: Städtische Museen.
  • Levinson, S. C., & Senft, G. (1996). Zur Semantik der Verben INTRARE und EXIRE in verschieden Sprachen. In Jahrbuch der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft 1996 (pp. 340-344). München: Generalverwaltung der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft München.
  • Pederson, E., & Senft, G. (1996). Route descriptions: interactive games with Eric's maze task. In S. C. Levinson (Ed.), Manual for the 1996 Field Season (pp. 15-17). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.3003287.

    Abstract

    What are the preferred ways to describe spatial relationships in different linguistic and cultural groups, and how does this interact with non-linguistic spatial awareness? This game was devised as an interactive supplement to several items that collect information on the encoding and understanding of spatial relationships, especially as relevant to “route descriptions”. This is a director-matcher task, where one consultant has access to stimulus materials that shows a “target” situation, and directs another consultant (who cannot see the target) to recreate this arrangement.
  • Senft, G. (1996). Classificatory particles in Kilivila. New York: Oxford University Press.
  • Senft, G. (1996). [Review of the book Comparative Austronesian dictionary: An introduction to Austronesian studies ed. by Darrell T. Tryon]. Linguistics, 34, 1255-1270.
  • Senft, G. (1996). [Review of the book Language contact and change in the Austronesian world ed. by Tom Dutton and Darrell T. Tryon]. Linguistics, 34, 424-430.
  • Senft, G. (1996). [Review of the book Topics in the description of Kiriwina by Ralph Lawton; ed. by Malcolm Ross and Janet Ezard]. Language and Linguistics in Melanesia, 27, 189-196.
  • Senft, G. (1996). [Review of the journal Bulletin of the International String Figure Association, Vol. 1, 1994]. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 2, 363-364.
  • Senft, G. (1996). Past is present - Present is past: Time and the harvest rituals on the Trobriand Islands. Anthropos, 91, 381-389.
  • Senft, G. (1996). Phatic communion. In J. Verschueren, J.-O. Östman, & J. Blommaert (Eds.), Handbook of Pragmatics (loose leaf installment) (loose leaf installment, 1995). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

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