Gunter Senft

Publications

Displaying 1 - 15 of 15
  • Senft, G. (2016). "Masawa - bogeokwa si tuta!": Cultural and cognitive implications of the Trobriand Islanders' gradual loss of their knowledge of how to make a masawa canoe. In P. Meusburger, T. Freytag, & L. Suarsana (Eds.), Ethnic and Cultural Dimensions of Knowledge (pp. 229-256). Heidelberg: Springer Verlag.

    Abstract

    This paper describes how the Trobriand Islanders of Papua New Guinea used to construct their big seagoing masawa canoes and how they used to make their sails, what forms of different knowledge and expertise they needed to do this during various stages of the construction processes, how this knowledge was socially distributed, and the social implications of all the joint communal activities that were necessary until a new canoe could be launched. Then it tries to answer the question why the complex distributed knowledge of how to make a masawa has been gradually getting lost in most of the village communities on the Trobriand Islands; and finally it outlines and discusses the implications of this loss for the Trobriand Islanders' culture, for their social construction of reality, and for their indigenous cognitive capacities.
  • Senft, G. (2016). Pragmatics. In K. B. Jensen, R. T. Craig, J. Pooley, & E. Rothenbuhler (Eds.), The International Encyclopedia of Communication Theory and Philosophy (pp. 1586-1598). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley. doi:10.1002/9781118766804.wbiect165.

    Abstract

    This entry takes an interdisciplinary approach to linguistic pragmatics. It discusses how the meaning of utterances can only be understood in relation to overall cultural, social, and interpersonal contexts, as well as to culture-specific conventions and the speech events in which they are embedded. The entry discusses core issues of pragmatics such as speech act theory, conversational implicature, deixis, gesture, interaction strategies, ritual communication, phatic communion, linguistic relativity, ethnography of speaking, ethnomethodology, and conversation analysis. It takes a transdisciplinary view of the field, showing that linguistic pragmatics has its predecessors in other disciplines such as philosophy, psychology, ethology, ethnology, and sociology.
  • Senft, G. (2005). Bronislaw Malinowski and linguistic pragmatics. In P. Cap (Ed.), Pragmatics today (pp. 139-155). Frankfurt am Main: Lang.
  • Brown, P., Levinson, S. C., & Senft, G. (2004). Initial references to persons and places. In A. Majid (Ed.), Field Manual Volume 9 (pp. 37-44). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.492929.

    Abstract

    This task has two parts: (i) video-taped elicitation of the range of possibilities for referring to persons and places, and (ii) observations of (first) references to persons and places in video-taped natural interaction. The goal of this task is to establish the repertoires of referential terms (and other practices) used for referring to persons and to places in particular languages and cultures, and provide examples of situated use of these kinds of referential practices in natural conversation. This data will form the basis for cross-language comparison, and for formulating hypotheses about general principles underlying the deployment of such referential terms in natural language usage.
  • Senft, G. (2004). Sprache, Kognition und Konzepte des Raumes in verschiedenen Kulturen - Zum Problem der Interdependenz sprachlicher und mentaler Strukturen. In L. Jäger (Ed.), Medialität und Mentalität (pp. 163-176). Paderborn: Wilhelm Fink.
  • Senft, G. (2004). What do we really know about serial verb constructions in Austronesian and Papuan languages? In I. Bril, & F. Ozanne-Rivierre (Eds.), Complex predicates in Oceanic languages (pp. 49-64). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
  • Senft, G. (2004). Wosi tauwau topaisewa - songs about migrant workers from the Trobriand Islands. In A. Graumann (Ed.), Towards a dynamic theory of language. Festschrift for Wolfgang Wildgen on occasion of his 60th birthday (pp. 229-241). Bochum: Universitätsverlag Dr. N. Brockmeyer.
  • Senft, G. (2004). Aspects of spatial deixis in Kilivila. In G. Senft (Ed.), Deixis and demonstratives in Oceanic languages (pp. 59-80). Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
  • Senft, G. (2004). Introduction. In G. Senft (Ed.), Deixis and demonstratives in Oceanic languages (pp. 1-13). Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
  • Senft, G. (2004). Participation and posture. In A. Majid (Ed.), Field Manual Volume 9 (pp. 80-82). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.506964.

    Abstract

    Human ethologists have shown that humans are both attracted to others and at the same time fear them. They refer to this kind of fear with the technical term ‘social fear’ and claim that “it is alleviated with personal acquaintance but remains a principle characteristic of interpersonal behaviour. As a result, we maintain various degrees of greater distance between ourselves and others depending on the amount of confidence we have in the other” (Eibl-Eibesfeldt 1989: 335). The goal of this task is to conduct exploratory, heuristic research to establish a new subproject that – based on a corpus of video data – will investigate various forms of human spatial behaviour cross-culturally.
  • Levinson, S. C., Enfield, N. J., & Senft, G. (2001). Kinship domain for 'space in thinking' subproject. In S. C. Levinson, & N. J. Enfield (Eds.), Manual for the field season 2001 (pp. 85-88). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.874655.
  • Senft, G. (2001). Das Präsentieren des Forschers im Felde: Eine Einführung auf den Trobriand Inseln. In C. Sütterlin, & F. S. Salter (Eds.), Irenäus Eibl-Eibesfeldt: Zu Person und Werk, Festschrift zum 70. Geburtstag (pp. 188-197). Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.
  • Senft, G. (2001). Kevalikuliku: Earthquake magic from the Tobriand Islands (for Unshakebles). In A. Pawley, M. Ross, & D. Tryon (Eds.), The boy from Bundaberg: Studies in Melanesian linguistics in honour of Tom Dutton (pp. 323-331). Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
  • Senft, G. (2001). Sprache, Kognition und Konzepte des Raumes in verschiedenen Kulturen: Affiziert sprachliche Relativität die Philosophie? In L. Salwiczek, & W. Wickler (Eds.), Wie wir die Welt erkennen: Erkenntnisweisen im interdisziplinären Diskurs (pp. 203-242). Freiburg: Karl Alber.
  • Van Staden, M., Senft, G., Enfield, N. J., & Bohnemeyer, J. (2001). Staged events. In S. C. Levinson, & N. J. Enfield (Eds.), Manual for the field season 2001 (pp. 115-125). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.874668.

    Abstract

    The term “event” is a controversial concept, and the “same” activity or situation can be linguistically encoded in many different ways. The aim of this task is to explore features of event representation in the language of study, in particular, multi-verb constructions, event typicality, and event complexity. The task consists of a description and recollection task using film stimuli, and a subsequent re-enactment of certain scenes by other participants on the basis of these descriptions. The first part of the task collects elaborate and concise descriptions of complex events in order to examine how these are segmented into macro-events, what kind of information is expressed, and how the information is ordered. The re-enactment task is designed to examine what features of the scenes are stereotypically implied.

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