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Article published In:
Interpersonal Meaning: Systemic Functional Linguistics perspectives
Edited by J.R. Martin
[Functions of Language 25:1] 2018
► pp. 97–134

Sister, shall I tell you?

Enacting social relations in a kinship community

| University of Sydney

This paper analyses a set of exchanges between members of Australia’s Indigenous Western Desert culture, in the Pitjantjatjara dialect of the Western Desert language. The analyses are designed to illustrate how social relations in the culture are enacted with resources for interpersonal meaning in the language. The paper begins with a brief overview of social and linguistic theory underpinning the analyses. This is followed by a survey of Pitjantjatjara language resources for structuring exchanges, and for realising exchange moves in the grammar of clauses and the tones on which they are spoken. An overview of the Western Desert kinship system is then followed by analyses of five extended exchanges, that show how these resources are deployed to enact various types of kin relations. They illustrate some of the elaborate ways that Western Desert speakers negotiate their relationships and social goals, within the framework of their community’s kinship traditions.

Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Language/context relations
  • 3.Intonation, grammar and discourse
  • 4.Exchange structure and speech function
  • 5.Options for exchange structure
  • 6.Grammatical and phonological resources
  • 7.Appraisal
  • 8.Tenor variations in kin relations
  • 9.Text examples
  • 10.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 10 August 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/fol.17015.ros
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Cheng, Shi
2023. A review of interpersonal metafunction studies in systemic functional linguistics (2012–2022). Journal of World Languages 0:0 DOI logo
Rose, David
2021. Interpersonal Grammar of Pitjantjatjara. In Interpersonal Grammar, ► pp. 160 ff. DOI logo
Zhang, Dongbing
2021. Interpersonal Grammar in Khorchin Mongolian. In Interpersonal Grammar, ► pp. 64 ff. DOI logo

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