Manipulation in late life
Secret agency and the unintelligible in the speech of the elderly in Eastern Congo
While youth language constitutes a well-researched field of study, the linguistic manipulations of old people
remain understudied. In an innovative approach, the present paper therefore looks at confusing and allegedly unintelligible
narratives and conscious linguistic manipulations, silliness and concealing strategies in language as employed by elderly speakers
of Kinyabwisha, Kinande, Kihunde and Kiswahili in Eastern DR Congo. A secret cursing register among Banyabwisha, often accompanied
by practices of spitting, is analyzed; I also discuss elderly speakers’ confusing stories narrated to younger people, the use of
secret modal particles that are restricted to people of old age, and finally I discuss the strategic inclusion of silliness in old
speakers’ utterances. All these are analyzed in a theoretical framework of the secret agency and power in language use that mark
the agency and wittiness of the elderly in Eastern Congo. With this first overview of elderly speakers’ language manipulations I
aim to show that linguistic manipulation is not necessarily age-related, and that concealment strategies in language can occur as
agentive and powerful means of social differentiation in later life as well. This preliminary introduction furthermore suggests a
strong focus on silliness in linguistic analysis (as also found in Kuipers 2007; Storch 2015, 2017).
Article outline
- 1.Introduction: On confusing stories, old stammerers and silly, unintelligible language
- 2.Secrecy in the speech of the elderly in Eastern DR Congo
- 2.1Excessive cursing, transgression and spitting
- 2.2Confusing data: “Lost stories” and the rejection of statements
- 2.3Secret modal particles
- 2.4Silliness in speech
- 3.Outlook
- Notes
- Abbreviations
-
References
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Cited by
Cited by 2 other publications
Andrea Hollington, Alice Mitchell & Nico Nassenstein
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