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Pragmatics and its Interfaces
Edited by Cornelia Ilie and Neal R. Norrick
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 294] 2018
► pp. 185–211

Pragmatics and anthropology

The Trobriand Islanders’ ways of speaking

| MPI for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen

Bronislaw Malinowski – based on his experience during his field research on the Trobriand Islands – pointed out that language is first and foremost a tool for creating social bonds. It is a mode of behavior and the meaning of an utterance is constituted by its pragmatic function. Malinowski’s ideas finally led to the formation of the subdiscipline “anthropological linguistics”. This paper presents three observations of the Trobrianders’ attitude to their language Kilivila and their language use in social interactions. They illustrate that whoever wants to successfully research the role of language, culture and cognition in social interaction must be on ‘common ground’ with the researched community.

Keywords: anthropological linguistics, pragmatics, Bronislaw Malinowski, Trobriand Islands, Papua New Guinea, Kilivila, greeting behavior, emotion control, ways of speaking, “biga sopa”
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Three puzzling observations
  • 3.The Trobriand Islanders’ ways of speaking
    • 3.1The Trobriand Islanders’ greeting behavior and the lessons in pragmatics learned
    • 3.2A case of emotion control and the lessons in pragmatics learned
    • 3.3Making peace with Ibova and the lessons in pragmatics learned
  • 4.Pragmatics and anthropology
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 7 September 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.294.09sen
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