Circumnavigating taboos
A functional and formal typology
This article elaborates on Wolfgang Schulze’s keynote speech of the same title at the 26th LIPP Symposium in
Munich in 2019. It is based on the slides from his talk and various teaching materials, of which some figures have been translated
from German to English before their inclusion in this article. While this article’s foundation rests on Schulze’s theories and
research, we have done our best to build upon his work; direct quotes and key concepts of his will be cited throughout the text.
Schulze intended to write this article himself, but after his unexpected passing in early 2020, we decided to offer this
contribution on his behalf.
Research on taboo is widely spread across diverse academic disciplines that each attribute slightly, yet
noticeably, different meanings to the concept. This article proposes an all-encompassing definition applicable to all
socio-cultural contexts. To arrive at this comprehensive understanding, we first briefly survey the history of
taboo and its linguistic study. Then, we present a formal and functional typology of circumnavigating taboos,
taking into account the concepts of mana and noa as proposed by Schulze (2019: 13, 15, 16). While the specific social restrictions resulting from tabooed relations vary from
community to community, the purpose of taboo remains the same: social stability, protection and sustainability. Linguistic taboos
contribute to these social functions by restricting the use of certain linguistic signs in certain situations. Such constraints
necessitate strategies for avoiding taboo, including articulation shift, lexical substitution and the emergence of special
languages, detailed here.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.The concept of taboo
- 3.Form and function of taboos
- 3.1The social function of taboos
- 3.1.1Adherence to taboos
- 3.1.2Taboo breaking
- 3.2Linguistic taboo and tabooed language use
- 3.2.1Definition
- 3.2.2Theoretical perspective
- 3.2.3Linguistic strategies
- 4.Conclusion
- Notes
-
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