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Article published In:
Pragmatics
Vol. 32:3 (2022) ► pp.452–487

Spatializing kinship

The grammar of belonging in Amdo, Tibet

| University of British Columbia

This paper explores children’s language socialization into kin-based peer relationships in Amdo, Tibet. I examine spontaneous interactions in one extended family to show how children link place and kinship using spatial deixis, the grammatical system that encodes context-dependent reference to location, in Amdo Tibetan. I analyze uses of spatial deixis in two interactive routines: (1) peer-group play, and (2) children’s scaffolding of infants’ roles in multiparty participation frameworks. I argue that children use their emerging deictic repertoires to ‘spatialize kinship,’ mapping kinship relations onto the immediate spaces of co-present interactions as well as the enduring places of the village’s geography. Previous studies have noted that culturally specific forms of relationality influence adults’ uses of deixis by shaping the pragmatics of interactive settings. Building on these insights, the data from Amdo demonstrate the need to consider cultural associations between place and kinship when examining the acquisition of deixis in early childhood.

Keywords: language socialization, linguistic anthropology, language and culture, spatial deixis, Tibet, China
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Towards a language socialization perspective on spatial deixis
  • 3.The setting
    • 3.1The ethnographic setting: Spatializing kinship in Amdo, Tibet
    • 3.2The linguistic setting: Amdo Tibetan spatial deixis
  • 4.Data and methodology
  • 5.Analysis
    • 5.1Directing activity sequences
    • 5.2Building peer relationships
    • 5.3Mapping associations between peer relationships and the landscape
  • 6.Discussion and conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Glossary
  • References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) 4.0 license.
Published online: 23 November 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/prag.20039.war
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