Publications
Publication details [#49164]
Stasch, Rupert. 2008. Referent-wrecking in Korowai: A New Guinea abuse register as ethnosemiotic protest. Language in Society 37 (1) : 1–25. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
Publication type
Article in journal
Publication language
English
Keywords
Place, Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Journal WWW
Annotation
This paper deals with the practice of the Korowai of West Papua to hold a register of transgressive vocabulary substitutions, thus preventing the damaging impact of iconic connections beneath brittle surface appearances. The Korowai express a reflexive sensibility concerning language, in which transparently affirmative semantic word-referent relations constitute a contingent pragmatic facility, not a natural certainty.