Publications

Publication details [#5420]

Keenan, Elinor Ochs. 1974. Norm-makers, norm-breakers: Uses of speech by men and women in a Malagasy community. In Bauman, Richard and Joel Sherzer, eds. Explorations in the ethnography of speaking. Cambridge University Press. pp. 125–143.

Publication type

Article in book

Publication language

English

Keywords

directness vs. indirectness | social norm | women's vs. men's language

Language as a subject

Malagasy

Annotation

Studying verbal behavior in a small community in the southern central plateau of Madagascar, K. identifies the avoidance of direct affront as a social norm which is often broken by women. Women are said to dominate situations where directness is called for, whereas men dominate situations where indirectness is desirable.