Blythe2010

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Blythe2010
BibType ARTICLE
Key Blythe2010
Author(s) Joe Blythe
Title Self-association in Murriny Patha talk-in-interaction
Editor(s)
Tag(s) EMCA, Conversation Analysis, Murriny Patha, Aboriginal, Person Reference, Kinship, Self-reference
Publisher
Year 2010
Language
City
Month
Journal Australian Journal of Linguistics
Volume 30
Number 4
Pages 447-469
URL Link
DOI 10.1080/07268602.2010.518555
ISBN
Organization
Institution
School
Type
Edition
Series
Howpublished
Book title
Chapter

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Abstract

When referring to persons in talk-in-interaction, interlocutors recruit the particular referential expressions that best satisfy both cultural and interactional contingencies, as well as the speaker's own personal objectives. Regular referring practices reveal cultural preferences for choosing particular classes of reference forms for engaging in particular types of activities.

When speakers of the northern Australian language Murriny Patha refer to each other, they display a clear preference for associating the referent to the current conversation's participants. This preference for Association is normally achieved through the use of triangular reference forms such as kinterms. Triangulations are reference forms that link the person being spoken about to another specified person (e.g. Bill's doctor). Triangulations are frequently used to associate the referent to the current speaker (e.g. my father), to an addressed recipient (your uncle) or co-present other (this bloke's cousin).

Murriny Patha speakers regularly associate key persons to themselves when making authoritative claims about items of business and important events. They frequently draw on kinship links when attempting to bolster their epistemic position. When speakers demonstrate their relatedness to the event's protagonists, they ground their contribution to the discussion as being informed by appropriate genealogical connections (effectively, ‘I happen to know something about that. He was after all my own uncle’).

Notes