Lingsoc

[suzy]

This semester's Linguistics Department Seminars will be held on Thursdays, 5pm in Eastern Avenue Seminar Room 405. Currently the schedule for the rest of semester looks like this:


9th Aug - Aaron Corn - Budutthun Ratja Wiyinymirri: Formal Flexibility in the Manikay Tradition of North-East Arnhem Land

16th Aug - Hilario de Sousa - The Echo-subject system(s) in Vanuatu

23rd Aug - Michael Gray - TBA

30th Aug - Perin C Ganeshsundaram - India as a Linguistic Area: Peculiarities of the Dravidian Languages (with Special Reference to Tamil)

6th Sept - Matthew Honnibal - TBA

13th Sept - Johanna Rendle-Short - Conversation analysis (talk-in-interaction) as methodology: Analysing asymmetrical use of address terms in the political news interview

20th Sept - Winnie Chor - Subjectivity and intersubjectivity: interpersonal use of language

27th Sept - NO SEMINAR (mid-semester break)

4th Oct - Linda Barwick - A dance like this didjeridu corroboree but without the didjeridu: commonalities between djanba and wangga/lirrga song texts at Wadeye (NT)

11th Oct - Amanda Oppliger - Ruminations on the Dharug Language

18th Oct - Ping Tian - Who’s afraid of Anthony Browne? – Multi-Modal discourse analysis of picture books.

25th Oct - Freya Bailes - Memory for song in oral music tradition: Interdisciplinary analyses

1st Nov - David Caldwell - The Rhetoric of Rap: A Multi-Modal Analysis of North American Rap Music


All are welcome. Further details can be found at http://www-personal.arts.usyd.edu.au/tomhoney/2007semester2/.

[suzy]

Budutthun Ratja Wiyinymirri: Formal Flexibility in the Manikay Tradition of North-East Arnhem Land
Dr Aaron Corn
ARC Australian Post-Doctoral Fellow, School of Letters Art & Media
Conjoint Lecturer, Koori Centre

Among the Yolngu (People) of NE Arnhem Land, traditional manikay (song) series serve as records of sacred relationships between humans, country and ancestors. Their formal structures constitute the overarching order of all ceremonial actions, and their lyrics comprise lexicons of esoteric words and names that are sacred and specific to each Yolngu mala (patrifilial group). A consummate knowledge of manikay and its interpenetrability with ancestors, country and parallel canons of sacred yäku (names), bunggul (dances) and miny’tji (designs) is an essential prerequisite to traditional leadership in Yolngu society.

Drawing on a Gupapuyngu manikay series recorded by the authors at Djiliwirri in 2004 and 2005, this paper will explore the aesthetics and functions of formal flexibility in the manikay tradition. It will address the individuation of lyrical realisations by singers, and the role of rhythmic modes in the articulation of materials between the tradition’s luku (root) and bunggul’mirr(i) (dance accompanied) formats. Findings presented will contribute significantly to intercultural understandings of manikay theory and aesthetics, the centrality of manikay to Yolngu intellectual traditions, and the agency of Yolngu leaders in undertaking ceremonial actions trough manikay performance.

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The Echo-subject system(s) in Vanuatu
Dr Hilario de Sousa
University of Sydney

Languages in various parts of Vanuatu (Southern Vanuatu (e.g. Lynch 1983), South Efate (Thieberger 2006) and some languages in Malakula, e.g. Aulua (Paviour-Smith forthcoming)) are described as having echo-subject (ES) markers or something similar. Canonically, an ES prefix is used in place of a normal cross-reference prefix when the subject of a clause is coreferential with the subject of the preceding clause. The use of an ES prefix contrasts with the use of a normal cross-reference prefix, which — in some Vanuatu languages — obligatorily indicates disjoint-reference between the same pair of interclausal references. This is reminiscent of the switch-reference (SR) affixes found in — e.g. — Australian and Papuan languages. In this paper we will summarise the similarities and differences amongst the ES systems, and argue that ES is fundamentally different from SR: canonical SR has the semantic function of reference tracking and the discourse function of indicating participant continuity versus discontinuity (de Sousa 2006), whereas ES is only used for reference tracking.


de Sousa, Hilário. 2006. What is Switch-Reference? — From the Viewpoint of the Young People’s Switch-Reference System in Menggwa Dla. Te Reo (49): 39-71.

Haima, John & Pamela Munro (eds.). 1983. Switch-reference and Universal Grammar — Typological Studies in Language. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Lynch, John. 1983. Switch-Reference in Lenakel. In Haiman, John & Pamela Munro (eds.): 209-221.

Paviour-Smith, Martin. forthcoming. A grammar of the Aulua language of South East Malakula.

Thieberger, Nick. 2006. A Grammar of South Efate. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.

[suzy]

My apologies for not posting abstracts recently, I will try to get back into the habit of it.

In the meantime, the seminar for 6th Sept has been cancelled.

[suzy]

Conversation analysis (talk-in-interaction) as methodology: Analysing asymmetrical use of address terms in the political news interview
Dr Johanna Rendle-Short
School of Language Studies, ANU

Conversation analysis (or talk-in-interaction) argues that everyday conversation, and indeed all types of talk, is structured and ordered (Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson, 1974). Conversation analysis (CA) also argues that it is only through detailed and systematic analysis of the different types of talk that it is possible to 'see', and explicate, this structure and order. Thus, even though a conversation might initially appear as unstructured, with stops and starts, as people try and work out what it is that they want to say, such 'hitches' or 'speech problems' do not randomly occur throughout the talk. Rather there is a systematicity to their occurrence. It is the role of the conversation analyst to explicate the underlying systematicity, in order to understand the organisation of talk as a social activity (Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson, 1974).

The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the suitability of a CA approach to the analysis of address terms within the institutional setting of the political news interview. Address terms are frequently used by both politicians and journalists within the Australian political news interview. However, in such interactions, address terms are redundant, as there is no need to address a co-participant by name if there are only two interactants. As such, address terms constitute a marked form. The question, therefore, is why do participants address their co-participants by name, and if they do address them by name why do they sometimes put the address term at the beginning of a turn at talk whereas other times they put it at the end of a turn at talk. The paper will show how both the choice of address term, and the sequential positioning of the address term has implications for the unfolding moment-by-moment interaction. Through analysis of the sequential environment in which the address term is placed, the paper will show how whereas journalists tend to use address terms at the beginning of a turn as a topic-management device, politicians tend to use address terms within adversarial environments. The paper will argue for the suitability of CA as a methodological approach through its emphasis on the micro-analysis of talk as it unfolds turn by turn, and in response to the immediately prior talk. Through such micro-analysis of the sequential placement of address terms within the political news interview, it is possible to 'see' the underlying structure and order within this instance of institutional interaction.

Reference: Sacks, H., Schegloff, E.A. & Jefferson, G. (1974). A simplest semantics for the organization of turn-taking for conversation. Language 50:696-735.