Presentations

Abstract

In the 1920s, Bronislaw Malinowski – in the tradition of Herder and Humboldt and based on his experience during his field research on the Trobriand Islands – pointed out that language is not only an instrument of thought, but first and foremost a tool for creating social bonds and accountability relations in more or less ritualized forms of social interaction. Language is a mode of behavior and the meaning of an utterance is constituted by its pragmatic function: it can only be understood in relation to the context in which it is embedded. The rules that guide communicative behavior vary immensely in different cultures and have to be learned to achieve communicative competence within a specific speech community. This learning results in the understanding of how the speakers structure, pattern and regulate their ways of speaking. Malinowski’s ideas had an increasing impact in anthropology and linguistics – especially in pragmatics – and led to the formation of the subdiscipline “anthropological linguistics”. This paper presents three observations of the Trobriand Islanders’ attitude to their language Kilivila and their actual language use in social interactions which I made during my fieldwork on the Trobriand Islands. They illustrate that whoever wants to research the role of language, culture and cognition in social interaction – be it linguist or anthropologist – must know how the researched society constructs its reality. Researchers need to be on ‘common ground’ with the researched communities, and this common ground knowledge is the indispensable prerequisite for any successful research on language, culture and cognition manifest in social interaction.

Abstract

After a summary of the research on frames of spatial reference that was done at the Institute and an introduction of these 3 systems of spatial reference absolute systems of spatial references that are found in Oceanic languages are presented and discussed

Abstract

The Trobriand Islanders' concept of "karewaga" can be glossed not only as " authority" but also as " responsibility, jurisdiction, competence, sphere of influence", and so on. After a lexical semantic analysis of this concept based on the actual usage of the term in everyday Kilivila contexts of social interaction this paper points out that many of the ethical principles which are rooted in Western philosophy and thought and which should guide any field research - be it anthropologically, linguistically, cognitively or sociologically oriented - find their equivalent in the Trobriand Islanders' indigenous concept of "karewaga".

Abstract

The Trobriand Islanders complex eschatological belief system explains in detail what happenes when a Trobriander dies. Bronislaw Malinowski described the essentials of this belief system in his famous articles "Baloma: the Spirits of the Dead in the Trobriand Islands" and "Myth in Primitive Psychology" In these papers he also presented the Trobrianders belief in the fact that a spirit of the dead, a "baloma" can be reborn; in connection with this myth he claimed that the Trobrianders are actually unaware of the father's role as genitor. This talk presents not only a critical review of Malinowski's ethnography of Trobriand eschatology, it also documents highly ritualized songs - the "wosi milamala" the songs of the harvest festival - which are sung in an archaic variety of Kilivila - the "biga baloma" - the language of the spirits of the dead. In these songs the Trobriand Islanders have codified many aspects of their eschatological belief system. It seems that Malinowski was not aware of these songs. Thus this talk provides for the first time a comprehensive ethnographic overview of Trobriand eschatology. Until the mid 60s of the last century the Trobrianders used the "biga baloma" to communicate with the spirits of the dead; however, in the meantime the sungs are still sung during the harvest festival and after the death of a Trobriander, but there are only a few people left who still understand the "wosi milamala". They are a moribund genre of Kilivila - and with them the Trobriand Islanders' complex indigenous eschatology will vanish.