Presentations

Abstract

In his famous introduction to his monograph "Argonauts of the Western Pacific" Bronislaw Malinowski (1922: 24f.) points out that a "collection of ethnographic statements, characteristic narratives, typical utterances, items of folk-lore and magical formulae has to be given as a corpus inscriptionum, as documents of native mentality". This is one of the prerequisites to "grasp the native's point of view, his relation to life, to realize his vision of his world". Malinowski managed to document a "Corpus Inscriptionum Agriculturae Quriviniensis" in his second volume of "Coral Gardens and their Magic" (1935 Vol II: 79-342). But he himself did not manage to come up with a holistic corpus inscriptionum for the Trobriand Islanders. One of the main aims I have been pursuing in my research on the Trobriand Islanders' language, culture and cognition has been to fill this ethnolinguistic niche. In this talk I report what I had to do to carry out this complex and ambitious project, what forms and kinds of linguistic and cultural competence I had to acquire, and how I planned my data collection during 16 long- and short-term field trips to the Trobriands between 1982 and 2012. The talk will end with a critical assessment of my Trobriand endeavor.

Abstract

In his famous introduction to his monograph "Argonauts of the Western Pacific" Bronislaw Malinowski (1922: 24f.) points out that a "collection of ethnographic statements, characteristic narratives, typical utterances, items of folk-lore and magical formulae has to be given as a corpus inscriptionum, as documents of native mentality". This is one of the prerequisites to "grasp the native's point of view, his relation to life, to realize his vision of his world". Malinowski managed to document a "Corpus Inscriptionum Agriculturae Quriviniensis" in his second volume of "Coral Gardens and their Magic" (1935 Vol II: 79-342). But he himself did not manage to come up with a holistic corpus inscriptionum for the Trobriand Islanders. One of the main aims I have been pursuing in my research on the Trobriand Islanders' language, culture and cognition has been to fill this ethnolinguistic niche. In this essay I report what I had to do to carry out this complex and ambitious project, what forms and kinds of linguistic and cultural competence I had to acquire, and how I planned my data collection during 16 long- and short-term field trips to the Trobriand Islands between 1982 and 2012. The paper ends with a critical assessment of my Trobriand endeavor.

Abstract

In his famous introduction to his monograph "Argonauts of the Western Pacific" Bronislaw Malinowski (1922: 24f.) points out that a "collection of ethnographic statements, characteristic narratives, typical utterances, items of folk-lore and magical formulae has to be given as a corpus inscriptionum, as documents of native mentality". This is one of the prerequisites to "grasp the native's point of view, his relation to life, to realize his vision of his world". Malinowski managed to document a "Corpus Inscriptionum Agriculturae Quriviniensis" in his second volume of "Coral Gardens and their Magic" (1935 Vol II: 79-342). But he himself did not manage to come up with a holistic corpus inscriptionum for the Trobriand Islanders. One of the main aims I have been pursuing in my research on the Trobriand Islanders' language, culture and cognition has been to fill this ethnolinguistic niche. In this talk I report what I had to do to carry out this complex and ambitious project, what forms and kinds of linguistic and cultural competence I had to acquire, and how I planned my data collection during 16 long- and short-term field trips to the Trobriands between 1982 and 2012. The talk will end with a critical assessment of my Trobriand endeavor.

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

Children on the Trobriand Islands are breastfed until they can walk - usually at about the age of 2 years. When they have reached this stage of their development, they are abruptly weaned and the parents – especially the mothers – dramatically reduce the amount of pervasive loving care and attention that their children experienced before this traumatic moment in their lives. To compensate for this deficit in their experience of intimate social bonding, the children have to find a place and position within the children’s groups in their village. In these groups the children gradually take over specific roles which they internalize and thus secure the continuance of norms that are accessible by appearance alone. In the various playgroups and in their children’s group the children also learn that they have to obey and follow certain norms which as implicit social rules govern social life and interaction within their community. Norms which affect the understanding of gender roles and sex differences are directly experienced by children when they are playing together. Between the age of two and 7 years the children also learn to control their emotions in order to behave according to the norms, rules and values that are valid for the Trobrianders’ community. During this time of their life they acquire a relatively strict form of self-discipline, which is necessary to keep the balance between the individuals within their open and very public society. This implies that they also have to learn to laugh about themselves, even in situations when they feel deeply insulted. During this acquisition process the pragmatic concept of the "biga sopa" - the joking language, the language which is not vouched for (see Senft 2010: 149ff) - plays the most important role for the overall socialization process on the Trobriands. By gradually acquiring the basic concepts and the rules and norms of language use that is manifest in the biga sopa concept, children realize more and more that they can behave properly and adequately with respect to all situations they experience not only in their everyday life, but also in the ritualized forms of life within their community. This provides them with an important emotional security and with a general aplomb. The practicing of the forms of verbal and non-verbal behavior that conform to the Trobrianders’ social norms takes place while playing with other children in the playgroups; it is controlled by older members of the children’s groups. Thus, it is the children's "small republic" ” (Malinowski 1929: 44f.) which provides the most important framework for their socialization into their culture. The attempts of parental education are confined to a minimum.

References:

Malinowski, Bronislaw. 1929. The Sexual Life of Savages in Northwestern Melanesia. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Senft, Gunter. 2010. The Trobriand Islanders' Ways of Speaking. Berlin: de Gruyter Mouton.

Abstract

This talk provides an inevitably subjective summing up of experiences I made during 30 years of field research on the Trobriand Islands. I first provide some information about how I came to do this kind of research. Then I briefly introduce the Trobriand Islands, their inhabitants and some central aspects of their language and their culture. To illustrate my situation as a greenhorn in the Pacific at the beginning of my staying in the field, I briefly mention some of the mistakes I made, some misunderstandings and some forms of my misbehavior with respect to Trobriand etiquette and conventions. A brief survey on the research I carried out there is followed by a discussion of aspects of language and culture change which I witnessed and documented between 1982 and 2012. The presentation ends with some unfortunately pessimistic prospects on the Trobrianders' future which is severely challenged by overpopulation and climate change affecting the Islands.

Abstract

Kilivila, the Austronesian language of the Trobriand Islanders of Papua New Guinea, has a rich inventory of terms - nouns, verbs, adjectives and idiomatic phrases and expressions - to precisely refer to, and to differentiate emotions and inner feelings. This paper describes how the Trobriand Islanders of Papua New Guinea deal with the public display of emotions. Forms of emotion control in public encounters are discussed and explained on the basis of ritual communication which pervades the Trobrianders' verbal and non-verbal behavior. Especially highlighted is the Trobrianders' metalinguistic concept of "biga sopa" with its important role for emotion control in encounters that may run the risk of escalating from argument and conflict to aggression and violence.

Abstract

Pragmatics is the discipline within linguistics that deals with actual language use. Language use is not only dependent on linguistic, that is grammatical and lexical knowledge, but also on cultural, situative and interpersonal contexts and conventions. One of the central aims of pragmatics is to research how context and convention – in their broadest sense – contribute to meaning and understanding. Thus, the social and cultural embedding of meaning is a central prerequisite for understanding pragmatics. Research in linguistic pragmatics deals with how speakers use their language(s) in various situations and contexts: what speakers do when they speak and why they do it. Pragmatics focuses on the actual language users, their communicative behavior, their world and their point of view. Pragmatics studies language and its meaningful use from the perspective of language users embedded in their situational, behavioral, cultural, societal and political contexts, using a broad variety of methodologies and interdisciplinary approaches depending on specific research questions and interests. Indeed, if we look at core domains of the discipline, we realize that linguistic pragmatics can be regarded as a transdiscipline that is relevant for, and has its predecessors in, many other disciplines such as Philosophy, Psychology, Ethology, Ethnology, Sociology and the Political Sciences. In this talk I take up this point and discuss a selection of core issues of Pragmatics that were introduced into the field via these six disciplines.

Abstract

Dieser Vortrag gibt zunächst einen Überblick darüber, wie die Trobriander im Alltag sprachlich auf „Zeit“ und auf „Aktionen & Handlungsabläufe in der Zeit“ verweisen; dann wird das trobriandische Konzept von „Zeit“ vorgestellt, wie es sich in der wichtigsten Periode im Jahresverlauf, nämlich im Zeitraum der „milamala“ genannten Erntefeiern und in all den diese Feiern begleitenden Ritualen und Zeremonien manifestiert.

Abstract

In this seminar I examine the system of 88 classifiers that I documented being used by the inhabitants of Tauwema, my village of residence on Kaile’una Island during my field research in 1982/83 and 1989. After a
brief outline of their main grammatical and discourse functions point out that on the basis of semantic analyses the 88 classifiers can be seen as operating dynamically within 20 semantic domains, with much potential for substitution of classifiers within and between domains. Then I show that the actual use of this classifier system can be described by variable rules. Finally I develop a network model to adequately
describe the dynamics of this system (see Senft 1986; 1987; 1996).

Abstract

Kilivila, the Austronesian language of the Trobriand Islanders of Papua New Guinea, has a rich inventory of terms - nouns, verbs, adjectives and idiomatic phrases and expressions - to precisely refer to, and to differentiate emotions and inner feelings. This talk describes how the Trobriand Islanders of Papua New Guinea deal with the public display of emotions. Forms of emotion control in public encounters are discussed and explained on the basis of ritual communication which pervades the Trobrianders' verbal and non-verbal behaviour. Especially highlighted is the Trobrianders' metalinguistic concept of "biga sopa" with its important role for emotion control in encounters that may run the risk of escalating from argument and conflict to aggression and violence.

Abstract

As I have already pointed out elsewhere (Senft 2008; 2010; 2014), the Gricean conversational maxims of Quality – “Try to make your contribution one that is true” – and Manner “Be perspicuous”, specifically “Avoid obscurity of expression” and “Avoid ambiguity” (Grice 1967; 1975; 1978) – are not observed by the Trobriand Islanders of Papua New Guinea, neither in forms of their ritualized communication nor in forms and ways of everyday conversation and other ordinary verbal interactions. The speakers of the Austronesian language Kilivila metalinguistically differentiate eight specific non-diatopical registers which I have called “situational-intentional” varieties. One of these varieties is called “biga sopa”. This label can be glossed as “joking or lying speech, indirect speech, speech which is not vouched for”. The biga sopa constitutes the default register of Trobriand discourse and conversation. This contribution to the workshop on philosophy and pragmatics presents the Trobriand Islanders’ indigenous typology of non-diatopical registers, especially elaborating on the concept of sopa, describing its features, discussing its functions and illustrating its use within Trobriand society. It will be shown that the Gricean maxims of quality and manner are irrelevant for and thus not observed by the speakers of Kilivila. On the basis of the presented findings the Gricean maxims and especially Grice’s claim that his theory of conversational implicature is “universal in application” is critically discussed from a general anthropological-linguistic point of view.

Abstract

In my talk I emphasize that with respect to levels of endangerment Kilivila, the Austronesian language of the Trobriand Islanders of Papua New Guinea, can still be classified as a viable but relatively small language: it is "spoken in [a community] that [is relatively] isolated [and] with a strong internal organization, and aware of the way [its] language is a marker of identity" (Crystal 2000:20). However, I also point out that two of its varieties, the ‘biga megwa’ – the ‘language of magic’ and the ‘biga baloma’ – the ‘language of the spirits of the dead’ are highly endangered and actually moribund these days. I first present examples of text genres that constitute these two indigenous varieties of Kilivila and then explain how and why they have to be classified as being doomed to die. The presentation ends with an assessment of this development and its impact on the language and culture of the Trobriand Islanders.

Abstract

This talk provides an inevitably subjective summing up of experiences I made during 30 years of field research on the Trobriand Islands. I first provide some information about how I came to do this kind of research. Then I briefly introduce the Trobriand Islands, their inhabitants and some central aspects of their language and their culture. To illustrate my situation as a greenhorn in the Pacific at the beginning of my staying in the field, I briefly mention some of the mistakes I made, some misunderstandings and some forms of my misbehavior with respect to Trobriand etiquette and conventions. A brief survey on the research I carried out there is followed by a discussion of aspects of language and culture change which I witnessed and documented between 1982 and 2012. The presentation ends with some unfortunately pessimistic prospects on the Trobrianders' future which is severely challenged by overpopulation and climate change affecting the Islands.

Abstract

This talk provides an inevitably subjective summing up of experiences I made during 30 years of field research on the Trobriand Islands. I first provide some information about how I came to do this kind of research. Then I briefly introduce the Trobriand Islands, their inhabitants and some central aspects of their language and their culture. To illustrate my situation as a greenhorn in the Pacific at the beginning of my staying in the field, I briefly mention some of the mistakes I made, some misunderstandings and some forms of my misbehavior with respect to Trobriand etiquette and conventions. A brief survey on the research I carried out there is followed by a discussion of aspects of language and culture change which I witnessed and documented between 1982 and 2012. The presentation ends with some unfortunately pessimistic prospects on the Trobrianders' future which is severely challenged by overpopulation and climate change affecting the Islands.

Abstract

This talk provides a survey of the geographical distribution of gender and classifier systems in the languages of the world - based on the WALS and on Alexandra Aikhenvald's monograph "Classifiers" published in 2000 by Oxford University Press.

Abstract

Pragmatics is the discipline within linguistics that deals with actual language use. Language use is not only dependent on linguistic, that is grammatical and lexical knowledge, but also on cultural, situative and interpersonal contexts and conventions. One of the central aims of pragmatics is to research how context and convention – in their broadest sense – contribute to meaning and understanding. Thus, the social and cultural embedding of meaning is a central prerequisite for understanding pragmatics. Research in linguistic pragmatics deals with how speakers use their language(s) in various situations and contexts: what speakers do when they speak and why they do it. Pragmatics focuses on the actual language users, their communicative behaviour, their world and their point of view, in short, ‘the total human context of [language] use’ (Mey 1994: 3265). Pragmatics studies language and its meaningful use from the perspective of language users embedded in their situational, behavioural, cultural, societal and political contexts, using a broad variety of methodologies and interdisciplinary approaches depending on specific research questions and interests. Indeed, if we look at core domains of the discipline, we realize that linguistic pragmatics can be regarded as a transdiscipline that is relevant for, and has its predecessors in, many other disciplines such as Philosophy, Psychology, Ethology, Ethnology, Sociology and the Political Sciences. In this talk I take up this point and briefly discuss a selection of core issues of Pragmatics that were introduced into the field via these six disciplines (see Senft 2014). References: Mey, Jacob. 1994. Pragmatics. In R. E. Asher and J. M. Y. Simpson (eds.), The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, Vol. 6, 3260-3278. Oxford: Pergamon Press. Senft, Gunter. 2014. Understanding Pragmatics. London: Routledge

Abstract

Kilivila, the Austronesian language of the Trobriand Islanders of Papua New Guinea, has a rich inventory of terms - nouns, verbs, adjectives and idiomatic phrases and expressions - to precisely refer to, and to differentiate emotions and inner feelings. This paper describes how the Trobriand Islanders of Papua New Guinea deal with the public display of emotions. Forms of emotion control in public encounters are discussed and explained on the basis of ritual communication which pervades the Trobrianders' verbal and non-verbal behavior. Especially highlighted is the Trobrianders' metalinguistic concept of "biga sopa" with its important role for emotion control in encounters that may run the risk of escalating from argument and conflict to aggression and violence.

Abstract

This talk deals with the dramatic environmental and social changes on the Trobriand Islands in Papua New Guinea which I experienced during 16 long- and short-term field-trips from 1982 to 2012. I first report about the climate change I experienced there over the years, then I provide a survey about the demographic changes on the Trobriands - highlighting the situation in Tauwema, my village of residence on Kaile'una Island, and finally I report on the social impact these dramatic changes have for the Trobraind Islanders and their culture.

Abstract

This talk first discusses briefly the basic problem of how the perceived world is expressed and represented in language and how language refers to the perceived world. Then it presents and exemplifies the systems of nominal classification that can be found in the languages of the world and finally it discusses some central problems of nominal classification.

Abstract

In 1997 Moagava, a 29 year old man living in the village of Tauwema on Kaile'una, one of the Trobriand Islands in the Milne Bay Province of Papua New Guinea, told a group of children and some adults the story of Morevaya and Bukuruvi. In this talk I first present this tale in morpheme-interlinear transcription and translation, then I look at the text in detail with respect to both its form and content. This analysis reveals the macro- and micro-structure of the tale and isolates the verbal means used by the narrator which indicate the linearization principles that underlie the macrostructure of the story. The talk ends with some concluding remarks on the anthropological-linguistic and cognitive linguistic significance of studies like the present one.

Abstract

In 1997 Kalavatu, a 45 year old man living in the village of Tauwema on Kaile'una, one of the Trobriand Islands in the Milne Bay Province of Papua New Guinea, told a group of children and some adults the story of Kavalokwa. In this talk I first present this tale in morpheme-interlinear transcription and translation (see handout), then I look at the text in detail with respect to both its form and content. This analysis reveals the macrostructure of the tale and isolates the verbal means used by the narrator which indicate the linearization principles that underlie this macrostructure of the story. The talk ends with some concluding remarks on the anthropological-linguistic and cognitive linguistic significance of studies like the present one.

Abstract

This talk reports on the results of my research in 2006 and 2008 on the verbal expressions - the lexical means - Kilivila, the language of the Trobriand Islanders, offers its speakers to refer to and to describe emotions and inner feelings. Data were elicited with 18 so-called "Ekman's faces" in which the faces of three persons (one woman, two men) illustrate six allegedly universal basic emotions (anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, surprise) and film stimuli staging and demonstrating standard emotions based on English. This latter stimulus set is called “Mind Reading Emotions Library (MREL)”. It was developed by Baron-Cohen and his co-workers in 2004. After the presentation of the data elicited with the "Ekman faces" and the MREL film clips I will discuss them on the basis of the following three research questions: How "effable" are emotions or can we observe ineffability - the difficulty or impossibility of putting experiences into words - within the domain of emotions? Do consultants agree with one another how they name emotions? Are facial expressions or situations better cues for labeling? In addition to the data elicited with these tools I also present lexical means the Trobriand Islanders use to refer to emotions and inner feelings which are documented in my overall corpus of the Kilivila language.

Abstract

The Trobriand Islanders' eschatological belief system explains in detail what happens when someone dies. Bronislaw Malinowski described essentials of this eschatology in his famous articles "Baloma: the Spirits of the Dead in the Trobriand Islands" and "Myth in Primitive Psychology" There he also presented the Trobrianders' belief that a spirit of the dead, a "baloma" can be reborn; he claimed that Trobrianders are unaware of the father's role as genitor. In this talk I present not only a critical review of Malinowski's ethnography of Trobriand eschatology, finally settling the "virgin birth" controversy, I also document highly ritualized songs - the "wosi milamala" - the harvest festival songs. They are sung in an archaic variety of Kilivila - the "biga baloma" - the language of the spirits of the dead. Malinowski briefly refers to these songs but does not mention that they codify many aspects of Trobriand eschatology. The songs 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.

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.

Abstract

This talk briefly reports on how I started my research on the Trobriand Islands, how I dealt with the situation there as a novice in field research on a Pacific island, what kind of research I have been conducting over the last 25+ years, what experiences I have had during this time, what kinds of culture and language change I have observed during all these years, and what my predictions are for the future of the Trobriand Islanders with respect to their language and their culture.

Abstract

How stable is the lexicon for perceptual experiences? This paper presents results on how the Trobrianders talk about taste and color, and how these have changed over the years. In 2008 I continued fieldwork on the Trobriand Islands in Papua New Guinea with the aim of researching the Trobriand Islanders’ language of perception. In 1983 I collected data on Kilivila color terms. The first part of the paper compares these data with the data I collected in 2008. Some of the predictions I made about the development of color categories in 1983 were right. Integrating English color terms as foreign words, the Kilivila color term lexicon has changed from a typical stage IIIb into a stage VII color term lexicon (Berlin & Kay 1969). However, traditional color terms as well as folkbotany terms that refer to plants, fruits and soils used to make colors for dyeing grass-skirts are still used. I also compare the data on taste vocabulary that I collected in 1982/83 with the results of my 2008 taste term elicitation experiment with a taste kit developed by the language and cognition group. I could not find and observe substantial change in this domain. Concluding the paper I compare the 2008 results on taste terms with a paper on the taste vocabulary of the Torres Strait Islanders published in 1904 by Charles S. Myers. It turns out that some of his original results can still be verified. Kilivila provides evidence that terms used for talking about color and taste are relatively stable over time, with just a few effects of language change induced by language contact.

Abstract

Competition is one of the most typical and characteristic features of the Trobriand Islanders' culture and society. It permeates all areas of the Trobriand Islanders' life. However, in the dialectics of Trobriand society, competition is always based on cooperation between competitors and their supporters. This paper documents and analyzes a speech in which a man in his late thirties transmits his version of the Trobriand ideology of competition and cooperation to a group of schoolchildren in the village center of Tauwema on Kaile'una Island. The speech documents this ideology in the make; moreover, it also reveals that this ideology is already influenced by radiations of present processes of globalization, radiations which by now have reached villages as remote as Tauwema.

Abstract

How stable is the lexicon for perceptual experiences? This paper presents results on how the Trobrianders talk about taste and color, and how these have changed over the years. In 2008 I continued fieldwork on the Trobriand Islands in Papua New Guinea with the aim of researching the Trobriand Islanders’ language of perception. In 1983 I collected data on Kilivila color terms. The first part of the paper compares these data with the data I collected in 2008. Some of the predictions I made about the development of color categories in 1983 were right. Integrating English color terms as foreign words, the Kilivila color term lexicon has changed from a typical stage IIIb into a stage VII color term lexicon (Berlin & Kay 1969). However, traditional color terms as well as folkbotany terms that refer to plants, fruits and soils used to make colors for dyeing grass-skirts are still used. I also compare the data on taste vocabulary that I collected in 1982/83 with the results of my 2008 taste term elicitation experiment with a taste kit developed by the language and cognition group. I could not find and observe substantial change in this domain. Kilivila provides evidence that terms used for talking about color and taste are relatively stable over time, with just a few effects of language change induced by language contact.