Narrative discriminations in Central California’s indigenous narrative traditions
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Paul V. Kroskrity
Abstract
This chapter explores salvage era representations of Yokuts and Western Mono Narratives in an attempt to understand the logic in use of anthropologists and linguists who tended to characterize these narratives in a disparaging manner. I explore two possible explanations for what at first blush appears to be an unusually ethnocentric failure to appreciate difference and an exercise in producing an aesthetic relativism that does not explain or understand narrative difference but merely notes its existence. The first is essentially a historical explanation and the second invokes Jane Hill’s notion of covert racism. In order to assess the value of these different and perhaps competing explanations, I introduce the results of my own ethnopoetic and ethnographic work on Western Mono.
Abstract
This chapter explores salvage era representations of Yokuts and Western Mono Narratives in an attempt to understand the logic in use of anthropologists and linguists who tended to characterize these narratives in a disparaging manner. I explore two possible explanations for what at first blush appears to be an unusually ethnocentric failure to appreciate difference and an exercise in producing an aesthetic relativism that does not explain or understand narrative difference but merely notes its existence. The first is essentially a historical explanation and the second invokes Jane Hill’s notion of covert racism. In order to assess the value of these different and perhaps competing explanations, I introduce the results of my own ethnopoetic and ethnographic work on Western Mono.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Foreword vii
- Preface xi
- Introduction xxi
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Section 1. Approaches to the study of the indigenous languages of the Americas
- The diachrony of Ute case-marking 3
- Language contact as an inhibitor of sound change 29
- Stress in Yucatec Maya 53
- The phonetic correlates of Southern Ute stress 85
- Revisiting Tohono O’odham high vowels 107
- Head-marking inflection and the architecture of grammatical theory 133
- A case-study in grass roots development of web resources for language workers 175
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Section 2. Approaches to the study of voices and ideologies
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Language contact, shift, and endangerment – implications for policy
- Spanish in contact with indigenous tongues 203
- How can a language with 7 million speakers be endangered? 229
- A documentary ethnography of a Blackfoot language course 257
- Syncretic speech, linguistic ideology, and intertextuality 291
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Racism in discourse – analyses of practice
- Narrative discriminations in Central California’s indigenous narrative traditions 321
- The voice of (White) reason 339
- Double-voicing in the everyday language of Brazilian black activism 365
- Uptake (un)limited 389
- The silken cord 415
- Afterword 425
- Language index 431
- Subject index 433
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Foreword vii
- Preface xi
- Introduction xxi
-
Section 1. Approaches to the study of the indigenous languages of the Americas
- The diachrony of Ute case-marking 3
- Language contact as an inhibitor of sound change 29
- Stress in Yucatec Maya 53
- The phonetic correlates of Southern Ute stress 85
- Revisiting Tohono O’odham high vowels 107
- Head-marking inflection and the architecture of grammatical theory 133
- A case-study in grass roots development of web resources for language workers 175
-
Section 2. Approaches to the study of voices and ideologies
-
Language contact, shift, and endangerment – implications for policy
- Spanish in contact with indigenous tongues 203
- How can a language with 7 million speakers be endangered? 229
- A documentary ethnography of a Blackfoot language course 257
- Syncretic speech, linguistic ideology, and intertextuality 291
-
Racism in discourse – analyses of practice
- Narrative discriminations in Central California’s indigenous narrative traditions 321
- The voice of (White) reason 339
- Double-voicing in the everyday language of Brazilian black activism 365
- Uptake (un)limited 389
- The silken cord 415
- Afterword 425
- Language index 431
- Subject index 433
