A socially anchored approach to spatial language in Kalaallisut
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Hilary McMahan
,
Lenore A. Grenoble
und
Alliaq Kleist Petrussen
Abstract
In this article we demonstrate the fundamental relationship between the linguistic encoding of spatial relations and the topography of Greenland as an island, more specifically as a large island with considerable inland ice, and social engagement with that space. Kalaallisut (or Greenlandic, ISO 639-3 kal) uses an absolute frame of reference and a cardinal direction system that arises from an environmentally anchored coastal orientation system. Sociocultural knowledge and experiences play an important role in this system. It is deeply rooted in the geophysical environment, and changes to that environment can and do affect the linguistic encoding of space. Crucially, changes in people’s relationship with the environment affect how it is conceptualized in language. This is part of a broader pattern of Inuit language usage in changing Arctic environments and societies.
Funding source: National Science Foundation 10.13039/100000001
Award Identifier / Grant number: NSF IGERT-0801490
Award Identifier / Grant number: NSF BCS-1056497
Funding source: Division of the Humanities, University of Chicago 10.13039/100007234)
Funding source: American Philosophical Society’s Phillips Fund 10.13039/100001461
Acknowledgments
We are especially grateful to the many speakers who worked with us.
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Research funding: Research on this project was funded by the National Science Foundation (http://doi.org/10.13039/100000001): NSF IGERT-0801490 Polar Environmental Change and NSF BCS-1056497 The Lexicon of a Polysynthetic Language; the American Philosophical Society’s Phillips Fund for Native American Research (http://doi.org/10.13039/100001461); and a Dissertation Research Travel Grant from the Division of the Humanities, University of Chicago (http://doi.org/10.13039/100007234), with endorsement by the Joint Committee of Greenland/Denmark/USA.
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© 2021 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Research Articles
- Diversity in representing space within and between language communities
- A quantitative approach to sociotopography in Austronesian languages
- Directionals, topography, and cultural construals of landscape in Lamaholot
- A socially anchored approach to spatial language in Kalaallisut
- River-based and egocentric spatial orientation in Yine
- Geocentric directional systems in Australia: a typology
- The irrelevance of scale and fixedness in landscape terms in two Australian languages
- Changes in spatial frames of reference use in Iwaidja in different intergenerational contexts
- Cross-generational differences in linguistic and cognitive spatial frames of reference in Negev Arabic
- Sociotopography meets Dialectology: the case of Aquilan
- Conflation of spatial reference frames in deaf community sign languages
- Linguistic spatial reference systems across domains: How people talk about space in sailing, dancing, and other specialist areas
- The influence of language, culture, and environment on the use of spatial referencing in a multilingual context: Taiwan as a test case
- Reference frames in language and cognition: cross-population mismatches
- From the field into the lab: causal approaches to the evolution of spatial language
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Research Articles
- Diversity in representing space within and between language communities
- A quantitative approach to sociotopography in Austronesian languages
- Directionals, topography, and cultural construals of landscape in Lamaholot
- A socially anchored approach to spatial language in Kalaallisut
- River-based and egocentric spatial orientation in Yine
- Geocentric directional systems in Australia: a typology
- The irrelevance of scale and fixedness in landscape terms in two Australian languages
- Changes in spatial frames of reference use in Iwaidja in different intergenerational contexts
- Cross-generational differences in linguistic and cognitive spatial frames of reference in Negev Arabic
- Sociotopography meets Dialectology: the case of Aquilan
- Conflation of spatial reference frames in deaf community sign languages
- Linguistic spatial reference systems across domains: How people talk about space in sailing, dancing, and other specialist areas
- The influence of language, culture, and environment on the use of spatial referencing in a multilingual context: Taiwan as a test case
- Reference frames in language and cognition: cross-population mismatches
- From the field into the lab: causal approaches to the evolution of spatial language
