'The talk goes many ways' : registers of language and modes of performance in Kanjimei, East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea
Creators: name: Hoenigman, Darja
Publisher: name: The Australian National University
Year: 2015

description: This thesis focuses on language and modes of performance in Kanjimei village, a small, largely endogamous community in East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea. The approximately 300 members of this community speak Awiakay, a Papuan language belonging to the Arafundi group, and call themselves Awiakay. Based on 23 months of fieldwork, and drawing material from video recordings of natural speech situations, the thesis analyses the form and social functions of a range of different linguistic registers and the ways in which each of them reflects - and is itself a part of - socio-cultural continuity and change. Each of the five main chapters between the Introduction and Conclusion deals with a different linguistic register and its role in Awiakay society. Chapter 2 treats two historically related registers, 'mountain talk' and 'hidden talk' in which ordinary vocabulary is replaced by secret vocabulary, known only to the Awiakay. Mountain talk is the older genre, used during hunting trips in the mountains, in order to avoid the anger and potential malicious actions of the mountain spirits. The Awiakay have recently transferred this practice of lexical replacement to a different social setting, in which they try to avoid the dangers presented by raskols (Tok Pisin for 'criminals') in the provincial capital when they go to town. Chapter 3 analyses the language of disputes and fighting. It examines both domestic and village-internal fights and demonstrates the importance of language use in traditional conflict resolution. Chapter 4 examines Catholic charismatic spirit possession, which temporarily legitimises two otherwise condemned social practices: gossip and public criticism. Through video-recorded case study the chapter demonstrates the role of language use and language ideologies in patching the previously torn social fabric. Chapter 5 deals with laments, or 'sung-texted melodic weeping'. A person's weeping for a deceased relative or a dog is at the same time used as an indirect public call for help, or as a subtle airing of grievances about other people's wrongdoings (with or without a direct connection to the deceased). The melody which accompanies these complaints makes other people sympathise with the person weeping, so their laments are heard and taken seriously by other members of the society rather than condemned as malicious provocations. The last ethnographic chapter (6) is on Kaunjambi, an all-night song/dance cycle of 43 songs, which were, in the Awiakay view, composed by their ancestral spirits. Linguistic, musical and ethnographic analyses of the verbatim transcripts and the video and audio recordings of several performances of this song/dance cycle lead to the argument that Kaunjambi is an indigenously-composed auto-ethnography. The text of the thesis is intertwined with observational ethnographic film. The video clips are an integral part of the thesis; they are recordings of events that are analysed in individual chapters, and are thus intended to be watched while reading. All chapters are placed within the broader ethnographic literature on Melanesia and linguistic anthropology.