hellog〜英語史ブログ / 2013-10-27

■ #1644. おしゃべりと沈黙の民族誌学 (2) [sociolinguistics][function_of_language][ethnography_of_speaking]

　「#1632. communicative competence」 ([2013-10-15-1]) と「#1633. おしゃべりと沈黙の民族誌学」 ([2013-10-16-1]) で，ethnography of speaking という分野に触れた．言語学，社会学，文化人類学の接点にある学問領域で，研究者が様々な言語文化に入り込んでおこなうフィールドワークからの報告と記述が主たる成果となっている．先の記事で，異なる ethnography of speaking をもつ言語社会の例をいくつか紹介したが，今回はこの分野に携わるフィールドワーカーや研究者からの生の報告を聞いてみよう．先の記事で触れたものも多い．いずれも，Hudson より孫引きする．まずは，南インドの Puliya の寡黙について．

Peter Gardener (1966) did some fieldwork . . . in southern India, among a tribal people called the Puliya, describing their socialization patterns. There is no agriculture and no industry, and the society is neither particularly cooperative nor particularly competitive; so children are led neither to be particularly interdependent nor to be aggressively competitive with each other, but simply to busy themselves with their own concerns in reasonable spatial proximity. He observed that, by the time a man was forty, he practically stopped speaking altogether. He had no reason to speak. People there, in fact, just didn't talk much and seldom seemed to find anything much to talk about, and he saw this as a consequence of the particular kind of socialization pattern. (116)

　次に，インドネシア東部の Roti のおしゃべり好きな言語社会について．

For a Rotinese the pleasure of life is talk --- not simply an idle chatter that passes time, but the more formal taking of sides in endless dispute, argument and repartee or the rivalling of one another in eloquent and balanced phrases on ceremonial occasions . . . Lack of talk is an indication of distress. Rotinese repeatedly explain that if their 'hearts' are confused or dejected, they keep silent. Contrarily, to be involved with someone requires active verbal encounter. (117)

　饒舌なアメリカ人と寡黙なデンマーク人が出会ったときの，行き違いについて．

An . . . enthnographer (sic) describes staying with in-laws in Denmark and being joined by an American friend who, despite warnings, insisted on talking with American intensity until 'at 9 o'clock my in-laws retired to bed; they just couldn't stand it any more'. (117)

　一時にしゃべるのは1人が当然であるという常識をもっている者にとって，Antigua の言語行動は異様に映るだろう．

Antiguan conventions appear, on the surface, almost anarchic. Fundamentally, there is no regular requirement for two or more voices not to be going at the same time. The start of a new voice is not in itself a signal for the voice speaking either to stop or to institute a process which will decide who is to have the floor. When someone enters a casual group, for example, no opening is necessarily made for him; nor is there any pause or other formal signal that he is being included. No one appears to pay any attention. When he feels ready he will simply begin speaking. He may be heard, he may not. That is, the other voices may eventually stop and listen, or some of them may; eyes may or may not turn to him. If he is not heard the first time he will try again, and yet again (often with the same remark). Eventually he will be heard or give up. (117)

　同じく Antigua では，会話の中断の回数に関する慣習も他の多くの言語社会とは異なっている．

In a brief conversation with me, about three minutes, a girl called to someone on the street, made a remark to a small boy, sang a little, told a child to go to school, sang some more, told a child to go buy bread, etc., all the while continuing the thread of her conversation about her sister. (118)

　新情報をもっている者が優位に立つのは世の常だが，その情報を小出しにすることが普通となっている言語社会が，Tuvalu にある．

[G]ossips on Nukulaelae Atoll frequently withhold important pieces of information, such as the identity of a person, from their gossip narratives, thus manipulating their audiences into asking for the missing information, sometimes over the space of several turns, as information is revealed in small doses, requiring further questioning . . . .

　Madagascar では，話す内容を曖昧にして，情報を明確に伝えないという傾向がある．

[I]f A asks B 'Where is your mother?' and B responds 'She is either in the house or at the market', B's utterance is not usually taken to imply that B is unable to provide more specific information needed by the hearer. The implicature is not made, because the expectation that speakers will satisfy informational needs is not a basic norm.

　最後の2例では，言語の基本的な機能と一般に考えられている「情報を交換する媒体」としての役割が果たされてない．その機能よりも，社会的な慣習のほうが強いということだろう．
　上で見てきたように各言語社会には発話を司る独自の規則がある．この規則 (rule) は，破ったとしても特に罰を科されるわけではないが，慣習的に守るべき行動として広く認識されているという意味で，規範 (norm) と呼ぶのが適切だろう．この発話の諸規範を知っていることこそ，その言語（社会）の communicative competence を有していることにほかならない．上記の世界からの例は，言語社会によって様々な発話の規範があるということ，その規範が相対的なものであるということを教えてくれる．

　・ Hudson, R. A. Sociolinguistics. 2nd ed. Cambridge: CUP, 1996.

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