Graduation Semester and Year

1987

Language

English

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics

Department

Linguistics

First Advisor

Unknown

Abstract

The endeavor to understand another emic view of reality offers a conceptual challenge to any observer-analyst. This paper presents the author's reflections upon his encounter with another culture and language and his endeavor to understand the cognitive world view of the Wiru, a non-Austronesian language group in the Southern Highlands of Papua New Guinea. The focus of the study is upon a divination rite during which a long pole, called yomo kopini, was ritually activated and through its subsequent "motions" retraced the steps of an assailant who had raped and murdered a young girl. The transcription of an eyewitness account of the divination is regarded as the "cultural object" (Cassirer 1960) that is analyzed throughout the study. Chapter One lays a background for the study by (1) briefly discussing the prehistory of the Wiru, (2) reviewing previous research studies that have focused on the Wiru culture and language, and (3) presenting a thumbnail sketch of the Wiru language with emphasis upon verb structure and function in discourse. In Chapter Two there is a discussion of the author's underlying assumptions, an excursus on Husserl's analysis on Whole and part as it pertains to an object-in-context, and a delineation of the methodology to be followed to the study. Chapter Three presents the "cultural object," both in its textual form and in a two-dimensional, emic sketching. In Chapter Four the author reflects upon "clashes" in world views; using the Basic Values model (Mayers 1979) he then formulates a "composite profile" for Wiru society and projects a cognitive basis for divination among the Wiru. Chapter Five attends to a textlinguistic and semiotic unravelling of the eyewitness text. (1) The four elements of the macrostructure are delineated; (2) story schema and structural evidence are marshalled for a natural articulation of the narrative into its constituent "chunks"; (3) a saliency scheme of verb ranking is developed from an accounting of the verb structure/function as pertaining to the twin time trajectories and on/off-the-storyline; and (4) semiotic mediation provides the mechanism which unravels the yomo kopini itself, as well as the murder.

Keywords

Social sciences, Language, Literature and linguistics

Disciplines

Linguistics | Social and Behavioral Sciences

Comments

Degree granted by The University of Texas at Arlington

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