Journal article
The epistemics of social relations in Murrinhpatha, Garrwa and Jaru conversations
J Blythe, I Mushin, L Stirling, R Gardner
Journal of Pragmatics | Published : 2022
Abstract
We present a comparison of practices of person reference in three different Australian Aboriginal language communities and discuss how the selection of referring expressions contributes to an ‘epistemics of social relations’. In all three communities, while names and nicknames are common ways of referring to non-present referents, kinterms serve to position referents within communal space, and thus within the epistemic domain of the participants. Conversely, we find that generic descriptors (e.g. whitefella, policeman) are commonly used for outsiders, even when their names are known. As highly specific relational descriptors, kinterms thereby accentuate participants' relative rights and resp..
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Awarded by European Research Council
Funding Acknowledgements
This research was funded by the Australian Research Council (DP180100515, DE130100399), the European Research Council (StG 240853), the Australian Institute for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (G05/7053) and the University of Queensland (NSRSF). We are grateful to the participants who allowed us to videorecord their conversations and subject them to detailed analysis. This work was presented at the 16th International Pragmatics Conference in Hong Kong in 2019, and we appreciate the comments we received then from members of the audience. We also thank two anonymous reviewers of this article for their very helpful comments.