Keuttt. Becoo # Hinuy G. Selly et
Meaning in Gr Tnepatopy . Ahbagueegue :
Unite of Mos Meyer Pevs
2
Shifters, Linguistic Categories,
and Cultural Description’
MICHAEL SILVERSTEIN
Unie of Chee
For Romar aobson
INTRODUCTION
"Ths chapter witty tn dep cones ofthe statment tt
specs anngl cal char, nel hi stent eo
Toe ot pews of pag acco tat ce ed to or neal
tre cts te Gna soma of nat ad soa nt
olgit.e ges woo stale or deertine power What I waht
Gh here demon tat dy tsa have al se
“ngage” ith wich to dcr the eae mening sacs of
spect ba, gg hat peso the “nto os
Co rs of gnc, tegctng nom seg epee
Sgn ncn hfs ndver Te meaning ots font Hn
ide aay rte me spect ofthe eet in Which the
Scr Tn making theme of tha oem ary, 1 Rope
Senos at th “pag” anal o seh heetradition extending fom Peirce to Jakobson—allows us to describe the
‘eal linkage of language to culture, and perhaps the most important
spect of the “meaning” of speech
[At one level, language has long served anthropologists at kind of
‘xemplar for the nature of things cultural. It seems to display thee
“altura” propertics with clarity in the tangible medium of arcuate
Phonetic speech. Thus, and at snother level, could the analytic lesions
of linguistics be transfered analgiallyto other socal behavior, giving
dof stuctunlized anthropology, of, mote remarkably, could the
actual linguistic (especially lexicographic) stractures of language be
salle cultore. 1 wil be developing the argument that this reecved
Point of view is exentilly wrong. That aspect of language which hat
teaitionally been analyzed by linguists, and has served as moda),
just the part that is functionally unique among the phenomena of
culture. Hence the structural characterise of language inthis trad
tional view cannot relly see at model for other aspects of ealtre,
nor can the method of analss. Further, lingustic (or lxicographical)
structres that emerge frm the tational grammatical anala® must
of necesity bear a problematic, rather than isomorphic, elationhip
to the stracture of culture
LINGUISTIC AND OTHER COMMUNICATION
To say of social Bchavor that itis meaningfol implies necessarily
{hat it is communicative, that that the behavior sa complex of signs
{sign vehicles) that signal, or stand for, something in some respect,
Such behavioral signs are significant to some pesons, participants n a
communicative event, and such behavior i purposive, that i, geal
‘oriented in the sense of accomplishing (or in falling to accomplish)
‘tain ends of commonicaton, for example, indicating one social
rank reporting an occurence, effecting a care for a dca, and so
forth. In general, then, we can say that people are constituted a8 ¢
Society with cetan culture to the extent that they share the same
‘means of social comniniation,
Language as a system of communication has the same character:
fists a8 the rest of culture, So in eedr to distinguish aalyie subparts
of cute, such as language, we have traditionally distinguished among
‘Shifters, Linguist Categories, and Cultural Description
{ypes of communicative rents on the Bais of the signaling mein,
In the case of langage, the signaling medi i articulate speech, and
‘events canbe lated on this basis
Speech Events
By such analysis, «speech event, endowed with an overt goal in a
socially shared system of such purposive functions, consis of some
Sequence of speech behaviors in which some speaker or speakers signal
to some hearer or hearers by means of a system of phonetic sign vehicles
called specch messages or utterances, The utterances ate organized iat
4 sstem forthe participants by virtue of ther knowledge of linguistic
ode, or grammar. The speech event takes place with the patcpants
{in given positions, oli, and over a certain span of tine, "The oes of
speaker and hearer may be taken by diferent individuals ding the
curse of such an event. Many other characterises of such speech
vents most alo be taken into consideration, among them the other
sociological aspets ofthe individuals inthe roles of speaker and heater
which ae fequently salient in defining the event, the prior speech
‘vents (if any), the gestural of inesic commonication that invari
‘accompanies spoken language, the distinction between roles of hearer
1nd audience, and so forth. A description ofthe speech event must min
‘mally take into account these fundamental defining variables,
Speech events so defined, moreover, are conecrrent with events Based
on distinct sgoating media, and these together make up lrgeseale
caltaral routines. Desrptvely, the simplest speech events would be
those which themselves constituted the entire goaldeetd socal be
havior. I is doubtful that such evens ext In ont own culture, reading
4 scholaly paper can come dose to being a speech event pure and
simple, the purpose of which is expressible in terms of informative
Ascourse among socal categories of scholars. The possibility of diatnet
forms of symbolism that canbe iavolved in these ents is nota nue
‘Tam dealing here only withthe purposive nature ofthe spech event in
4 system of social action. The more embedded speech events ate those
which ae art of such lrgescale cultural enterprises as complex eitals
including speech, song, dance, dest, ete, where the meaning of the
speech behavior in the speech erents is wally integelly linked tothe
Bpresence of these other signaling moda, Analytical, the problem of
trying to give the meanings of signals in such a station is very complex,
Referentil Speech Events
But the ultimate jusifeation for the segmentation of speech from
other signaling media les in one ofthe parposve ses that scms to
Journal of Linguistic Anthropology Volume 2 Issue 2 1992 (Doi 10.1525/jlin.1992.2.2.131) Charles L. Briggs Richard Bautnan - Genre, Intertextuality, and Social Power
Journal of Linguistic Anthropology Volume 2 Issue 2 1992 (Doi 10.1525/jlin.1992.2.2.131) Charles L. Briggs Richard Bautnan - Genre, Intertextuality, and Social Power