abstract

That human cognition and cultural values are shaped by communicative practices (and vice versa) is widely recognized by anthropologists and field linguists (e.g. Miyaoka 2002). However, insights from these different disciplines haven't been fully synthesized. This is largely because linguists and anthropologists have differing theoretical/ methodological orientations and research interest. However, a growing body of research has recently emerged that addresses the interrelationship between culture, cognition, and language as mediated and manifested by communicative practices and interactional behavior (e.g. Chafe 1994, Hanks 1996, Sugawara 1998, Enfield 2002)

Building on previous collective endeavors (Kataoka and Ide 2002), this workshop offers a forum whereby the complex interrelationship between cultural values, cognition, and communicative practices (and the resultant grammatical structures) can be addressed from different theoretical angles, e.g. Anthropology and Field linguistics, each based on rich empirical data. It offers intriguing case studies wherein linguistic conventions are inseparably linked to the community's cultural values, both closely interacting with the native speakers' cognition. It is expected to bridge the gap between linguistics and anthropology by emphasizing the need for linguists to take culture seriously.

A Functional View of Linguistic Diversity
Osahito Miyaoka (Osaka Gakuin University)

An attempt is made to address the issue of linguistic diversity particularly as contrasted with (non-linguistic) culture from the functional aspects of: (a) language in relation to environmental adaptation, and (b) words as inevitable 'forms' in human language. As to the diversity, both will turn out to have the same effect because of their nature of functionality. 'Formhood' of words as minimal 'articuli' in the content plane (of 'bilateral
articulation') would explain why morphological diversity is actually by far less limited than phonological and syntactic variations, the significance of which should be fully appraised.

Embodied Talks: Some Findings from the Analysis of Everyday Conversations among the |Gui Bushmen
Kazuyoshi Sugawara (Kyoto University)

This paper illuminates essential characteristics of conversations among the |Gui huntergatherers in Southern Africa. In some context the |Gui conversation switches into a specific interactive mode, in which simultaneous discourse or overlaps are quite frequent. The fundamental motivation of cooperative overlaps is to entrain into other's activity. When the participants pursue their own ego-centric relevance, prolonged parallel overlaps arise. Immediate-reflexive responsibility (IRR) is assumed to be omnipresent in human conversation. Inhibition of this potential produces an ordered pattern of turn-taking designated as 'formalization', where the roles of speaker and hearer are distinctly differentiated and alternated in a long cycle. The formalized interaction exemplifies the reservation proper for an avoidance relationship, while IRR
forms the 'unmarked' basis of conversation, on which the continuum from joking to serious negotiation is developed.

Context and Indexical Construal
William Hanks (University of California, Berkeley)

In this paper I explore the meaning and use of some deictic expressions in Yucatec Maya, by way of a series of examples taken from field work in the region of Oxkutzcab, Yucatan, Mexico. The basic empirical question I address is: how do deictic expressions in this language contribute to the identification of referential objects, that is, what are the contextual factors according to which Yucatec speakers select deictics and how do hearers understand them? I assume that the forms in question have relatively invariant features that are encoded in the language, that the same expressions, when used in speech, are associated with various sorts of contextual inferences and effects, and that a proper account of indexicality must distinguish these two. This distinction requires reference to cultural context.

Wayfinding and Frames of Reference in Signboard Communication
Kuniyoshi Kataoka (Aichi University)

In this study, I will take a close look at spatial descriptions on commercial signboards, and attempt to elucidate the underlying conventions ingrained for wayfinding in the guidance of viewers from a signboard to a destination. By focusing on an everyday use of spatial frames of reference (hereafter FoR) on signboards, I examine those properties in terms of the correlation between the use of FoRs and geographic features such as overall distance and turns of route. The results show a general tendency of FoR usage away from "intrinsic" descriptions, through "relative" descriptions, to "absolute" descriptions as the geographic scale and route complexity increase. I will finally argue that the asymmetries in the shift and maintenance of FoRs could be largely, if not wholly, accounted for by such properties as "single-perspective" and "absolute-reliance" and the constraints in the "untranslatability" grid (Levinson 2003).