Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-lj6df Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-15T06:45:18.233Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Does language reflect culture? Evidence from Australian English*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2008

Anna Wierzbicka
Anna Wierzbicka
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics, Australian National University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper attempts to demonstrate direct links between Australian language and other aspects of Australian culture. The existence of such links – intuitively obvious and yet notoriously hard to prove – is often rejected in the name of scientific rigor (“if they can't be proved then it is better either to assume that they don't exist or at least not to talk about them”). Nonetheless, the problem continues to exercise fascination over scholars, as it does over the general public. The author proposes ways in which the linguist's methodological tools can be sharpened so that the apparently untractable and yet fundamental issues of “language as a guide to social reality” can be studied in ways which are both linguistically precise and culturally revealing. Linguistic phenomena such as expressive derivation, illocutionary devices, and speech act verbs are related to the literature on the Australian society, “national character,” history, and culture. (Ethnolinguistics, Whorfian hypothesis, Australian English, speech acts, expressive derivation, names)

Type
Articles
Information
Language in Society , Volume 15 , Issue 3 , September 1986 , pp. 349 - 373
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1986

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Baker, S. (1959). The drum: Australian character and slang. Sydney: Currawong.Google Scholar
Baker, S. (1963). Character and language. In H. P. Heseltine (ed.) 301–05.Google Scholar
Baker, S. (1970). The Australian language. Melbourne: Sun Books.Google Scholar
Brown, R., & Gilman, A. (1960). The pronouns of power and solidarity. In Sebeok, T. (ed.), Style in language. Cambridge, Mass.: Technology Press. 253–76.Google Scholar
Buckley, V. (1962). Intellectuals. In Coleman (1962). 89–104.Google Scholar
Coleman, P. (ed.). (1962). Australian civilization. Melbourne: Cheshire.Google Scholar
Conway, R. (1971). The great Australian stupor: An interpretation of the Australian way of life. Melbourne: Sun Books.Google Scholar
Crawford, R. M. (1970). Australia. London: Hutchinson University Library.Google Scholar
Dabke, R. (1976). Morphology of Australian English. Munich: Wilhelm Fink Verlag.Google Scholar
Dixon, R. M. W. (ms.). The Dyirbal kinship system.Google Scholar
Friedrich, P. (1966). Structural implications of Russian pronominal usage. In Bright, W. (ed.), Sociolinguistics. The Hague: Mouton. 214–53.Google Scholar
Geertz, C. (1975). The interpretation of cultures. London: Hutchinson.Google Scholar
Gibbs, M. (1957). The Australian character. Sydney and London: Collins.Google Scholar
Greenberg, J. (1957). Essays in linguistics. (Viking Fund Publications in Anthropology, No. 24.) New York: Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research.Google Scholar
Hale, K. (1966). Kinship reflections in syntax: Some Australian cases. Word 22:318–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harris, M. (1962). Morals and manners. In Coleman (1962). 47–67.Google Scholar
Harris, S. (1980). Culture and learning: Tradition and education in Northeast Arnhem Land. Darwin: Northern Territory Department of Education.Google Scholar
Hoijer, H. (ed.) (1954). Language in culture. (Comparative Studies of Cultures and Civilizations, No. 3; Memoirs of the American Anthropological Association, No. 79.) Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Home, D. (1964). The lucky country. Sydney: Agnus and Robertson.Google Scholar
Home, D. (1970). The next Australia. Sydney and London: Angus and Robertson.Google Scholar
Hudson, J. (1985). An analysis of illocutionary verbs in Walmatjari. In Hutton, G. & Gregerson, K. (eds.), Pragmatics in non-western perspective. Dallas: Academic. 63–83.Google Scholar
Humphries, B. (1981). A nice night's entertainment. Sydney: Currency Press.Google Scholar
Hymes, D. (1961). On typology of cognitive styles in language (with examples from Chinookan). Anthropological Linguistics 3 (1):22–54.Google Scholar
Hymes, D. (1962). The ethnography of speaking. In Gladwin, T. & Sturtevant, W. (eds.), Anthropology and Human behavior. Washington, D.C.: Anthropological Society of Washington, pp. 13–53.Google Scholar
Hymes, D. (1964). Language, culture, and society. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Hymes, D. (1983). Essays in the history of linguistic anthropology. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
King, J. (1978). Waltzing materialism. Sydney and New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Lévi-Strauss, C., Jakobson, R., Voegelin, C. F., & Sebeock, T. (eds.) (1953). Results of the Conference of Anthropologists and Linguists. (Indiana University Publications in Anthropology and Linguistics, Memoirs of UAL No. 8.) Bloomington.Google Scholar
Liberman, K. (1982). Some linguistic features of congenial fellowship among the Pitjantjatjara. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 36:35–53.Google Scholar
Mann, L. (1937). A murder in Sydney. London: Jonathan Cape.Google Scholar
Nakane, C. (1970). Japanese society. Harmondsworth: Penguin.Google Scholar
O'Grady, J. (1965). Aussie English. Syndey and London: Ure Smith.Google Scholar
Pringle, J. D. (1965). Australian accent. London: Chatto and Windus.Google Scholar
Sapir, E. ([1912] 1949). Selected writings of Edward Sapir in language, culture, and personality. Mandelbaum, D., ed. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Serisier, J. (1981). Problems with Ocker lingo. The Bulletin, 11 24, p. 72.Google Scholar
Simpson, J. (ms.). Australian abbreviations.Google Scholar
von Humboldt, W. (1903–1918). Gesammelte Schriften. Leitzmann, A., ed., 7 vols. Berlin: B. Behrs.Google Scholar
Vossler, K. (1925). Geist und Kultur in der Sprache. Heidelberg: C. Winter. (Translated as The spirit of language in civilization. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1932.)Google Scholar
Wannan, B. (1963). Tell 'em I died game. Melbourne: Lansdowne Press.Google Scholar
Ward, R. (1958). The Australian legend. Melbourne: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Whorf, B. L. (1956). Language, thought, and reality: Selected writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf. Carroll, J. B., ed. New York: Wiley and Cambridge: Technology Press.Google Scholar
Wierzbicka, A. (1972). Semantic primitives. Frankfurt: Atheneum.Google Scholar
Wierzbicka, A. (1980). Lingua mentalis. Sydney and New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Wierzbicka, A. (1984). Diminutives and depreciatives. Quaderni di Semantica. V(1): 123–30.Google Scholar
Wierzbicka, A. (1985a). Lexicography and conceptual analysis. Ann Arbor: Karoma.Google Scholar
Wierzbicka, A. (1985a). Different cultures, different languages, different speech acts. Journal of Pragmatics 9: 145–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wierzbicka, A. (1985c). A semantic metalanguage for a crosscultural comparison of speech acts and speech genres. Language in Society, 14:491–513.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilkes, G. E. (1978). A dictionary of Australian colloquialisms. London: Fontana/Collins.Google Scholar
Williamson, D. (1972). The removalists. Sydney: Currency Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williamson, D. (1974). Three plays. Sydney: Currency Press.Google Scholar