Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-21T21:18:55.990Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The poetics of stance: Text-metricality, epistemicity, interaction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 August 2008

MICHAEL LEMPERT
MICHAEL LEMPERT
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics, Georgetown University, 37th and O Streets, NW, Washington, D.C. 20057, ml447@georgetown.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article examines the text-metrical (“poetic”) organization of epistemic stance-taking in discourse, focusing on epistemic stance in a form of argumentation, Tibetan Buddhist ‘debate’ (rtsod pa) at Sera Monastery in India. Emergent text-metrical structures in discourse are shown to reflexively map utterance-level propositional stance into larger-scale, fractionally congruent models of interactional stance. In charting the movement from epistemic stance to interactional stance by way of poetic structure, the article argues for and clarifies the place of poetics in the study of stance.

Keywords

epistemic stancepoeticstextualitydialogueargumentinteractionTibetan
Type
Research Article
Information
Language in Society , Volume 37 , Issue 4 , October 2008 , pp. 569 - 592
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

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

Agha, Asif (1993). Structural form and utterance context in Lhasa Tibetan: Grammar and indexicality in a non-configurational language. New York: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Agha, Asif (1996). Tropic aggression in the Clinton-Dole presidential debate. Pragmatics 7:461–97.Google Scholar
Agha, Asif (2005). Introduction: Semiosis across encounters. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 15:1–5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Agha, Asif (2007). Language and social relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. (2004). Evidentiality. Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anward, J. (2004). Lexeme recycled. How categories emerge from interaction. Logos and Language: Journal of General Linguistics and Language Theory 5:31–46.Google Scholar
Bakhtin, M. M. (1981). The dialogic imagination. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Banti, Giorgio, & Giannattasio, Francesco (2004). Poetry. In Duranti, A. (ed.), A companion to linguistic anthropology, 290–320. Malden, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Bauman, Richard (1977). Verbal art as performance. Rowley, MA: Newbury House.Google Scholar
Bickel, Balthasar (2000). Person and evidence in Himalayan languages. Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area 23. South Melbourne, Australia: LaTrobe UniversityGoogle Scholar
BouissacPaul, et al Paul, et al. (ed.) (1986). Iconicity: Essays on the nature of culture. Tubingen: Stauffenburg.Google Scholar
Chafe, Wallace, & Nichols, Johanna (eds.) (1986). Evidentiality: The linguistic coding of epistemology. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar
Cushing, Steven (1994). “Air Cal three thirty six, go, around three thirty six, go around”: Linguistic repetition in air-ground communication. In Johnstone, Barbara (ed.), Repetition in discourse: Interdisciplinary perspectives, 53–65. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar
De Haan, F. (1999). Evidentiality and epistemic modality: Setting boundaries. Southwest Journal of Linguistics 18:83–102.Google Scholar
De Haan, F. (2001). The relation between modality and evidentiality. In Müller, R. & Reis, M. (eds.), Modalität und Modalverben im Deutschen, 207–16. Hamburg: H. Buske.Google Scholar
DeLancey, Scott (1992). The historical status of the conjunct/disjunct pattern in Tibeto-Burman. Acta Linguistica Hafniensia: International Journal of Linguistics 25:39–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DeLancey, Scott (1997). Mirativity: The grammatical marking of unexpected information. Linguistic Typology 1:33–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Denwood, Philip (1999). Tibetan. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dreyfus, Georges B. J. (1997). Tibetan scholastic education and the role of soteriology. Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 20:31–63.Google Scholar
Dreyfus, Georges B. J. (2003). The sound of two hands clapping: The education of a Tibetan Buddhist monk. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Du Bois, John W. (2007). The stance triangle. In Englebretson, Robert (ed.), Stancetaking in discourse: Subjectivity, evaluation, interaction, 139–82. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Duranti, Alessandro (1997). Linguistic anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Edwards, Jane Anne, & Lampert, Martin D. (1993). Talking data: Transcription and coding in discourse research. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Englebretson, Robert (ed.) (2007). Stancetaking in discourse: Subjectivity, evaluation, interaction. Philadelphia: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferrara, Kathleen (1994). Repetition as rejoinder in therapeutic discourse: Echoing and mirroring. In Johnstone, Barbara (ed.), Repetition in discourse: Interdisciplinary perspectives, 66–83. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar
Field, Margaret (1997). The role of factive predicates in the indexicalization of stance: A discourse perspective. Journal of Pragmatics 27:799–814.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goffman, Erving (1981). Footing. In Goffman, Erving (ed.), Forms of talk, 124–59. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Goldbert, Margaret (1985). Argumentation and understanding: A study of Tibetan religious debate. Urbana-Champaign: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Goodwin, Marjorie Harness (1990). He-said-she-said: Talk as social organization among black children. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Goodwin, Marjorie Harness (1998). Games of stance: Conflict and footing in hopscotch. In Hoyle, S. & Adger, Temple C. (eds.), Kids' talk: Strategic language use in later childhood, 23–46. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goodwin, Marjorie Harness (2006). The hidden life of girls: Games of stance, status, and exclusion. Malden, MA: Blackwell.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goodwin, Marjorie Harness; Goodwin, Charles; & Yaeger-Dror, Malcah (2002). Multi-modality in girls' game disputes. Journal of Pragmatics 34:1621–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haddington, Pentti (2006). The organization of gaze and assessments as resources for stance taking. Text & Talk 26:281–328.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haiman, John (1980). The iconicity of grammar. Language 56:515–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haiman, John (1992). Iconicity. In Bright, William (ed.), International encyclopedia of linguistics, 191–95. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hale, Austin (1980). Person markers: Finite conjunct and disjunct verb forms in Newari. In Trail, Ron (ed.), Papers in South-East Asian linguistics no. 7, 95–106. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics (A-53).Google Scholar
Harris, Zellig S. (1952). Discourse analysis. Language 28:1–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haviland, John B. (1989). “Sure, sure”: Evidence and affect. Text 9:27–68.Google Scholar
Holmes, Janet (1984). Hedging your bets and sitting on the fence: Some evidence for hedges as support structures. Te Reo 27:47–62.Google Scholar
Hübler, Axel (1983). Understatements and hedges in English. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jakobson, Roman (1960). Closing statement: Linguistics and poetics. In Sebeok, Thomas (ed.), Style in language, 350–77. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Jakobson, Roman (1966). Grammatical parallelism and its Russian facet. Language 42:399–429.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jakobson, Roman (1968). The poetry of grammar and the grammar of poetry. Lingua 21:597–609.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnstone, Barbara (ed.) (1994). Repetition in discourse: Interdisciplinary perspectives. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar
Kärkkäinen, Elise (2003). Epistemic stance in English conversation: A description of its interactional functions, with a focus on I think. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kärkkäinen, Elise (2006). Stance taking in conversation: From subjectivity to intersubjectivity. Text & Talk 26:699–731.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keane, Webb (1997). Religious language. Annual Review of Anthropology 26:47–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kiesling, Scott F. (2005). Norms of sociocultural meaning in language: Indexicality, stance, and cultural models. In Kiesling, Scott F. & Paulston, Christina Bratt (eds.), Intercultural discourse and communication: The essential readings, 92–104. Malden, MA: Blackwell.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kockelman, Paul (2004). Stance and subjectivity. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 14:127–150.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lee, Benjamin, & LiPuma, Edward (2002). Cultures of circulation: The imaginations of modernity. Public Culture 14:191–213.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lempert, Michael P. (2005). Denotational textuality and demeanor indexicality in Tibetan Buddhist debate. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 15:171–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lempert, Michael P. (2007a). Review of Elise Kärkkäinen (2003) “Epistemic stance in English conversation: A description of its interactional functions, with a focus on I think.” Language in Society 36:124–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lempert, Michael P. (2007b). Conspicuously past: Distressed discourse and diagrammatic embedding in a Tibetan represented speech style. Language and Communication 27:258–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lempert, Michael P., & Perrino, Sabina (2007). Temporalities in text (special issue). Language and Communication 27:205–336.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lucy, John A. (ed.) (1993). Reflexive language: Reported speech and metapragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mannheim, Bruce (2001). Iconicity. In Duranti, Alessandro (ed.), Key terms in language and culture, 102–5. Malden, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Matoesian, Gregory (2005). Struck by speech revisited: Embodied stance in jurisdictional discourse. Journal of Sociolinguistics 9:167–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
mkhas-grub, dge-'dun bstan-pa dar-rgyas (1995). phar phyin spyi don rnam bshad rnying po rgyan gyi snang ba [Overview of the Perfection of Wisdom]. Bylakuppe: Sera Monastic University.Google Scholar
Mushin, Ilana (2001). Evidentiality and epistemological stance: Narrative retelling. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ochs, Elinor (1979). Transcription as theory. In Schieffelin, E. Ochs andB.B. (eds.), Developmental pragmatics, 43–72. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Ochs, Elinor (1993). Indexing gender. In Miller, Barbara D. (ed.), Sex and gender hierarchies, 146–69. Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ohta, A.S. (1991). Evidentiality and politeness in Japanese. Issues in Applied Lingusitics 2:211–38.Google Scholar
Onoda, Shunzo (1992). Monastic debate in Tibet: A study on the history and structures of bsdus grwa logic. Vienna: Arbeitskreis für Tibetische und Buddhistische Studien Universität Wien.Google Scholar
Parmentier, Richard J. (1987). The sacred remains: Myth, history, and polity in Belau. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Parmentier, Richard J. (1997). The pragmatic semiotics of cultures. Semiotica 116.1:1–114.Google Scholar
Peirce, Charles S. (1932). Collected papers of Charles Sanders Peirce: Elements of logic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Perdue, Daniel E. (1992). Debate in Tibetan Buddhism. Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion.Google Scholar
Perrino, Sabina M. (2002). Intimate hierarchies and Qur'anic saliva (tëfli): Textuality in a Senegalese ethnomedical encounter. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 12:225–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Saussure, Ferdinand de (1983). Course in general linguistics. La Salle: Open Court.Google Scholar
Schiffrin, Deborah (1994). Approaches to discourse. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Schiffrin, Deborah (2006a). From linguistic reference to social reality. In De Fina, AnnaSchiffrin, Deborah & Bamberg, Michael G. W. (eds.), Discourse and identity, 103–31. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schiffrin, Deborah (2006b). In other words: Variation in reference and narrative. Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sidnell, Jack (2005). Talk and practical epistemology: The social life of knowledge in a Caribbean community. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Silverstein, Michael (1976). Shifters, linguistic categories, and cultural description. In Basso, Keith H. & Selby, Henry A. (eds.), Meaning in anthropology, 11–55. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.Google Scholar
Silverstein, Michael (1981). Metaforces of power in traditional oratory. Ms., lecture to Department of Anthropology, Yale University, New Haven.Google Scholar
Silverstein, Michael (1984). On the pragmatic ‘poetry’ of prose: Parallelism, repetition, and cohesive structure in the time course of dyadic conversation. In Schiffrin, Deborah (ed.), Meaning, form, and use in context: Linguistic applications, 181–99. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Silverstein, Michael (1992). Metapragmatic discourse and metapragmatic function. In Lucy, John (ed.), Reflexive language: Reported speech and metapragmatics, 33–58. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Silverstein, Michael (1997). The improvisational performance of “culture” in real-time discursive practice. In Sawyer, Robert Keith (ed.), Creativity in performance, 265–312. Greenwich, CT: Ablex.Google Scholar
Silverstein, Michael (2003). Talking politics: The substance of style from Abe to “W”. Chicago: Prickly Paradigm.Google Scholar
Silverstein, Michael (2004). “Cultural” concepts and the language-culture nexus. Current Anthropology 45:621–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Silverstein, Michael (2005). Axes of evals: Token vs. type interdiscursivity. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 15:6–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Silverstein, Michael (2006). How we look from where we stand. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 16:269–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Strauss, Claudia (2004). Cultural standing in expression of opinion. Language in Society 33:161–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tannen, Deborah (1987). Repetition in conversation: Towards a poetics of talk. Language 63:574–605.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tannen, Deborah (1989). Talking voices: Repetition, dialogue, and imagery in conversational discourse. Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Tournadre, Nicolas, & Dorje, Sangda (2003). Manual of standard Tibetan: Language and civilization: Introduction to standard Tibetan (spoken and written) followed by an appendix on classical literary Tibetan. Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion,.Google Scholar
Urban, Greg (1990). Ceremonial dialogues in South America. In Maranhão, Tullio (ed.), The interpretation of dialogue, 99–119. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Urban, Greg (2001). Metaculture: How culture moves through the world. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Wilce, James M. (2006). Magical laments and anthropological reflections: The production and circulation of anthropological text as ritual activity. Current Anthropology 47:891–914.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wortham, Stanton (2005). Learning identity: The joint emergence of social identification and academic learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wortham, Stanton, & Locher, M. (1999). Embedded metapragmatics and lying politicians. Language & Communication 19:109–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wu, Ruey-Jiuan (2004). Stance in talk: A conversation analysis of Mandarin final particles. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wylie, Turrell V. (1959). A standard system of Tibetan transcription. Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 22:261–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar