Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jn8rn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T14:34:19.011Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Expressive style and culture: Individualism and group orientation contrasted

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2008

Dorothy K. Billings
Dorothy K. Billings
Affiliation:
Department of AnthropologyWichita State University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Herein I examine the parallel, contrasting analyses of expressive patterns proposed by Bernstein for language, by Lomax for song, and by my interpretation of the arts and cultures of two Melanesian societies. The general thesis of this paper is that expressive patterns are related to cultural patterns in systematic ways, and that analysis of societies in terms of a contrast between individualism and group orientation reveals and documents one of those ways. Description of social structures in relation to this contrast is old, but its extension to expressive patterns is recent in anthropology. I argue that this model accounts for fundamental structural distinctions which underlie cultural contrasts in expressive patterns. (Sociolinguistics, conversational analysis, Melanesia, anthropological linguistics, ethnography of speech, isomorphism of expressive forms and social structure)

Type
Articles
Information
Language in Society , Volume 16 , Issue 4 , December 1987 , pp. 475 - 497
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1987

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

Bennett, J. (1946). The interpretation of Pueblo culture: A question of values. Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 2(4):361–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bernstein, B. (1964). Elaborated and restricted codes: Their social origins and some consequences. American Anthropologist 66(6), part 2:54–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bernstein, B. (1971). Class, codes, and control, vol. 1. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Billings, D. K. (1969). The Johnson cult of New Hanover. Oceania 40(1):13–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Billings, D. K. (1971a). Styles of culture: New Ireland and New Hanover. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Sydney.Google Scholar
Billings, D. K. (1971b). New Ireland art: An ill-starred quest for holy meaning. Paper presented at the annual meetings of the American Anthropological Association, San Diego.Google Scholar
Billings, D. K. (1983). The play's the thing: The political power of dramatic presentation. Journal of the Polynesian Society 92(4):439–62.Google Scholar
Billings, D. K. (n.d.). Cults, ceremonies, movements, and cultures. Typescript.Google Scholar
Billings, D. K., & Peterson, N. (1967). Malanggan and mamai in New Ireland. Oceania 38(1):24–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fischer, J. L. (1972). The stylistic significance of consonantal Sandhi in Trukese and Ponapean. In Gumperz, J. J. & Hymes, D. H. (eds.), Directions in sociolinguistics: The ethnography of communication. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. 498–511.Google Scholar
Goodenough, W. H. (1965). Personal names and modes of address in two Oceanic societies. In Spiro, M. E. (ed.), Context and meaning in cultural anthropology. New York: Free Press. 265–76.Google Scholar
Hauser, A. (1952). The social history of art. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.Google Scholar
Lewis, P. H. (1969). The social context of art in Northern New Ireland. (Anthropology Vol. 58.) Fieldiana: Field Museum of Natural History.Google Scholar
Lomax, A. (1968). Folk song style and culture. Washington, D.C.: American Association for the Advancement of Science, no. 88.Google Scholar
Stamm, Father J. (1958). A grammar of the Lavangai language. Lavongai Catholic Mission, Papua New Guinea. Manuscript.Google Scholar