Alice Mitchell
2021
Mitchell, Alice; Rácz, Péter Marton
Children's Knowledge of a Name‐Based Avoidance Register: A Quantitative Study among Datooga of Tanzania Journal Article
In: American Anthropologist, 2021.
@article{Mitchell2020b,
title = {Children's Knowledge of a Name‐Based Avoidance Register: A Quantitative Study among Datooga of Tanzania},
author = {Alice Mitchell and Péter Marton Rácz},
doi = {10.1111/aman.13579},
year = {2021},
date = {2021-04-11},
journal = {American Anthropologist},
abstract = {Among Datooga pastoralists of Tanzania, an elaborate in‐law naming taboo has led to the emergence of a conventionalized avoidance vocabulary used by married women. We report on a survey investigating Datooga children's knowledge of this special vocabulary. The questionnaire and our expectations were pre‐registered and the results were analyzed using regression analysis. Though use of the avoidance vocabulary is gender‐specific, girls were only slightly more knowledgeable than boys about avoidance words. More predictive of children's responses was sociolinguistic environment: children from more “traditional” backgrounds showed greater knowledge of avoidance words. Based on this finding, we discuss how social change may be affecting this particular kind of knowledge transmission. Low overall accuracy reveals the gradual nature of certain types of sociocultural learning.},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}
Among Datooga pastoralists of Tanzania, an elaborate in‐law naming taboo has led to the emergence of a conventionalized avoidance vocabulary used by married women. We report on a survey investigating Datooga children's knowledge of this special vocabulary. The questionnaire and our expectations were pre‐registered and the results were analyzed using regression analysis. Though use of the avoidance vocabulary is gender‐specific, girls were only slightly more knowledgeable than boys about avoidance words. More predictive of children's responses was sociolinguistic environment: children from more “traditional” backgrounds showed greater knowledge of avoidance words. Based on this finding, we discuss how social change may be affecting this particular kind of knowledge transmission. Low overall accuracy reveals the gradual nature of certain types of sociocultural learning.
2020
Mitchell, Alice
“Oh, bald father!”: Kinship and swearing among Datooga of Tanzania Book Chapter
In: pp. 79-102, Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG, 2020.
@inbook{Mitchell2020,
title = {“Oh, bald father!”: Kinship and swearing among Datooga of Tanzania},
author = {Alice Mitchell},
year = {2020},
date = {2020-04-20},
pages = {79-102},
publisher = {Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG},
abstract = {In the Datooga language of Tanzania, to say ‘your mother’or ‘your father’to someone can cause offence. Using data from a video corpus of conversational Datooga, this chapter explores these kin-based insults, as well as other affect-laden linguistic practices that invoke kinship relations. Datooga speakers can attest to the truth of something by referring to their opposite-sex parent. Speakers also invoke kin in everyday interjectional phrases, as well as during ritual hunts–a type of speech act known as gíishíimda. Though these speech practices do not all constitute “swearing” in the narrow sense of using “bad” language, they resemble swear words in the way they link speakers’ evaluations of objects in the world with abstract moral values. In the Datooga case, kinship provides the relevant moral framework; the cultural and moral significance of fathers, in particular, makes them good to swear by. From a crosscultural perspective on swearing, I suggest that Ljung’s (2011)“mother” theme be subsumed under a more general “kinship” theme.},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {inbook}
}
In the Datooga language of Tanzania, to say ‘your mother’or ‘your father’to someone can cause offence. Using data from a video corpus of conversational Datooga, this chapter explores these kin-based insults, as well as other affect-laden linguistic practices that invoke kinship relations. Datooga speakers can attest to the truth of something by referring to their opposite-sex parent. Speakers also invoke kin in everyday interjectional phrases, as well as during ritual hunts–a type of speech act known as gíishíimda. Though these speech practices do not all constitute “swearing” in the narrow sense of using “bad” language, they resemble swear words in the way they link speakers’ evaluations of objects in the world with abstract moral values. In the Datooga case, kinship provides the relevant moral framework; the cultural and moral significance of fathers, in particular, makes them good to swear by. From a crosscultural perspective on swearing, I suggest that Ljung’s (2011)“mother” theme be subsumed under a more general “kinship” theme.
Blythe, Joe; Tunmuck, Jeremiah; Mitchell, Alice; Rácz, Péter
Acquiring the lexicon and grammar of universal kinship Journal Article
In: Language, vol. 96, no. 3, pp. 661-695, 2020.
@article{Blythe2020,
title = {Acquiring the lexicon and grammar of universal kinship},
author = {Joe Blythe and Jeremiah Tunmuck and Alice Mitchell and Péter Rácz
},
year = {2020},
date = {2020-01-01},
journal = {Language},
volume = {96},
number = {3},
pages = {661-695},
abstract = {This article investigates how children learn an infinitely expanding ‘universal’system of classificatory kinship terms. We report on a series of experiments designed to elicit acquisitional data on (i) nominal kinterms and (ii) sibling-inflected polysynthetic morphology in the Australian language Murrinhpatha. Photographs of the participants’ own relatives are used as stimuli to assess knowledge of kinterms, kin-based grammatical contrasts, and kinship principles, across different age groups. The results show that genealogically distant kin are more difficult to classify than close kin, that children’s comprehension and production of kinterms are streamlined by abstract merging principles, and that sibling-inflection is learned in tandem with number and person marking in the verbal morphology, although it is not fully mastered until mid to late childhood.},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}
This article investigates how children learn an infinitely expanding ‘universal’system of classificatory kinship terms. We report on a series of experiments designed to elicit acquisitional data on (i) nominal kinterms and (ii) sibling-inflected polysynthetic morphology in the Australian language Murrinhpatha. Photographs of the participants’ own relatives are used as stimuli to assess knowledge of kinterms, kin-based grammatical contrasts, and kinship principles, across different age groups. The results show that genealogically distant kin are more difficult to classify than close kin, that children’s comprehension and production of kinterms are streamlined by abstract merging principles, and that sibling-inflection is learned in tandem with number and person marking in the verbal morphology, although it is not fully mastered until mid to late childhood.
Bellingham, Erika; Evers, Stephanie; Kawachi, Kazuhiro; Mitchell, Alice; Park, Sang-Hee; Stepanova, Anastasia; Bohnemeyer, Jürgen
Exploring the Representation of Causality Across Languages: Integrating Production, Comprehension and Conceptualization Perspectives Book
Springer, Cham, 2020.
@book{Bellingham2020,
title = {Exploring the Representation of Causality Across Languages: Integrating Production, Comprehension and Conceptualization Perspectives},
author = {Erika Bellingham and Stephanie Evers and Kazuhiro Kawachi and Alice Mitchell and Sang-Hee Park and Anastasia Stepanova and Jürgen Bohnemeyer},
year = {2020},
date = {2020-01-01},
publisher = {Springer, Cham},
abstract = {We present three new studies into the representation of causality across languages and cultures, drawing on preliminary findings of the project Causality Across Languages (CAL; NSF Award BCS-1535846 and BCS-1644657). The first is an examination of the strategies that speakers of different languages employ when verbalizing causal chains in narratives. These strategies comprise the output of decisions concerning which subevents to represent specifically, which to represent in an underspecified manner, and which to leave to nonmonotonic inferences such as conversational implicatures. The second study targets the semantic typology of causative constructions. We implemented a multiphasic design protocol that combines the collection of production data with that of comprehension data from a larger number of speakers. Goodness-of-fit judgments were collected based on an eight-point scale. },
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {book}
}
We present three new studies into the representation of causality across languages and cultures, drawing on preliminary findings of the project Causality Across Languages (CAL; NSF Award BCS-1535846 and BCS-1644657). The first is an examination of the strategies that speakers of different languages employ when verbalizing causal chains in narratives. These strategies comprise the output of decisions concerning which subevents to represent specifically, which to represent in an underspecified manner, and which to leave to nonmonotonic inferences such as conversational implicatures. The second study targets the semantic typology of causative constructions. We implemented a multiphasic design protocol that combines the collection of production data with that of comprehension data from a larger number of speakers. Goodness-of-fit judgments were collected based on an eight-point scale.
2019
Fleming, Luke; Mitchell, Alice; Ribot, Isabelle
In the name of the father-in-law: Pastoralism, patriarchy and the sociolinguistic prehistory of eastern and southern Africa Journal Article
In: Sociolinguistic Studies, vol. 13, no. 2-4, pp. 171–192, 2019.
@article{Fleming2019,
title = {In the name of the father-in-law: Pastoralism, patriarchy and the sociolinguistic prehistory of eastern and southern Africa},
author = {Luke Fleming and Alice Mitchell and Isabelle Ribot
},
year = {2019},
date = {2019-07-19},
journal = {Sociolinguistic Studies},
volume = {13},
number = {2-4},
pages = {171–192},
abstract = {In a range of eastern and southern African language communities, stretching from Ethiopia to the Cape, married women are enjoined to avoid the names of members of their husband's family as well as (near-) homophones of those names, and to replace tabooed vocabulary with substitute words. Although in-law name avoidance is a global phenomenon, the daughter-in-law speech registers thus constituted are unusual in their linguistic elaboration: they involve avoidance not only of names and true homophones of names but also an array of words whose only relation to tabooed names is phonological similarity. We provide an overview of the distribution and convergent social and linguistic characteristics of these registers and then examine one register more closely, namely, that of Datooga of Tanzania. To tease apart the layers of causality that converge upon this particular sociolinguistic pattern, we consider archaeological, ethnological, sociolinguistic and genetic lines of evidence. We propose that any partial diffusion of in-law avoidance practices has been complemented by a complex of sociocultural factors motivating the emergence of this pattern at different times and places across the African continent. These factors include pastoralism, patrilineal descent ideologies and norms of patrilocal postmarital residence paired with cattle-based bridewealth exchange.},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}
In a range of eastern and southern African language communities, stretching from Ethiopia to the Cape, married women are enjoined to avoid the names of members of their husband's family as well as (near-) homophones of those names, and to replace tabooed vocabulary with substitute words. Although in-law name avoidance is a global phenomenon, the daughter-in-law speech registers thus constituted are unusual in their linguistic elaboration: they involve avoidance not only of names and true homophones of names but also an array of words whose only relation to tabooed names is phonological similarity. We provide an overview of the distribution and convergent social and linguistic characteristics of these registers and then examine one register more closely, namely, that of Datooga of Tanzania. To tease apart the layers of causality that converge upon this particular sociolinguistic pattern, we consider archaeological, ethnological, sociolinguistic and genetic lines of evidence. We propose that any partial diffusion of in-law avoidance practices has been complemented by a complex of sociocultural factors motivating the emergence of this pattern at different times and places across the African continent. These factors include pastoralism, patrilineal descent ideologies and norms of patrilocal postmarital residence paired with cattle-based bridewealth exchange.
2018
Mitchell, Alice
Allusive References and Other‐Oriented Stance in an Affinal Avoidance Register Journal Article
In: Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, vol. 28, no. 1, pp. 4-21, 2018.
@article{Mitchell2018,
title = {Allusive References and Other‐Oriented Stance in an Affinal Avoidance Register},
author = {Alice Mitchell},
year = {2018},
date = {2018-05-01},
journal = {Journal of Linguistic Anthropology},
volume = {28},
number = {1},
pages = {4-21},
abstract = {This paper analyzes the social‐relational dynamics of in‐law name avoidance in Datooga, a Nilotic language spoken in Tanzania. Datooga women avoid referring to their senior affines by birth name, while also avoiding words that “allusively” refer to these in‐laws by sharing lexical or phonetic material with their names. These acts of name avoidance are conceptualized here in terms of stance: each instance of avoidance orients the speaker toward her affinal kin. The analysis of this unusual phenomenon emphasizes how speakers construct social relations in discourse not only with immediate speech participants but also with absent others, across time and space.},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}
This paper analyzes the social‐relational dynamics of in‐law name avoidance in Datooga, a Nilotic language spoken in Tanzania. Datooga women avoid referring to their senior affines by birth name, while also avoiding words that “allusively” refer to these in‐laws by sharing lexical or phonetic material with their names. These acts of name avoidance are conceptualized here in terms of stance: each instance of avoidance orients the speaker toward her affinal kin. The analysis of this unusual phenomenon emphasizes how speakers construct social relations in discourse not only with immediate speech participants but also with absent others, across time and space.
Rácz, Péter; Mitchell, Alice; Blythe, Joe
Egocentric and allocentric learning of social-indexical meaning in American English, Datooga, and Murrinhpatha. Proceeding
CogSci 2018.
@proceedings{Rácz2018,
title = {Egocentric and allocentric learning of social-indexical meaning in American English, Datooga, and Murrinhpatha.},
author = {Péter Rácz and Alice Mitchell and Joe Blythe
},
year = {2018},
date = {2018-01-01},
organization = {CogSci},
abstract = {We address competing perspectives on how social-indexical meaning is learned in language, using data from artificial language learning experiments and two studies in small-scale societies. Our results indicate that learning social-indexical meaning is primarily allocentric as opposed to egocentric: speaker success in learning a social-indexical meaning pattern depends on overall exposure to the pattern more than the pattern’s relative importance to the speaker. We base these claims on data from American English-speaking adults, Datoogaspeaking children, as well as adults and children speaking Murrinhpatha. The results highlight the importance of widening the sample of methods and data sources in studying how variation in language is learned and maintained.},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {proceedings}
}
We address competing perspectives on how social-indexical meaning is learned in language, using data from artificial language learning experiments and two studies in small-scale societies. Our results indicate that learning social-indexical meaning is primarily allocentric as opposed to egocentric: speaker success in learning a social-indexical meaning pattern depends on overall exposure to the pattern more than the pattern’s relative importance to the speaker. We base these claims on data from American English-speaking adults, Datoogaspeaking children, as well as adults and children speaking Murrinhpatha. The results highlight the importance of widening the sample of methods and data sources in studying how variation in language is learned and maintained.
2016
Mitchell, Alice
Words That Smell like Father-in-Law: A Linguistic Description of the Datooga Avoidance Register Journal Article
In: Anthropological Linguistics, vol. 57, no. 2, pp. 195-217, 2016.
@article{Mitchell2016,
title = {Words That Smell like Father-in-Law: A Linguistic Description of the Datooga Avoidance Register},
author = {Alice Mitchell},
doi = {10.1353/anl.2016.0004},
year = {2016},
date = {2016-01-01},
journal = {Anthropological Linguistics},
volume = {57},
number = {2},
pages = {195-217},
abstract = {This article describes an avoidance register of Datooga, a Nilotic language of Tanzania. Datooga women show respect to their senior in-laws by avoiding not only these in-laws' names but also lexically related and similar-sounding words. Near-homophone avoidance is partly determined by phonological criteria but also by idiosyncratic metalinguistic judgments and social convention. To avoid taboo words, women have developed a conventionalized avoidance vocabulary, assembled by means of various linguistic strategies, including consonant replacement, borrowing, and derivation. Avoidance words make use of a wide range of linguistic resources and illustrate well the heterogeneous results of taboo-motivated language change.},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}
This article describes an avoidance register of Datooga, a Nilotic language of Tanzania. Datooga women show respect to their senior in-laws by avoiding not only these in-laws' names but also lexically related and similar-sounding words. Near-homophone avoidance is partly determined by phonological criteria but also by idiosyncratic metalinguistic judgments and social convention. To avoid taboo words, women have developed a conventionalized avoidance vocabulary, assembled by means of various linguistic strategies, including consonant replacement, borrowing, and derivation. Avoidance words make use of a wide range of linguistic resources and illustrate well the heterogeneous results of taboo-motivated language change.
2015
Lovegren, Jesse; Mitchell, Alice; Nakagawa, Natsuko
The Wala Language of Malaita, Solomon Islands. Journal Article
In: 2015.
@article{Lovegren2015,
title = {The Wala Language of Malaita, Solomon Islands.},
author = {Jesse Lovegren and Alice Mitchell and Natsuko Nakagawa},
year = {2015},
date = {2015-01-01},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}
Mitchell, Alice
Linguistic avoidance and social relations in Datooga Journal Article
In: 2015.
@article{Mitchell2015,
title = {Linguistic avoidance and social relations in Datooga},
author = {Alice Mitchell},
year = {2015},
date = {2015-01-01},
abstract = {This dissertation investigates an unusual sociolinguistic practice in Datooga, a Southern Nilotic language spoken in northern and central Tanzania. In Datooga, an elaborate avoidance vocabulary has developed out of a cultural prohibition on women uttering the names of their senior in-laws as well as words sounding similar to those names. While comparable sociolinguistic phenomena have been described in a handful of other societies, this dissertation is the first study of an avoidance register in use. Based on ten months of fieldwork in Tanzania, it explores the phonological basis for linguistic avoidance (ie, how speakers decide which words to avoid), the linguistic strategies involved in constructing the avoidance vocabulary, and the use of avoidance language in everyday interaction. },
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}
This dissertation investigates an unusual sociolinguistic practice in Datooga, a Southern Nilotic language spoken in northern and central Tanzania. In Datooga, an elaborate avoidance vocabulary has developed out of a cultural prohibition on women uttering the names of their senior in-laws as well as words sounding similar to those names. While comparable sociolinguistic phenomena have been described in a handful of other societies, this dissertation is the first study of an avoidance register in use. Based on ten months of fieldwork in Tanzania, it explores the phonological basis for linguistic avoidance (ie, how speakers decide which words to avoid), the linguistic strategies involved in constructing the avoidance vocabulary, and the use of avoidance language in everyday interaction.
Mitchell, Alice
Extra-ordinary morphology in an avoidance register of Datooga. Journal Article
In: 2015.
@article{Mitchell2015b,
title = {Extra-ordinary morphology in an avoidance register of Datooga.},
author = {Alice Mitchell},
year = {2015},
date = {2015-01-01},
abstract = {Datooga belongs to the Southern Nilotic language family and refers to a dialect cluster spoken in northern and central Tanzania (Rottland, 1982). The Languages of Tanzania Project gives an estimated speaker number of 138,800 (Muzale & Rugemalira, 2008), with speakers of the Barabaiga dialect constituting the largest subgroup (Rottland, 1982). An unusual property of Datooga is the existence of an avoidance register used by married women. As an expression of respect towards their husbands’ kin, Datooga women avoid saying the names of their senior in-laws as well as any ordinary words in the language which sound like those names. In place of the taboo forms, they use words from a conventionalized avoidance vocabulary, a practice known as gıing’áwêakshooda. For example, if a woman’s father-in-law is called Gidabasooda, a name which consists of the masculine name prefix gida-and the common noun básooda ‘lake’, she will refrain from ever saying this name or the word básooda. 1 In place of the latter, she will say héywanda, a form which is unique to gıing’áwêakshooda, having no known meaning in the ordinary language. Using this conventionalized alternative is unlikely to impede communication since most speakers of the language, men and children included, are well accustomed to the avoidance register.},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}
Datooga belongs to the Southern Nilotic language family and refers to a dialect cluster spoken in northern and central Tanzania (Rottland, 1982). The Languages of Tanzania Project gives an estimated speaker number of 138,800 (Muzale & Rugemalira, 2008), with speakers of the Barabaiga dialect constituting the largest subgroup (Rottland, 1982). An unusual property of Datooga is the existence of an avoidance register used by married women. As an expression of respect towards their husbands’ kin, Datooga women avoid saying the names of their senior in-laws as well as any ordinary words in the language which sound like those names. In place of the taboo forms, they use words from a conventionalized avoidance vocabulary, a practice known as gıing’áwêakshooda. For example, if a woman’s father-in-law is called Gidabasooda, a name which consists of the masculine name prefix gida-and the common noun básooda ‘lake’, she will refrain from ever saying this name or the word básooda. 1 In place of the latter, she will say héywanda, a form which is unique to gıing’áwêakshooda, having no known meaning in the ordinary language. Using this conventionalized alternative is unlikely to impede communication since most speakers of the language, men and children included, are well accustomed to the avoidance register.
2014
Childs, Tucker; Good, Jeff; Mitchell, Alice
Beyond the ancestral code: Towards a model for sociolinguistic language documentation Journal Article
In: Language Documentation & Conservation, vol. 8, pp. 168-191, 2014.
@article{Childs2014,
title = {Beyond the ancestral code: Towards a model for sociolinguistic language documentation},
author = {Tucker Childs and Jeff Good and Alice Mitchell},
year = {2014},
date = {2014-01-01},
journal = {Language Documentation & Conservation},
volume = {8},
pages = {168-191},
abstract = {Most language documentation efforts focus on capturing lexico-grammatical information on individual languages. Comparatively little effort has been devoted to considering a language’s sociolinguistic contexts. In parts of the world characterized by high degrees of multilingualism, questions surrounding the factors involved in language choice and the relationship between ‘communities’ and ‘languages’ are clearly of interest to documentary linguistics, and this paper considers these issues by reporting on the results of a workshop held on sociolinguistic documentation in Sub-Saharan Africa. Over sixty participants from Africa and elsewhere discussed theoretical and methodological issues relating to the documentation of language in its social context. Relevant recommendations for projects wishing to broaden into the realm of sociolinguistic language documentation include: a greater emphasis on conversational data and the documentation of naturally occurring conversation; developing metadata conventions to allow for more nuanced descriptions of socio-cultural settings; encouraging teamwork and interdisciplinary collaboration in order to extend the scope of sociolinguistic documentation; collecting sociolinguistic data which can inform language planning and policy; and creating opportunities for training in sociolinguistic documentation. Consideration of sociolinguistic language documentation also raises significant questions regarding the ways in which Western language ideologies, which have been especially prominent in shaping documentary agendas, may be unduly influencing documentary practice in other parts of the world.},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}
Most language documentation efforts focus on capturing lexico-grammatical information on individual languages. Comparatively little effort has been devoted to considering a language’s sociolinguistic contexts. In parts of the world characterized by high degrees of multilingualism, questions surrounding the factors involved in language choice and the relationship between ‘communities’ and ‘languages’ are clearly of interest to documentary linguistics, and this paper considers these issues by reporting on the results of a workshop held on sociolinguistic documentation in Sub-Saharan Africa. Over sixty participants from Africa and elsewhere discussed theoretical and methodological issues relating to the documentation of language in its social context. Relevant recommendations for projects wishing to broaden into the realm of sociolinguistic language documentation include: a greater emphasis on conversational data and the documentation of naturally occurring conversation; developing metadata conventions to allow for more nuanced descriptions of socio-cultural settings; encouraging teamwork and interdisciplinary collaboration in order to extend the scope of sociolinguistic documentation; collecting sociolinguistic data which can inform language planning and policy; and creating opportunities for training in sociolinguistic documentation. Consideration of sociolinguistic language documentation also raises significant questions regarding the ways in which Western language ideologies, which have been especially prominent in shaping documentary agendas, may be unduly influencing documentary practice in other parts of the world.