Foundations in Sociolinguistics: An Ethnographic Approach

Abstract: The anthropologist Boas has claimed that in order to understand what shapes a people's cultural values, one must study in detail the way this people uses language. This study of Latvian ways of speaking seeks to prove the validity of this claim. More specifically, it addresses the two-part question: what is distinctive about the ways Latvian-speakers use Latvian and what can be learnt about Latvians from examining their language use? The introduction begins with a brief summary of the historical background of the Latvian people and language, referring to the connection between historico-geographical facts and distinctive national traits. There follows an overview of a number of works that have addressed various aspects of Latvian language behaviour. The author then goes on to explain what is meant by 'ways of speaking', pointing out that for the purposes of the present study this phrase refers to four areas of Latvian language behaviour: using forms of address, expressing feelings and attitudes, beginning and concluding episodes of social interaction and getting people to do things. Descriptions of these behaviours are based on several kinds of data: examples of directly observed utterances, examples of utterances from written sources including literary works and examples of utterances elicited from respondents via questionnaires. In order to show how Latvian linguistic structures encode Latvian socio-cultural values and what is distinctive about them, it is important to be able to say what these structures mean in a way that is free of ethnocentric bias. For this reason, semantic descriptions or parts of descriptions are proposed in 'natural semantic language' (NSM, for short), consisting of a metalexicon of approximately 50 hypothetical conceptual primitives (such as: 'want', 'I', 'you', 'think', 'feel'), presumed to be universal. Before embarking on her descriptions and analyses, the author briefly refers to significant works in the background literature of cr9ss-cultural pragmatics. Chapter one (Using address forms) examines the use of both non-pronominal and pronominal forms of address. Among the non-pronominal forms discussed are names, titles, kin terms and their various combinations. In the section on pronominal address, the focus is on the two singular address pronouns: tu and jus. Unwritten rules of use are discussed, including strategies of avoidance when pronoun choice is difficult. Address form 'hybrids', such as first names used with the 'formal' address pronoun, are discussed. The first part of Chapter two (Beginning and ending episodes of social interaction) discusses Latvian 'greeting' and 'farewelling' formulae. It shows how the absence or the abbreviated utterance of an expected formula can have social meaning. In the section on boundary-marking formulae in person-to-group speech events, the author explains why the Latvian Damas un kungi 'Ladies and gentlemen' has a much more restricted field of use than its counterpart in English. In part three, formulae used to begin and end letters are shown to act in Latvian as conveyors of the writer's feelings and attitudes to the addressee to a far greater extent than they do in English, where 'Dear X' and 'Yours sincerely' are appropriate ways of beginning and ending a letter in a large variety of contexts. Chapter three (Communicating feelings and attitudes) analyses the Latvian use of the so-called 'diminutive' suffixes. Contrary to what is implied in a number of traditional grammars which label suffixes of this type as pamazinamas 'diminutive' ·and/or milinamas 'of endearment', these suffixes can convey the idea of 'big' rather than 'little' and 'bad feelings' rather than 'good feelings'. In Chapter four (Getting people to do things) the author examines Latvian directive behaviour. After a preliminary discussion of the term 'directive' in the first part of the chapter, a number of Latvian strategies for conveying the message 'I want you to do something' are described and analysed. In the third part of the chapter, the approach used is a departure from the qualitatively-based one used through most of the present study. In order to highlight certain features of directive utterances in Latvian, the author has focused on the quantitative aspects of data elicited by means of a questionnaire, comparing results obtained from both Latvian-speakers in Riga and English-speakers in Canberra. The main conclusion summarizes the distinctive Latvian characteristics emerging from the study. These include the value attached to the expression of good feelings and the importance attached to kin and kin relationships. Speaker-focused rather than hearerfocused ways of 'directing' point to an area where Latvian behaviour can be called 'individualist'; on the whole, however, Latvians are probably closer to 'collectivist' on Triandis' continuum of 'individualist' and 'collectivist' cultures. Conventions and abbreviations AA Anglo-Australian ACC accusative case addr. pron. address pronoun ADJ adjective ADV adverb AL Australian Latvian (to do with the Latvian community in Australia) COND conditional DAT dative case def. definite DIM diminutive f. feminine FN first name FUT future tense GEN genitive case IMP imperative ind. indefinite IND indicative INT interrogative KTkin term LL 'Latvian' Latvian (to do with the Latvian community in Latvija) LOC locative case LV -Latvian L VV Latviesu valodas vardnica m. masculine MLLVG Musdienu latviesu literaras valodas gramatika NOM nominative case NP noun phrase NSM natural semantic metalanguage oblig. obligation marker OTHother p. person, personal p.c. personal communication p.o. personal observation PEJ pejorative pl. plural PREF prefix PRES present tense IX