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    Silverstein Amp Urban The Natural History of Discourse PDF

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    Silvia Escudero

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    ORR oe erases Cm ‘The Natural History of Discourse Michael Silverstein and Greg Urban For many social scientists at humanists, the model, ram Riccar (1981 [0971p of ere as text that can be retd—ce of «care as » Gestion (09733452) ensemble of tex Held considerable allure. The tnt det lows the analyst of eat to exrat a portion of ongoing soil ation— Alscous or some noniscusive bat nevertheless semi ston — to i init rie, exqustly dete contest, andr a Boudry aru ingurng int ts swctre and meaning. This taal agment of cule can then be embeded by asking bow i relates to its “contest.” where comext ‘is anerstood as nonreatabe suround ce bckgroond (rif the context re tuned as eadabl, by asking how the ext relies toi "cote, "The problem with this roca thats not oly the cla analyte ‘who find rity in this kindof es, The processes tht esl in phenomenal ‘extliy—what we have come cal the satanoous processes of ent: tuaizaon” and “cotnjestalizion"—aethe cena! and ongoing pravtins ‘iin cull onder. To equstecutre wiht resuant ext om the fac that texts (as we see them, te precipitates of canines ela po- ees) represent one, "hingy" pase ins broaerconepaiatio of ‘un process. Moreover, o tr omehing into a text isto seem tn gv i conlertulized strvcture and meaning tht is, form and meaning that 2 imaginable pat rom the spatiotemporal and ther fans in whch ty can be said to ocur, Such an autosomously meal objec, indeed, Decors 4 ope for culture, understood i he sense ofan ensemble of sare symbols and meanings, 6 hate should no be surprised at its apeal for sent of ‘alu, Por ifn text has a desptalized and detemporlized meaning in shor, a depocesuaizedono—the ta meaning cn be slew transnited. sos socal boundaries such as generations without rgard forthe kinds of ‘econtestalizions it might undergo. Tens can tus be seco as bug ‘pets or atoms of shure cute. We shold ober here how congenial his simplisie constuction so nsions hat confuse aa antopolopicl concept of 2 Misa! Siren and Greg Urten cre with tote fl deied concep in our various Kare ditions of shared or common possession of ext, whether as quai-phyial or qu ‘moral objet ashe asibat of “being culree™ or “having cute" Sich ‘congenial should perhaps, rake tes concepts all the moe epsteolog «ally suspect fr us, of cous, na comparstve and cro-cutrel enterprise Butchi wily texts precisely what "the mes” iluding a) se as well. They engage in processes of etexalization to cre a seemingly ‘shareable, tammitbl colar. Tey cn, for example take sone fragment af Aliscourse and quote itanew, making seem to cary a heanieg independent of ‘its station within two now dsinetcoatents-O- they ean ies a fag ‘ment of ra discourse, comvering itm «Seemingly domble and decom ‘ualiable fem tha suggest oiterrtes a decontestaliablereanng well Or they can tke sch a rable ext and eit hough pero: ‘mance tha, being a (mee) perfamance of she text, sugges varus die sons of contexlized “interpretive meaning” aed on 0 those seeminly inbereat inthe et, From this point of view the, ex is metdiacuive natin, sl to tcpans ina eultue as 2 way of creating an image ef a durable shared ular immanent no een undifferentiated froma its esembe of relied ot ven potential texts. Iisa metaicusve constrict "this tech of icouse isa ext whose meanings..." rows ov of nd refers o ater ‘acts, which themselves ar presumably to be studied ethnographic, i ton to continring the essence of ethnographic metho el. The ren ‘volume is 2 se of ethnographic explorations However, Ks brad of eiogr- iy focuses squarely upon enextualiztion paces ter than or in aden Wie have chosen the ite Natural Histories of Discourse to foes tention on contextually contest semis processes involved in achieving ‘ext—andculure. These are recoverable in some mesute only by doayti= 1. We mg sei nis yf cna, ed prety by na 96 97, er wi eat ei es ee geod ‘ete a scien” Sc aes a ce ‘Suse mdeg ome sommes pene ei fe lair an aise pp rec nla you Tcl ‘Sng wit wi 8 motel peor Cin) fr td emcee proces at rie pet pr ened min Th pag so ‘Spetin de teal don nh anny” and he sa SS ec ommnin Newest re hee alse The Nate His of Dcomne 3 cally engaging wih tex! sedimentations. Ech chaper in our enlastive tral sory thus occ on ceria sate moma inthe enextilning! fe(nextalizing proce; we arange them nan overall emenalzbl! a tempo highlight the omens ina ondealy way. la some chaper, we fos ‘upon the trations of exalts, tht, pom if cytes of sour, ain Irvine's work ona pete gere fund among Woot speaker of Senta: he Wwe se performances of texts that have teen commisoned, designed, po duced, ond reproduced nan elaborate temporaized proces. We ss this aso inthe sy of extn enimaton by Richard Bana, dealing wits Mexican savy pays, War's n a Text? "The opening papers by John Haviland nd Greg Ua tert explore wht text I by foeusng on the tansrption of oral discourse, that ion the production of vsualchanseltextarifat with a certain cncrenes ad manipula. (Perhaps these tex-arfacual properies se suggestive surly have been sagzesve--of maseum specimens tht canbe taped bck tom the field and craluted for tee sthetcy nd ela sexthtic tuthoratvenes. Such suggesiveness, in any event, in promsing the con son of the textarifct wih the test, eras a metaphor of ou own eno philological wadtion tas dangerous when carried ove it ter tations) In both cases, we ate dealing with he proceees whereby sctul writen ets reproduced texts hat the ethnographer wat o study asthe basi ag, Nock of clue the nen ext ptenally mapping oe-0-0ne oot ‘the cull text ut there. Buin both eaten we ae dealing twit bow a tropolopss write down wha they hear, or wo only with tha peo, bat also wit how natives, wae in th patice of wring, one case, cry _sprodaing an thon trasating, ren epoken discourse tht has en ied "fom one co(njtext via the then exasceeaolony af taperecoting. In such cases, posse forthe snthropoogi to compare th tan- seibed (r repented) version with th eign! oa communicatve form. We ‘an threare have ative tasriton and an observer transcription ek ‘compare the wo arta invarions respects, for example forthe dentate foem—the account of “what ws sid”—spparent inthe stats, Do we mae te assumption tha tbe observer tanription acortelyrprsent fe el {am whereas the native wanserpion distorts i? We are arglag that, in ese ese, avopolgiss have the bene of comparison tha patil specie franguation tar th rademack fhe interpretative socal scienoes. Sich 4 Mie Stes and Gg Urban tranglton has lng ben thi haf wo. Staying the processes of ene ‘uation fom as many diferent angles at posse prodoces the beginnings fof snanderstanding of eure. Hence, the ference between theext atic ‘Mow os peter insight ino te erextulization processes, which ar ater al, ‘he dats of terest inthe tay of cle "Now tet ison kindof metadscursiveitreetation of x phase of dite ‘course, ne outcome of process in which discourse metamorphose an re ‘pitts as fara. nhs iting case, west is seen through ex-artiactand meso be opposed to dsoure, decometunize is opposed 0 atx ‘unied, Haviland work plays p this opposition especialy since it focuses ‘now the rg tape recorded dalopcal dacs iteration stash ened it tent account fom what Bain wuld eall a monologiel ot "nly weed perspective al he ile presevig the fact of ripe spake ing toes and prs. Theve seems tobe an acy of th et hat involves & Siege naretive voice fom which have beea expunged const and inconsic tence ofthe sort th Baka ose i becrlose, mulvoiced mae reson of dsause "Bt the cones ofthe enestaaiasion fects one's orientation to the ‘source dscoune ant lo the shape ofthe txt produced. Urbans chapter so ft in patch the mtadscursive understanding of be scours pro- fs of entextualization inves assessments of puricipns' power and a ‘hori such tt entexiliznion both rect and consttues syrmericl Stel relation tem that cue in subsequent capes Difleret interpre ‘ers understanding themscves to be—ee potently to be—inaiferen rela tion the original cure dace, produce ferent texts. Ineffet the new texts bee configured ore the new (nex ‘Snoutn AULD Co(nyrexts Be Foncor? “Te mage of texts and ala of care, driving fom hs ter insight sone of lable and meer instant, in whic te text figured by Shoup now and preset co(aent. seams to Tse touch with ts pst, te fo inded, being» psjetion from the preset. Bu is ext entity a0 Hsin ikea ee dimensonl eoecton fram a two-iensiona age? Does textual comply efface the taces of is antecedent co(ents of Siguation? “This isthe question posed hy Michel Silverstein and by Vineet C= panzana, bath of whom begin wth writen text-atacs. They ty to recover the coonext from which te extracts were produced in tasduction- TheNawl Hor of Dscsst—§ insertion To be sue; the dcontestuainl text, understod a meaning ‘uldng block of cure, may have anartive tne line when cvaluted purely {ori tera dencsatinal conten, th, when te viewod spy ar eabering erosional ext But does sch a denotatonal text preserve in any seas the artonl comingency, tbe inteactional “real Une” of ts olinry exes: tuaizaion? Does i preserve, fr example, tbe temporal of emergence of Imesubjctie enextualzaton moments presppored muta snd Standing of whe ws happening rng the event of iscibing ite ait? “The textile the pysical mam that sems, onthe fc fit © amy an organization of information, sometimes nara information, that we ‘scone asthe denoatoal text we ae reading. The tex ais does Indeed have aphysial-empera sinctre, precnly Bec twa originally ln down, o sediment, i he couse of cca res, unfolding invest time: on reading itis perceived and understood in rea tine. We seek the doe ronal event ofthe lying-down process, asl a aces of he orginal ‘colnet which scours fragment was congue ae able to, So what me are looking for isnot the denoational text dicey o simply, bu her indications of moe oviginary lesen tex) of inscription. We ‘sek the residue of past socal iteration eased along with the ign vile rcoding the semantic, or deneation mean in deacationa ext. (Noxe ‘ee our seemingly deconstructe tm, wit arate more precise dilereati- tion of smote phenomena than is generally invoked sis eure by this ‘ype ecupertv reading of text-aifit) Silverstein looks for such interactional residue in hs udy of Kitt ((vasco-Wishram Cainokan} texts originally canbe by Edward Sai in 1005, In hiroxampe the tices of an emergent atextslized soil interac ‘ion Berten a Wishram man (a English, named Pee MeGu) and then young Edvard Sapir are inscribed in soc phenomena as the architect of shill in tense and aspect tht one sequentially encounies as one: mowes through he exact a Sapir adit dom, Bur Sep nextaliation Isonlyooe that as let aces in ite eit notebook fer aed thence lt published version. MeGul seems ls to hae comet at east ane eel of ‘entextnintion of «dstintvely Wasco Witham Kn, contain o- anton of clue in the teat afc seems to eal With compare fr spective on interactional genres in his clus uation, thee cae allow ot to recap or eteate something ofthe erga social iteration in which Sepirs—and MeGulTs very diferent—ineractionalentextusizaions mst ye taken place, 6 Mtn sive ed Grp Uiban ‘Vinceat Crpanzano takes up the nietcuh-cenary mers f some ‘one (Adee) Hercule Babin, 1838-41868) who underwent change in sen identity. In his example, we havea issue not only the text-artiit from which someting of he context of enextulzaton can Be fecoveed but Dll and ceva texcartifet concerning the sme evens facts hat ean tesead with it rw kind of composi eet or “inert” In pac, we hve not only Hetelne Barbs own memoirs but ote medical and egal texts assembled by Auguste Tari in 1672 Aroong thse is an efmended bith ceriat, which nlodes the stipulation “tat he Christan mame Abel be substituted fr those of Adelaide Herein” In Craguazano’s example, we aot only recovering sorting aout th historia of Herealne Ba ‘bi ough te tres fn et ihe poduced we are also ering trough ‘Acomparion with te composite co-ext hw extant was produced and recited ato cui practices i th mid-aineeeth century ‘Wiens Dors T Come Fao? “The death sia dems may be durable projections fom texts read io ters of thei enexalatonproceses ies frtber questions about thee ‘ye sured fom of ele ext ase ita socal content For tat lier ‘ew bh all of fe pers inthe presen vole ctsize, presupposes a erent sci wold existing prior othe entesttizaion processes, Our Investigations io th ata hres of partclrdscoures, however, su ‘esthi te dtiacion between he sci an the cultural canot be so easily ‘ade, and that socal esegoris, if readable from entextuaization process, seas as much rode of then “The pecblem it edessod exphicly inthe pages by Jith Irvine ant ‘Wien Hanks, evn, ie pst, fcases on te personal pronouns, which ve now understand inthis double tional expt. Nov aly do they pot tovolecategries ext in some sense, indepen of eatextaization oot (0, categories ike “Tan “you” denote individuals inhabiting oes ‘ol speaker a ude, respectively from tis pint of view), but hey aso serve as metaitcursive labels (at, denotationally explicit metapgmatic ‘xmestan) tat ene the achievement of uch role-categor inhabitance as ‘eal of enextuling proceses themselves. levine's work began at dialogue wih Stephen Levinson (1988), who td argued thatthe base pronominal eaeptis needed 1 be farther broken ‘dwn fo scommodte finer dsincions inthe role-nderpnnings of tira, ‘tinction. or example, between an “autho” anda "ghosoe™ wo accommo. ‘he Naural HisoryofDteamne 7 dine phot writing, Hence, thi ine of thorn, he eon singe category of peak: coresponing tthe "of discourse can devote any sich ‘ole-combintion of ne or beh “shor an phos,” thats on ators: oso, onghostly autor and vo on. vine ances te insight ber tht {he proposal for similar futier decomposition of the simplex oes iin rine ‘ple, endless and unconstrained proces, since ew situations ar avays emerging in discursive practice in which new meanings forthe personal po- ‘oun ae produced. Over the course ef a const cursive history, there ‘reife iteable amintions of newly combed roles poected by he roducton, production an, nee, transitional wor of expresoas fn dacours. In shot, we faci infil variable veniloquation ofthe *." ao forth, of discourse ver tie, a Bakn-—to ouch a porn souce ence mare—would ave put it This suggested, st, tht here was gap be- ‘ween the personal pronouns st mataiscursive fons andthe discus po- cesses in which thy were employe —i ter wor th ther iso one thing ‘nthe wold we could ella “speaker,” bt nately any deen hing tbat late clear decontextaived denotatonalecuserpion in able ade Seat scilogntic terms. Secondly, we ifr tht the acta entextaliztion vets invlving the even fT” and “you's” at so forth culd be constued eileen in ethnography inc oes, wih wo lit a ici. Trvoe'y nia exampl,xaxar insult poms performed at wedding coe monies by Wolof gious (women ofthe bare riot eat), i ing ie ths {epard, When we inquire into thir essen eter’ of speaker, we qikly set “peak” isa complex category ined. The persons who prfom he Inst are (gener itn fom those who actully composed or farmlted ‘and both are (generally) atic rom the sponsor who pay forthe event aad creates the possibiy fr te insult sesion in the ist place, Each rol ategoy of person forms par of th unitary but parsons carve racic of entextualizaton ofthe genre aaa Waa sce) and we can ‘pprecate tat the enexttalization proces is culturally variable an yet eh sopraphialy describe in these ens. Al the same ine suc practices sg- gto analysts (and, paps, also to parisipnts themselves) meaincuine Inerpetations. Such eterrettons of operative soca categories inthe ex tuaization process can then be rjeted frm thee instances oto ores with diferent role configurations, Hanks oper alos up dint, bur peshaps more anthrpologicly _reopnizabe, tof oles nimly, tose noe in Mayan shamanlc cua. 4 Mise sinentia eat Gg ten Wile antsoplogss are wed regarding x itegory such shat of shaman 24 independent of cscouse and enotlizton proces, and, ene. pat ‘ofthe sci organization to which eats ca ner be Hk Hanks shows that the catepory of shaman ea infact only be undrtod in elationsip to ale inabinnce In ase of dscns practices, mely, thse of the exper in pesforming curing ceremonies. Being tus lays inkereny pasty “ascribed” Spay “achieved” the sas of shaman is dtined by spel entextai= ‘cons, snc the shaman acquires payer from ate satan, bt als re ‘works them, based pon his rhe own experince. The sre autora ‘ad agetve shaman i tht ose who possesses and ust poses unique xs, ‘which yet simatanousy fear the reoierable races of dsogsn ad venti ‘oqustions by vite of interstos with ter shamans, And he sara ioe wo enacts these uigue texts inthe elaborately tind couse contents of cring, The satus of shaman i thas test in part metadsursively ead from an ethnograpicallydeseritable ole ia discourse practices, a thas ‘roped atleast in part mstadsursivectepry. We do not yet know al dts involved inthe eeatiization process whereby such a mendscusve ctgory—a category of contingent aeheved ‘ol inhabitance—is projected om the worl Non pricy, do we ave a specific sense of how the inkabiablectegery might be recoverable from he Prayer texts in an analytic approach. Bu Hanks das ca atin, in his ‘Tega, othe inortatndionof gee. The pryer texts mist be of a eco Aiable gere—that of reds, othe mote spcic a7” ("anish, cae say, or smash wind")—aod at geare goes along with sto prescribed ‘pec roles and specily organized physica pac of speaking. Indeed, the ee as ametascurie abel for als of ecurentenetulinations each witits own ineratons and denote fcte—ie wht appear to give sub- stance and contin tothe sci iterscton in which the texts are prodcod, so threfre, othe broader socal one, oever, there isin fc continual back north nerlay between the me- ‘udev emegry and he actual instances af discourse that fi wed 10 ‘stegoiz and intpet, On the oe sd, the etait eateory (whether ‘hac of shaman or genre) seems freee or x the scil-interctional tex, ‘ojctng fom specifi entxtaations to all pst Ftc nes in eller ‘Providing penal temper modelo “anos” text exeplay, an ‘de roperevatitos. On the oer side, every ecu insane semerset snd rentv and ence capable of eaibeating he msadicusive category for fare projections. The daetcl proces in which metadisurive categories engage with sociabimeracdomal enestnzatinentextalzaton, all the ‘TheNatn Histor of Discourse 9 while being central to oa! eur concepts of sts a textual pare is iphlighted in these two papers, Pass THE Tet, PLEASE? lWthereis infact, laosenes of ft betwen metaicuive encoding (in gene or satus/rol) and actual discourse practices, in every cle we find some ‘kinds finsitons in which steps are mae otiphen the to the ‘elation. Weare refering of couse 1 insion of sciiatin, whoie za rom our presen perspective, io inulin eflest a metadicause shou tens andthe entxtaization proces, ater than orn itn oe ing the transmission of texts, ic he eluent model views priry cr even unmedited by mewdiscourse ora metadscrsve consionses. ‘This theme is cea in the chaps by James Cole and Elba “Merz who focus on educational lstitatons im modern Arie the grade shoo! and aw school elastoom, respectively In bah cases, we conto the ‘eal there tht enextaliztion al tus are mening no ist er he ‘ula analyst, but so fc the ties, an tat te intone atiy ot projecting texts sa proces deployed for ttle pups, Colin in particular, focuses on the ideology often reflected a meta lsconte about therm and the ascouse practices sounding them in a Chi ‘ago grade school with pedomiartly working-class Afizan Americ eas. He shows tha at th metadiscurse level, writen text ae reared as linguistically ansparent, wih xe, primarily enoaional earings, making hem equally availble to all; consequently, hey are viewed 4 univers means fer asesing student” educations progres. In “Lestiag to Read tens feel mastery ofthe proces of nding such ents the ext ntfs they encounter i seen by educators 10 correspond to diferent educational progress and bees lering limite, te relied to roar Snlpments of student" neice, Inactclsroom discursive pacts, text-anifets become fot for ‘corctng stems poaunsation inthe highly iological ask of ending ‘alond” Texas thas pay acetal role inthe index phenomenon of istiminaton of deni with respect owas of wadrd eating promi on sta by Labov an many thers have shown). Troop pronase ‘ion exercises with explicit eoretion, speaker of nonstandard English have ‘hee denies both foregroanded and valved, wih emp placed on the Ieratonal work as gaits interpretation of ny denotioal ext rom read ng the rifle, any denotational mening the tex-aifat cari), Sta ard speakers do ot ve tee dettesforegroanded bt apede instead to | 10 Michel Seria sed Gg tis be proce in ecesing denoatioal ext frm—the tandaré words and xpressions—and bene, its ssamed,“wansprent” seme meaning I te execs, her ienits ae neutral. Atthe same time, under an ideology ‘eaicourse of equal acesiility to the semantic meaning, aontanatd speakers are graded dwn. Hence, in hs cu, the eduction ination not ‘only ates oi eaionship beeweenmetadncourse and teat rst, it alo asserts soil hierarchy based on the diferent i between sours Practices fase on geting from textartfet ote se orl tansdton, and the metaiscouse aboot he gas of reading forenoon) meaning ‘which i projected oat this peat actuallze inthe easoom, ‘The law school clisses studied by Metz teva! distinct pater. ‘Whereas th ideological meradiscous of testa inthe grade shoot lss- "Wom stresses the denoationl texte “coment” a the primary sense of ‘efeeace-antredietion—iaw sehuol practices atemgt to eek down this referent oventtion to text, sabtitiing for it an emphasis onthe text 2 oi prt of ad refection of social nterstion, What i importa i the ‘assoom interactions Mer sides is the focus on how texts emerge frm nd fit into a hicrachy of cours nd procedures, and, hence, how text aicts 2 be read fom the pot of view of legal procedures “in them that hey “al about in his way. Law student have presumably spent the peng sixteen years oftheir eduction ies regimen her dsoare around a idesogy of semantic meaning and reference though which they were fer tit tobe sre, fom tase who acer made pst tana) frome Vion. They most now have their Weotogies of “reading” systematically de

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