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Heightened Discourse and Dialogical Syntax in Tojol‐ab'al Conversation
Author(s) -
Brody Mary Jill
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
journal of linguistic anthropology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.463
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1548-1395
pISSN - 1055-1360
DOI - 10.1111/jola.12229
Subject(s) - dialogic , dialogical self , linguistics , conversation , sociology , syntax , discourse analysis , merge (version control) , expression (computer science) , psychology , computer science , philosophy , social psychology , pedagogy , information retrieval , programming language
Sherzer identifies discourse as “the nexus, the actual and concrete expression of the language‐culture‐society relationship” (1987:296), and offers the term “heightened discourse” for those moments in which language and culture (e)merge in language use. In this paper I use dialogic syntax (Du Bois 2014) to pinpoint moments of heightened discourse in everyday conversation carried out in Tojolab'al. After illustrating the basic dialogic syntax units of diagraphs and processes of resonance with Tojol‐ab'al examples, I then analyze two segments of speech play in Tojol‐ab'al, which abound in repetitions and resonances. Diagraphs of segments of these interactions highlight the parallel structure of the talk, which centers on culturally important topics. The dense resonance of repetition and parallelism in these segments reveal them to be heightened discourse. Resonance and heightened discourse are both characterized by an exuberant level of engagement among interlocutors.