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Oye Oye lo que Ustedes no Saben: Creativity, Social Power, and Politics in the Oral Practice of Chismeando
Author(s) -
Hall Joan Kelly
Publication year - 1993
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 - 10.1525/jlin.1993.3.1.75
Subject(s) - politics , situated , sociology , creativity , power (physics) , construct (python library) , paralanguage , gossip , social practice , focus (optics) , focus group , epistemology , social psychology , aesthetics , psychology , anthropology , communication , history , political science , philosophy , physics , optics , quantum mechanics , artificial intelligence , performance art , computer science , law , art history , programming language
People in interaction are in a continual state of engagement in socioculturally framed activities. Our participation in these practices involves our knowledge and use of generic‐specific linguistic resources, the instantiations of which move between the expected and the creative. The focus of this article is the locally situated nature of such interplay in the oral practice of chismeando (gossiping) by a group of Dominican women. Specifically I focus on one participant's strategic, creative use of some of the features to transform the nature of her involvement in the intragroup practice. Her actions are discussed in terms of the social powers they engender and the politics of her participation. I suggest that such attention to the everyday experiences of a group helps build an understanding not only of the linguistic and paralinguistic articulations of the practices themselves but, and certainly more importantly, of the sociohistorical lives of the people who construct and participate in them.