re mumbling

[Jim Wilce]

Duranti describes a similar indexical connection between elite Samoan
status and unclarity.  And Javanese basa (H register) is suited
particularly for oratory which is prized for "speaking a long time and
saying almost nothing," in the words of one of Siegel's co-participants in
a funeral.

Siegel, J. T. (1986). Solo and the New Order: Language and Hierarchy in an
Indonesian City. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

And, come to think of it, mumbling just seems like an extreme end of a
continuum of features applying to rhetorical elaboration as a practice of
indirection.

Rosaldo, M. Z. (1973). I Have Nothing to Hide:  The Language of Ilongot
Oratory. Language in Society, 2(2), 193- 223.

It's interesting to think about how this inverts the controversial findings
of Basil Bernstein linking elaboration with high status speech.
Jim Wilce, Assistant Professor
Anthropology Department
Box 15200
Northern Arizona University
Flagstaff AZ 86011-5200

fax 520/523-9135
office ph. 520/523-2729
email jim.wilce at nau.edu
http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~jmw22/ (includes information on my 1998 book,
Eloquence in Trouble: The Poetics and Politics of Complaint in Rural
Bangladesh, ISBN 0-19-510687-3)
http://www.nau.edu/asian
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