Remembering Dell Hymes by Francisco Gomes de Matos

[Francis Hult]

REMEMBERING  D E L L   H Y M E S : his message to Francisco Gomes de Matos on the

concept-term  Communicative Peace

 

Note: DELL HYMES` message below was received August 30,1993. I had sent him

 my  brief text " Probing the Communicative paradigm:A Concept for Sociolinguistics" ,published by the Sociolinguistics Newsletter.Dublin:International Sociological Association,July 1993.. In my text I made a plea for Communicative Peace. Here is his thoughtful,deeply humanizing incentive to me :

 

 

"So far as I know, you are the first person to connect the communicative dimension directly with the notion of peace. Of course the peaceful solution of human problems is of central concern to Habermas and his use of the notion communicative competence,and many people would regard communicative problems as barriers to peace.But the sharp conjunction of the phrase  communicative peace seems to go farther, and even suggest, not only mediation,but meditation,the achievement of a peace within persons that is more  than absence of conflict,

but a state of being. I  do fear that the limitations of the earth, the pressure of population against them, may make the next century more horrible than the present one,if there is not a radical change,if governments and peoples do not abandon much of what has seemed desirable,possible,necessary until now. If we are not able to share the world,we will surely live in unending violence.Perhaps attention to the conditions of communicative peace may help achieve the social and personal requisites for such sharing "

Dell Hymes,personal communication,August 30,1993.

 

Thanks to Milton Schwebel,then Editor of Peace and Conflict.Journal of Peace Psychology,

published by Lawence Erlbaum Association,I used Dell Hymes` statement as one of the

two Epigraphs for my article Harmonizing and Humanizing Political Discourse: The Contribution of Peace Linguists, 6 ( 4) ,339 -344, 2000.

 

Since Dell Hymes `  statement might not have been shared with you, I now share it,

as a humble tribute to an anthropologist-linguist I didn´t have the pleasure

 of meeting personally,but on  those days of snail mail one could be blessed

with making friends through letter writing,too. I thank God for having granted me the

privilege of communicating with Dell Hymes a couple of times . Thanks to his

thoughtful,illuminating message I decided to take further steps on the road to

Peace Linguistics (first entry on it  by David Crystal, in his The Penguin Dictionary of 

 Language,second edition,1999, 254 - 255).

 

Please share this, as you see fit

Thank you

Francisco Gomes de Matos, Professor Emeritus of Linguistics,Universidade Federal

de Pernambuco,Recife,Brazil

fcgm at hotlink.com.br

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