"I" vs. "we" or 0

[Jim Wilce]

Dear Hailong:

My recent book, Eloquence in Trouble, has three chapters on interpersonal
difference in pronoun use (primarily "I" versus dropping the I) by
Bangladeshis (in Bangla, not English).

Chapter 3, Signs and selfhood
Chapter 4, Personhood: The "I" in the Complaint
Chapter 5, Self and Indexicals: Language and Locus of Control

Those chapters frame the discussion in relation to the following:

Hanks, William F. 1990. Referential practice: Language and lived space
among the Maya. Chicago:: University of Chicago.  See especially pp.
124-131.

Urban, Greg. 1989. "The "I" of discourse." Pp. 27-52 in Semiotics, self,
and society, edited by Benjamin  Lee and Greg Urban. Berlin, New York::
Mouton de Gruyter.

Jim Wilce
      Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Coordinator of Asian Studies
        Northern Arizona University
        Box 15200
        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