36.1849, Books: The Anatomy of Avoidance: Dixon (2025)

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-36-1849. Sat Jun 14 2025. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 36.1849, Books: The Anatomy of Avoidance: Dixon (2025)

Moderator: Steven Moran (linguist at linguistlist.org)
Managing Editor: Justin Fuller
Team: Helen Aristar-Dry, Steven Franks, Joel Jenkins, Daniel Swanson, Erin Steitz
Jobs: jobs at linguistlist.org | Conferences: callconf at linguistlist.org | Pubs: pubs at linguistlist.org

Homepage: http://linguistlist.org

Editor for this issue: Joel Jenkins <joel at linguistlist.org>

================================================================


Date: 11-Jun-2025
From: Katrin Stein [katrin.stein at degruyterbrill.com]
Subject: The Anatomy of Avoidance: Dixon (2025)


Title: The Anatomy of Avoidance
Subtitle: A Full Study of Jalnguy, the Dyirbal ‘Mother-in-Law
Language’
Series Title: Anthropological Linguistics
Publication Year: 2025

Publisher: De Gruyter Mouton
           https://cloud.newsletter.degruyter.com/mouton
Book URL:
https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783111464473/html

Author(s): R. M. W. Dixon

eBook ISBN: 9783111464473
Hardcover ISBN: 9783111463056

Abstract:

Speakers of Dyirbal in North Queensland, Australia, have an everyday
language style which has been well described. They also have an
avoidance style, called Jalnguy, which must be used in the presence of
certain ‘tabooed kin’ such as the mother-in-law. Jalnguy has the same
grammar and phonology as the everyday style, but the vocabularies are
entirely different. Jalnguy has only about one-sixth as many lexemes
as the everyday style, with various techniques used to create a
Jalnguy correspondent for each everyday style word. The underlying
semantic system of Dyirbal is thus realised at two levels of
generality and is revealed through detailed study of the
correspondences between them. This monograph is the first
comprehensive study of this in-law avoidance language, providing
fascinating new insights into register variation and the complexities
of kinship in Australian languages.

Linguistic Field(s): Anthropological Linguistics
                     Semantics

Written In: English (eng)



------------------------------------------------------------------------------

********************** LINGUIST List Support ***********************
Please consider donating to the Linguist List to support the student editors:

https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=87C2AXTVC4PP8

LINGUIST List is supported by the following publishers:

Bloomsbury Publishing http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/

Cambridge University Press http://www.cambridge.org/linguistics

Cascadilla Press http://www.cascadilla.com/

De Gruyter Mouton https://cloud.newsletter.degruyter.com/mouton

Edinburgh University Press http://www.edinburghuniversitypress.com

Elsevier Ltd http://www.elsevier.com/linguistics

John Benjamins http://www.benjamins.com/

Language Science Press http://langsci-press.org

Lincom GmbH https://lincom-shop.eu/

MIT Press http://mitpress.mit.edu/

Multilingual Matters http://www.multilingual-matters.com/

Netherlands Graduate School of Linguistics / Landelijke (LOT) http://www.lotpublications.nl/

Oxford University Press http://www.oup.com/us

Wiley http://www.wiley.com


----------------------------------------------------------
LINGUIST List: Vol-36-1849
----------------------------------------------------------