The Language of Dispute Managment in the Kingdom of Tonga

抽象叙事语言可以从不同的角度进行研究：作为一种形式对象，作为一种认知能力，作为一种文化产物，作为一种社会交往的媒介。这里提出的项目属于后一类。作为一项被称为交际民族志的研究，这里提出的研究是基于这样一个前提，即对语言在实际使用中所呈现的形式和形式与意义的关系的解释是在语言被用于的社会用途中找到的。这项研究的重点是语言使用的一个类别，即争议管理，这已经受到了交际民族志学者的相当大的关注，因此，这是一个日益增长的理论框架的主题，本研究将与之相关。这项拟议的研究将提供一个新的维度，即考察一种语言和一种文化中的语言使用情况，这种语言和文化在显著方面与西方文化截然不同，而以往许多关于这一主题的研究都是在西方文化中进行的。这项研究的地点将是汤加，这是一个位于太平洋西南部的岛国，拥有波利尼西亚语言和文化。汤加拥有西方和本土机构的混合机构，用于正式解决争端，包括法院、地方会议或城镇会议和教会。汤加语包括疑问句和引语等普遍模式，也包括局部特定模式，如取决于对话者和被谈话者的社会地位的不同说话水平，这些模式被用来在争端处理过程中以复杂的互动方式确定修辞效果。该项目的重点将是理解、描述和解释这些语言模式在使用它们的社会环境中的作用。首席研究员是一位主要的人类学语言学家，她在整个职业生涯中为传播的民族志做出了许多重要贡献。在过去的几年里，她一直将注意力集中在法律环境中的语言使用上。因此，这里提出的项目以自然的方式建立在她正在进行的研究之上。

Abstract Narrative Language can be studied from a variety of perspectives: as a formal object, as a cognitive capacity, as a cultural artifact, as a medium of social interaction. The project proposed here falls into the latter category. As a study in what has been called the ethnography of communication, the research proposed here is based on the premise that the expla- nation of the forms, and form-meaning relations, that language takes on in actual usage is to be found in the social uses to which the language is being put. The study focuses on one category of language use, dispute management, which has received considerable attention already from ethnographers of communication, and therefore is the topic of a growing theoretical framework to which this study will be related. The new dimension which the proposed study will pro- vide is examination of linguistic usage in a language and a culture fundamentally different in salient respects from the western cultures in which much of the previous research on this topic has taken place. The locale of the research will be Tonga, an island nation in the southwest Pacific with a Poly- nesian language and culture. Tonga has a mixture of western and indigenous institutions for formal resolution of disputes, including the court, the fono or town meeting, and the church. The Tongan language includes universal patterns such as inter- rogatives and quotations, and also locally specific patterns such as distinct speech levels depending on the social status of the interlocutors and the person being talked about, and these are used to definite rhetorical effect in complex inter- active ways in the dispute management process. The focus of the project will be to understand, describe, and explain these linguistic patterns in terms of the social settings in which they are used. The Principal Investigator is a leading anthropological linguist who has made a number of important contributions throughout her career to the ethnography of communication. For the past few years she has been focusing her attention on the uses of language in legal settings. The project proposed here thus builds in a natural way on her ongoing research.