Dissertation Research: A Linguistic Analysis of Tzeltal Maya Ethnosymptomatology

这项研究项目涉及一名语言人类学研究生的论文研究，他将在墨西哥南部的一个玛雅印第安人社区研究疾病言语的语义。该项目基于结构化访谈和词典编纂技术，是第一次集中研究语言符号和症状的整体语义特征的尝试之一。研究人员将选择50种健康状况来深入研究症状(患者感觉如何)和体征(观察者看起来如何)。研究人员将分析这些数据中的语义模式，并将其置于对该社区的语义的其他分析(植物学和民族药物学语义域)的背景下，并将其与其他邻近社区的言语模式进行比较。这项研究之所以重要，是因为在任何社会中，在文化背景下理解医学问题是解决健康问题的关键因素。对这一案例的深入理解将有助于建立疾病语义学的一般理论。记录和保存土著民族医学知识是保护全球生物多样性的重要组成部分。

This research project involves the dissertation research of a graduate student in linguistic anthropology who will study the semantics of illness speech in a Mayan Indian community in southern Mexico. The project, based on structured interviewing and lexicographic techniques, represents one of the first attempts to concentrate on the overall semantic characteristics of language signs and symptoms of a group. The researcher will select 50 health conditions for in-depth study about symptoms (how it feels to the afflicted person) and signs (how it appears to observers). The researcher will analyze the semantic patternsin this data and place it in the context of other analyses (of botanical and ethnopharmacological semantic domains) of this community's semantics, as well as comparing it to other near-by community speech patterns. This research is important because understanding of medical problems in their cultural context is a crucial factor in addressing health issues in any society. In-depth understanding of this one case will help build general theory on the semantics of illness. Recording and preserving indigenous ethnomedical knowledge is an important part of preserving global biodiversity.