On Speaking Terms

Avoidance Registers and the Sociolinguistics of Kinship

Luke Fleming

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English

University of Toronto Press
12 January 2025

Sociolinguistics; Social & cultural anthropology; Psychological methodology

Series: Studies in the Anthropology of Language, Sign, and Social Life

Why are kin, in societies all over the world, divided into 'joking' and 'avoidance' relations? Foundational figures in the human sciences, from E. B. Tylor and A. R. Radcliffe-Brown to Sigmund Freud and Claude Levi-Strauss, have sought to explain why some classes of kin are normatively expected to prank and tease one another while others must studiously avoid each other's presence. In this extensively researched comparative study, linguistic anthropologist Luke Owles Fleming offers a bold new answer to this problem.

With a particular focus on avoidance relationships, On Speaking Terms argues that in order to understand cross-cultural convergences in the patterning of kinship-keyed comportments, we must attend to the sociolinguistic codes through which kinship relationships are enacted. Drawing on ethnographic data from more than one hundred different societies, the book documents and analyses parallels in the linguistic and non-verbal signs through which avoidance relationships are experientially realised. With dedicated discussions of Aboriginal Australian 'mother-in-law languages,' name and word tabooing practices, pronominal honorification, and non-verbal strategies of interactional and sensorial avoidance, it reveals recurrent sociolinguistic patterns attested in kinship avoidance. In demonstrating the vital role of sociolinguistic codes for transforming kinship categories into phenomenologically rich relationships, On Speaking Terms makes an important contribution to the anthropology of kinship.

By: Luke Fleming
Imprint: University of Toronto Press
Country of Publication: Canada
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm, Spine: 25mm
Weight: 1g
ISBN: 9781487549701
ISBN 10: 1487549709
Series: Studies in the Anthropology of Language, Sign, and Social Life
Pages: 296
Publication Date: 12 January 2025
Audience: College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , Primary , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Introduction: The Total Orientation Part I: Proscriptive Regimes of Language and Avoidance Registers 1. Avoidance Lexicon, Everyday Grammar: Why Words Are Good to Proscribe 2. Many to One: Lexicon Asymmetries in Avoidance Registers Part II: The Sounds of Reference: Name Taboos 3. Name Registers: A Sociolinguistic Kind 4. Rigid Performativity: Cross-Cultural Convergences in Name Registers Part III: The Anti-phatic Function: Interactional Avoidances 5. Not on Speaking Terms: Closing and Re-routing Channels of Communication 6. Out of Touch: Sensory Avoidances and the Multimodality of Mutuality Part IV: The Pattern That Connects: Avoidance Registers as Scalar Honorific Formations 7. The Pragmatic Suspension of Semantic Distinctions: Honorific Pronouns in Kinship Avoidance 8. Degrees of Unfreedom: Formal Encompassment and the Structure of Avoidance Levels Conclusion: The Mutuality of Being Apart References Index

Luke Owles Fleming is an associate professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Montreal.