Negotiating Kinship: the language of intersubjectivity in an Australian culture

Abstract

The goal of this paper is to give the reader a sense of the rich varieties of discourse through which speakers of the Australian language Pitjantjatjara enact their social relations. The brief sketch here is based on a fuller survey in Rose 2001, using the tools of systemic functional linguistics (SFL) for relating language to its social contexts. The discussion involves three steps: firstly, an outline of the options for enacting interpersonal meanings in Pitjantjatjara, in its systems of MOOD and MODAL ASSESSMENT, secondly, an outline of the system of social relations in Pitjantjatjara culture, governed by the kinship system, and finally, examples of exchanges between various kin, illustrating how the interpersonal potential of the language realizes dimensions of the social system in varying patterns of discourse.