Evidentiality

Roque, Lila San

doi:10.1146/annurev-anthro-102218-011243

Cited by 10 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 145 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…whether they have seen something, inferred it, or been told about it) (see, e.g. Aikhenvald, 2004;Chafe & Nichols, 1986;San Roque, 2019). However, a review of the literature on evidentiality reveals extreme diversity in the types and complexities of evidential systems (see, e.g.…”

Section: Evidentiality and Flexibility Of Source Reportingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evidentiality and flexibility of source reporting

Castelain¹,

Floyd²,

Mercier³

2019

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The reporting of the sources of our statements—whether we have, e.g., seen something or been told something—plays an important role in communication. The inaccurate reporting of sources is often associated with the spread of inaccurate beliefs, as when rumors are attributed to a non-existent credible source. Experiments have revealed that participants display a substantial amount of flexibility in the reporting of sources, in particular by attributing to themselves ideas they have acquired from others. However, these participants belonged to large-scale societies, and they spoke languages without grammatical evidential marking. Both factors might increase flexibility in source reporting. To test whether members of small-scale societies speaking languages with evidential marking also display flexibility in source reporting, we conducted two experiments with Quichua and Cha’palaa speakers in Ecuador. In both experiments, some participants acquired a belief through social transmission, and then had to communicate this belief to another participant. In doing so, very few participants mentioned the social source of their belief, whether explicitly, or by using the relevant evidential markers. These results show that flexibility in source reporting is a cross-culturally robust phenomenon, and that grammatical evidential marking does not appear to strongly affect this flexibility.

show abstract

Section: Evidentiality and Flexibility Of Source Reportingmentioning

confidence: 99%