The Reflexivity of Language and Linguistic Inquiry

Duncker, Dorthe

doi:10.4324/9781351060394

Cited by 8 publications

(5 citation statements)

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“…Reflexivity runs deep in human language (Agha 2007;Duncker 2019;Lucy 1999;Taylor 2000), as well as in human interaction (Czyzewski 1994;Enfield and Sidnell 2022;Krippendorff 1989), and it is not found in any other animal communication system (Hockett 1966). Our goal here is to convince you that the consequences of this are significant and that they should be central to any arguments about the evolution of language in our species.…”

Section: IImentioning

confidence: 99%

Consequences of reflexivity in language

Enfield,

Sidnell

2024

Biocultural Evolution: An Agenda for Integrative Approaches

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Language is widely held to underpin cumulative technology and social institutions. We argue that central to this power of language is one under-acknowledged feature: namely, the reflexivity of language. Language can be used to refer to itself. We first define reflexivity in language, and explicate some of the aspects of language that are made possible by it, including names, reported speech, paraphrase, tense, and pronouns. We then argue that the reflexive property of language has had at least three revolutionary consequences for our species: first, reflexivity enables quoted speech, crucial for reach and reputation management; second, reflexivity enables the building of texts, such as the narratives that build common sense-making as well as legal texts that create social realities; third, reflexivity of language enables social accountability, which is indispensable for the creation of social realities—anything grounded in rights and duties, from ownership to political authority. In the final section, we discuss an apparent paradox arising from the claim that metalanguage is a prerequisite for language, and we speculate that practices of repair in interaction (e.g., saying “Huh?” when one person hasn’t understood what another is doing) may constitute a path by which metalanguage precedes language.

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Section: IImentioning

confidence: 99%

Consequences of reflexivity in language

Enfield,

Sidnell

2024

Biocultural Evolution: An Agenda for Integrative Approaches

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“…Previous research finds that ethnographic writing fosters students engagement in meta-linguistic reflection (Rymes, 2014) or reflexivity about their languaging actions as portrayed in their writing (Duncker, 2019). This reflection involves "languaging thinking" about their use of languaging for enacting different kinds of relations (Bloome et al, 2015).…”

Section: Research On Use Of Ethnographic Writing To Foster Reflection On Languaging Actionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Language Matters: Using Ethnographic Writing to Portray and Reflect on Languaging Actions

Beach¹,

Caraballo²

2021

J Adolescent & Adult Lit

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This study examined 12th‐grade students’ portrayals of their use of different types of languaging actions through ethnographic writing about their participation in sports teams or peer groups and explicit prompted reflections about their languaging actions portrayed in their writing. Analysis of different types of languaging actions indicated that students were most likely to portray and reflect on actions related to building supportive relations with others. They also identified actions involving enacting roles/identities, using “insider language,” expression of beliefs/values and emotions/feelings, coping with conflicts, use of humor/joking, assuming leadership roles, and interacting with adults/coaches. These results suggest the value of students using writing to portray and reflect on the use of languaging actions to enact relations with others, reflection that serves to foster growth in their languaging over time. There is also a need for further research on students’ use of writing to portray different types of supportive relations through languaging.

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“…Signs can be recontextualized (repeated, taken up, reconstructed, reanalyzed, etc.) at any time by anybody, but these signs are always new signs for whoever integrates them here and now (Duncker 2019). Integrationists do not distinguish in any strict sense between 'speaker' and 'hearer' to explain communication processes.…”

Section: Onomastics and Integrational Semiology: Names As Contextuali...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Socio(historical) onomastics through the languagephilosophical lens, with reference to early New England titles of civility

Pablé

2021

NOSO

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This paper offers a number of semiological reflections on proper names. It contrasts the Saussurean approach to names with the related socio-onomastic (i.e. Labovian) approach and draws conclusions about their theoretical coherence and empirical viability. It further argues that an ‘informationist’ approach to names, which introduces a conception of the sign compatible with the cognitive sciences, does not advance our understanding of either semiology or onomastics, being fixated on a questionable analogy of the human mind/brain to the computer. Instead, the paper promotes an alternative approach to names based on an integrational semiology as developed by the linguist Roy Harris. The second part of the article revisits a study on colonial New England titles of civility and suggests that sociohistorical onomastics, like socio-onomastics, is founded on a dubious metaphysical assumption concerning the ontology of ‘language’.

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The Reflexivity of Language and Linguistic Inquiry

Cited by 8 publications

References 0 publications

Consequences of reflexivity in language

Consequences of reflexivity in language

How Language Matters: Using Ethnographic Writing to Portray and Reflect on Languaging Actions

Socio(historical) onomastics through the languagephilosophical lens, with reference to early New England titles of civility

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