The Interrelationship of Cultural Information, Linguistic Structure, and Symbolic Representations in a Halbi Myth
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THE INTERRELATIONSHIP OF CULTURAL INFORMATION, LINGUISTIC STRUCTURE, AND SYMBOLIC REPRESENTATIONS IN A HALBI MYTH by Frances Margaret Woods Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Arlington in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT ARLINGTON July 1980 Copyright © Frances Margaret Woods 1980 All Rights Reserved To My Dear Halbi Friends in Bhatpal Village. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This work brings to fruition many years of association with the people of Bhatpal village in Bastar District or Madhya Pradesh, India. I wish to express my thanks to them for their love and patience toward me in my seemingly futile efforts to learn their language and to function within their cultural setting. Special thanks go to Sonmati and her sister who adopted me as their younger sister and thus provided me with an extensive family. Their sons (and mine) Durga Ram Kasyap and Chingaru Ram Baghel have proved to be very faithful and competent language helpers and I thank them. I also would like to thank Betsy Barry, my co-worker prior to her marriage, whose continuing interest and encouragement have been much appreciated. I also thank my friend Paulette Hopple, whose willingness to listen and criticise, through all stages of this study, has contributed immeasurably to its completion. I express deep gratitude to Robert E. Longacre, my guide and mentor through many years, without whose guidance and encouragement this work would not have come to its present shape. My thanks are also due to Marvin Mayers, William Merrifield, Frederick Vidal, and Luanne Frank for their substantive suggestions and editorial help along the way and to Bob Chaney for his help in the mechanical formatting. Finally, I thank Edna Jane Travis and all my many friends and colleagues whose continuing practical support have made this possible. 11 May 9, 1980. iv ABSTRACT THE INTERRELATIONSHIP OF LINGUISTIC STRUCTURE, CULTURAL INFORMATION, AND SYMBOLIC REPRESENTATIONS IN A HALBI MYTH. Publication No. ________. Frances Margaret Woods, Ph.D. University of Texas at Arlington, 1980. Supervising Professor: Robert E. Longacre. The mythology of the Halbi people reveals and reflects their cognitive orientation (and, in the process, validates their cultural values). The Halbis' myths are expressed through the linguistic form of narrative discourse but mere analysis of the form of the discourse provides only a fragmentary understanding of the content. As a result, linguistic analysis is only part of discourse analysis. Discourse analysis also calls for an analysis of the cultural setting and of the dynamic interplay between the culture and language in terms of the message (or meaning) of a given myth within a given culture. This study represents an attempt to reach a satisfactory understanding of a single myth by examining the cultural information, linguistic structure, and symbolic representations in one Halbi myth. The cultural information in this myth may be typical or atypical of the Halbis' culture. Culturally typical information may be made explicit or left implicit depending upon the narrator's intent. Culturally atypical information may represent the Halbis' perception of another culture or may be atypical of any culture. The interplay of these kinds of cultural information within the myth, while providing cohesion and prominence in the text, also serves to contrast participant with participant and contributes directly to the development of the plot (in both its narrative and didactic aspects). Chapters 1 through 3 describe these various kinds of cultural information. The myth is a narrative discourse and this study examines its linguistic structure in terms of both the high level constituent structures (discourse, episodes, embedded discourses, and so forth) and the non-hierarchical features (eventline, participant reference, and so forth). The narrative structure develops to a linguistically well-defined narrative peak that represents the climax of the entertainment aspect of the discourse. Chapters 4 and 5 describe the linguistic structure of the myth. The symbolic representations described include the following considerations. Firstly, the role of both the myth's participants and props in the Halbi culture and the extension of that role to their roles in the myth results in a significant impact on the message by providing strong validation for it. Secondly, various rhetorical structures (such as v oppositions, reflections, and mirror images), while providing cohesion and prominence to the text, also contribute to the development of the participants in their symbolic roles in the myth as the message is developed. Finally, consideration of the message itself reveals the development of a didactic plot that develops to a didactic peak. This didactic peak contrasts with the narrative peak. Chapters 6 through 8 describe the symbolic representations in the myth. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................. IV ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................. V LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................ X LIST OF TABLES ......................................................................................................... XI ABBREVIATIONS ........................................................................................................XII INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................... 1 0.1 Halbi ............................................................................................................................................. 1 0.2 A Typology of Halbi Tales ............................................................................................................. 2 0.3 Storytelling in Raj Murea Society ................................................................................................. 4 0.4 The Corpus and the Context ......................................................................................................... 5 0.5 Presuppositions and Findings ....................................................................................................... 6 0.6 Synopsis of the Myth .................................................................................................................... 6 PART ONE: CULTURAL ASPECTS OF THE MAHA LAKHI MYTH ...................................... 9 CHAPTER 1: EXPLICIT-TYPICAL ASPECTS OF THE MYTH ............................................. 10 1.1 Life Cycle .................................................................................................................................... 11 1.2 Time and Daily Activities ............................................................................................................ 15 1.3 Social Relationships .................................................................................................................... 16 1.4 Material Culture ......................................................................................................................... 21 1.5 Belief System and World View ................................................................................................... 22 1.6 Functions of Explicitness ............................................................................................................ 28 CHAPTER 2: IMPLICIT-TYPICAL ASPECTS OF THE MYTH ............................................. 31 2.1 Life Cycle .................................................................................................................................... 31 2.2 Time and Daily Activities ............................................................................................................ 32 2.3 Social Relationships .................................................................................................................... 33 2.4 Material Culture ......................................................................................................................... 36 vii 2.5 Belief System ............................................................................................................................. 37 2.6 Other Implicit Aspects of the Myth ............................................................................................ 38 2.7 Functions of Implicitness ............................................................................................................ 39 CHAPTER 3: ATYPICAL ASPECTS OF THE MYTH ......................................................... 41 3.1 Aspects Typical of Other Cultures ............................................................................................... 41 3.2 Aspects of the Myth Atypical of Any Culture .............................................................................. 48 3.3 Functions of Atypicality .............................................................................................................. 57 PART TWO: LINGUISTIC ASPECTS OF THE MAHA LAKHI MYTH .................................. 59 CHAPTER 4: NON-HIERARCHICAL FEATURES OF THE MYTH ..................................... 60 4.1 Eventlines and Events ................................................................................................................ 61 4.2 Background