PACIFIC LINGUISTICS Series B - No. 90 LINGUISTIC AND MEMORY STRUCTURES IN TAI-LUE ORAL NARRATIVES by John F. Hartmann Department of Linguistics Research School of Pacific Studies THE AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY Hartmann, J.F. Linguistics and memory structures in Tai-Lue oral narratives. B-90, x + 239 pages. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1984. DOI:10.15144/PL-B90.cover ©1984 Pacific Linguistics and/or the author(s). Online edition licensed 2015 CC BY-SA 4.0, with permission of PL. A sealang.net/CRCL initiative. PACIFIC LINGUISTICS is issued through the Linguistic Circle of Canberra and consists of four series: SERIES A - Occasional Papers SERIES B - Monographs SERIES C - Books SERIES D - Special Publications EDITOR: S.A. Wurm ASSOCIATE EDITORS: D.C. Laycock, C.L. Voorhoeve, D.T. Tryon, T.E. Dutton EDITORIAL ADVISERS: B.W. Bender K.A. McElhanon University of Hawaii University of Texas David Bradley H.P. McKaughan La Trobe University University of Hawaii A. Capell P. MUhlhiiusler University of Sydney Linacre College, Oxford Michael G. Clyne G.N. O'Grady Monash University University of Victoria, B.C. S.H. Elbert A.K. Pawley University of Hawaii University of Auckland K.J. Franklin K.L. Pike University of Michigan; Summer Institute of Linguistics Summer Institute of Linguistics W. W. Glover E.C. Polome Summer Institute of Linguistics University of Texas G.W. Grace Malcolm Ross University of Hawaii University of Papua New Guinea M.A.K. Halliday Gillian Sankoff University of Sydney University of Pennsylvania E. Haugen W.A.L. Stokhof National Center for Harvard University Language Development, Jakarta; A. Healey University of Leiden Summer Institute of Linguistics B.K. T'sou L.A. Hercus Murdoch University; Australian National University University of Hong Kong Nguy�n Dang Li�m E.M. Uhlenbeck University of Hawaii University of Leiden John Lynch J.W.M. 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National Library of Australia Card Number and ISBN 0 85883 296 8 IN MEMORY OF VILAWAN HARTMANN 1944-1978 iii PREFACE Wh en , in 1972 , I found my way up to Mae Sai at the northernmost tip of Thailand in search of Lue speakers and singers originally from the Sipsongpanna region of Yunnan , I carried with me a certain amount of theoretical baggage , some of which I soon had to discard . Foremost was the notion that the oral tradition of the Tai-Lue should somehow be like the formulaic type described with such eloquence and romance by A.B. Lord and his mentor Milman Parry . Once returned to the University of Michigan to write up and defend my research , I found it difficult as a doctoral candidate to be in the position to arguing against the two established giants in the field of oral cultures when I wrote (Hartmann 1976b:374) : The findings fail to confirm the Parry-Lord thesis ... which insists on the spontaneous creativity of an unlettered (i.e. "uncontaminated by written tradition") sheep-herding singer of tales. Then I went on , as I do here , to show that A.B. Lord had missed the very import­ ant dimension of memory because he had chosen not to measure it in consecutive recordings as I had . He was , after all , primarily interested in showing the creative capacity of the rustic South Slavic bards , and the suggestion that memory might play as large a part in such language performance , as it indeed does , would stand at odds with this chief aim of his. Shortly after the conclusion of my Tai-Lue fieldwork in Thailand , the works of two students of different oral traditions appeared : Sweeny (1974) and Finnegan (1970, 1974 , 1976) . Since I deal later with the Malay oral tradition detailed by Sweeny , I shall refer here in passing to the work of Ruth Finnegan only . The following quote from her 1976 essay summarises much of my own thinking and conclusions on the importance of memory - as I relate it to language structures - in the Tai-Lue oral genre known as khapl 1++ 6 to sing in the Lue manner: there is no one simple category called "oral literature " •.. but only a complex and relative series of possibilities ... Contrary to the impression of The Singer of Tales and elsewhere that oral poetry is always composed in-performance , this is just not true empirically . There are a number of known cases where the emphasis is on composition before performance , and instances where , contrary to all the expectations so many of us had built up from our reading of Parry and Lord etc., memorization rather than impro­ visation is in fact involved. v vi In Asia, oral learning by rote memorisation has long been a tradition . In Tibet, for example , young monks were chosen as early as the age of six to become doctors of traditional medicine on the basis of their ability to memorise (Avendon 1981) . The four texts , the Medical Tantras, considered to be the 'word of Buddha ' numbered a total of 1,140 pages and took two full years to memorise . To pass the medical exam meant, in part, to be able to recite the texts from memory . But it was all a part of the Tibetan oral tradition , just as it is the Lue tradition to encourage young people to preserve the knowledge and the magi­ cal power of the sung Jatakas through an apprenticeship of immitation and replication of what the individual could remember of what he had heard , read , or what had been read to him by a literate person . It is probably a western bias that compels us to look for creativity and to deny memory in the oral arts. At the same time , it is also a hallmark and an indictment of our own age that we have become a visually oriented society , with an over-reliance on the props that an abundance of paper (books) and plastic (films and tapes) provide , all to the detriment of the development of the human capacity to remember long tracts of language in organised , i.e. structured , form. What Sweeny , Finnegan and myself and others of like mind have to say about how an oral tradition works is derived from the very difficult and most uncomfortable task - especially in the tropics - of going out and doing field­ work . In my case, I fell into it as the natural result of having been taught by two great proponents and practitioners of solid gathering of new data in the field. My strongest encouragement and closest example came from William J. Gedney , professor in charge of my Tai studies at the university of Michigan . It was he who introduced our comparative Tai class to the Tai-Lue dialect through his fieldnotes and data and to the genre of khap l 1++ 6 recorded by him on tape . My second most important mentor and model was Kenneth L. Pike , whose tagrnemic theory has provided me and countless other field linguists a way of giving our data shape and sense. With its strong emphasis on hierarchical structures, Pike 's point of view also provides a bridge to the psychology of memory . The 'macro­ structure ' of narrative memory found in the research writings of Kintsch , for one , is a good illustration of the mirroring of linguistic and psychological frameworks. A third source of inspiration and help in critical moments came to me from Alton Becker , one of my professors at Michigan , who was also a former student of Kenneth Pike . Becker has since gone beyond his tagmemic beginnings to develop a theory of text analysis of his own - The New Philology - which has attracted attention (Geertz 1980) and a number of followers (Schafer 1978 , Zurbuchen 1979) . In preparing the manuscript of this book for publication I have had the help and encouragement of many people. Most helpful in the revision stage was without doubt the critical reading given by David Bradley . Anthony Diller and David Strecker supplied me with important information and references on things current in Tai linguistics. It was Ladd Thomas and Donn Hart who brought me to the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at Northern Illinois University to teach and do research and who have been a source of constant support. As is usually the case , it is one's family who shares most in the sacrifice - and success - that research and writing entail . My two young children , Wanda and Billy, suffered neglect at times. Yet they shared in the knowledge and experience of making a contribution , however small , to the world of learning . I knew that I had finally succeeded in impressing my six-year-old son of the vii importance of what I was doing , even though deep down he wanted me out playing ball with him, when , after one of my more productive days, I came downstairs wrung out from revising to see a carefully hand-lettered sign he had put up at the bottom of the stairs: "Do not go up thair . John Hartmann is working!" A final note of thanks is due to the support received through a Fulbright­ Hays grant for conducting the original fieldwork in Thailand .