10 2 The Story Begins The following story was told on a hot day, whilst people were sitting on a low-lying salt flat, in the sun. We had just previously returned from the mangroves, having collected a large amount of ku thali (“longbums”, Telescopium telescopium) and ku warrgi (“mangrove worms”, Teredo spp.), and had sat down to have a cup of tea and feast on the haul. Where the transcribed passage commences, I was walking away from the feasting group, leaving the flash-ram recorder running, so as to record the conversation. Present were two senior women, Phyllis and Elizabeth, three of Elizabeth’s granddaughters – two teenagers (AC and MC), and a third granddaughter in her twenties, JC. Also present was JD, the husband of JC (also in his twenties). Elizabeth is a traditional owner of the place we were visiting, in that the area forms part of the estate of her patrilineal clan.4 The immediately preceding talk was about the name of the country and about which way the old foot-tracks used to go. Fragment 1 On the Flat (2005-07-05JB01) !"!! ! ! #$%&'(! !'!! )*+,! -./0.!1*.23,!4566.67.2!63859//+.:" This might be where they fought with spears. !;!! <,5=! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!#>>!>>>!>9!$9%! !&!! ! ! #$%;;(! !?!! )*+,! @.A.B!C2.!67.//.673!1*36773!4566.26385//+3%! Isn’t that right? But which way was that shooting? !D!! ! ! #!%D(! E$!! )*+,! F5=.8G1%H! EI!! <,5=! HJG+¿! E!!! ! ! #$%"?(! EE!! )*+,! K.%6+5/0.!+.6.!45,.245!67.,,.!67.%! Right here on the big salt plain, hey. E"!! ! ! #%(! E'!! <,5=! 0.!67.,,.%! The big one ((salt plain)). E;!! ! ! #$%!"(! E&!! )*+,! -3!4.673A.673%! The thing(s) of the “ku” class, over that way. E?!! ! ! #$%!'(! ED!! LM!! #1*.65A34!-.6+52.65A.673(!!>!>!>!>!>!>!>!>!>!>!>!"! (You can sit down over here) xxxx xx . "$!! <,5=! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!#&6+565-.!8G/G!45/%051N$&2G%H2G/G!! "I!! ! ! 1NG!432.8.1N-.!6+560.%&! That happened a long time ago. They won't know about that. "!!! ! ! #$%I"(! "E!! )*+,! OP.¿*! 4 See §3.3.3. 11 Huh? ""!! ! ! #I%!(! "'!! )*+,! P.9%!%-./03+50.!4300.6.+51N1*.43/65+.%! Oh! They used to tell the story. ";!! ! ! #$%;(! "&!! <,5=! L2%! "?!! )*+,! Q.!63-363-.!256775!+5,G+5,G!2.267.//36752G%! Minggi's own father told us. "D!! ! ! #I%'(! There are two important issues that emerge from this fragment. The first is the question of how is it that stories get told, and in particular how they start off. The second is the question of referential problems, how do they emerge and how do they get resolved. Nice as it would be to separate these issues, in this fragment and in the two that follow, they are inextricably intertwined. Unlike formal storytelling, Murriny Patha conversational narratives do not (generally) start because someone announces that they have a story to tell.5 In this Murriny Patha corpus, stories usually commence because they are touched off either by something in the prior talk, or by the setting in which speakers find themselves. Stories tend to unfold spontaneously as their telling becomes relevant. All of the conversations transcribed in this dissertation were recorded in the bush, some 20 or 30 kilometres from Wadeye, usually on visits to the traditional estates of my consultants. Each transcribed conversation has a number of spontaneously produced narratives. Since my consultants have lived in the area for all of their lives, they have lots of stories and anecdotes about people and events that have some relevance to the places we were visiting. Very often the country itself seems to touch off a story.6 Indeed the corpus would suggest that storytelling is a proper and legitimate activity to be performed whilst in the bush. Conversational narratives are ephemeral, fragile entities. They are vulnerable to incursion – this may be a mere momentary interruption or it may be a complete takeover by another story. Storytellers can become distracted by children, animals, food, and generally other goings-on. Stories may recommence after a while or they may become obliterated by other events as the talk unfolds. At times the would-be 5 That is, in the conversational data storytellers tend not to make a fanfare about having a story to tell, and tend not to begin with any formal structures that literally announce a story (e.g., Once upon a time…, There was this guy…, etc.). Having said that, storytellers frequently employ story prefaces that, in a veiled way, pragmatically herald a story as forthcoming. By contrast, in formal narratives storytellers regularly employ formal narrative initiating devices (e.g., line 1 of Fragment 26, p. 144). 6 Fragment 1 is a case in point (lines 25 and 28). 12 audience don’t pay attention. It can be an effort for a storyteller just to maintain a plot. Because of this, establishing reference in conversational narratives can be a long, confusing and convoluted process. Like any other problems in conversation, referential problems may be resolved after a while, or they can prove to be insurmountable. The referential problems that emerge in this passage spring (at least in part) from a lack of attention being paid to Phyllis, the initial narrator of the story, by her story consociate7, Elizabeth, in the initial unfolding of the narrative. This lack of attention results in Phyllis’s attempts to prompt Elizabeth to tell the story being misconstrued by Elizabeth as Phyllis soliciting permission to tell the story. The passage shows that sometimes certain hearers conceive of referents differently to others, and differently also to how the speaker conceives of what he or she is referring to. The narrator of the story makes a particularly elliptical reference (line 37) that later results in a considerable amount of confusion for both audience and narrator alike. Two particular hearers of this culprit referential expression have very different degrees of access to the referent that the speaker has in mind. In fact one of them has much more knowledge of what the speaker is talking about (indeed more than the speaker) and the other much less. Significantly, the hearer with less knowledge is still able to track the referent without knowing who (or possibly even what) the speaker was talking about.8 The passage is also remarkable in that it demonstrates how large referential problems can be ultimately resolvable. Both the elliptical reference and the subsequent tracking of the referent need to be understood within the context of the first narrator’s attempts to secure a greater contribution from her story consociate towards co-telling the story, or even taking on the role of primary storyteller. On conversational storytelling, Lerner (1992: 257) writes: “[t]he story preface is a site for displaying one’s alignment to the projected story. It thereby provides a locus for working out who will do the story on a particular occasion.” In line 25 of this first 7 In multiparty speech, where more than one conversationalist has prior knowledge of the story being told, narratives tend to be collaboratively co-constructed. This is particularly true of Murriny Patha conversation. As such, narratives may have one or more co-tellers who take on roughly equal roles in the telling; or they may have a primary teller and one or more “story consociates”. A story consociate (Lerner 1992) is a knowledgeable participant who plays a lesser role in the storytelling (minor additions, correcting points of fact, anticipatory laughter etc.). These roles are not static in that a story consociate can take on a larger role and become a co-teller of the story, or even take over primary tellership and become the main teller. 8 As we will see in due course, this has cognitive implications for just how referents are conceived of by speakers and hearers. 13 fragment, Phyllis, rather than tell the story herself, tries to solicit the story from Elizabeth with a story prompt, “this might be where they fought with spears’.9 Elizabeth is a few years older than Phyllis and knows more than her about the events and individuals involved.10 As a traditional owner she also has more authority than Phyllis to speak about events that took place on her own clan’s estate. The mumbled utterance in line 26, that overlaps Phyllis’s turn (line 25) shows that Elizabeth is not paying full attention to what her friend is saying (and therefore is not orienting to what she is doing with her talk). Indeed she seems to be mumbling something to herself and not really listening attentively.11 The lack of uptake from Elizabeth produces a second more direct story prompt (line 28, “Isn’t that right? But which way was that shooting?”), since it specifically targets Elizabeth as the only person present old enough to be able to answer the direct question. The ensuing 2.9 second silence (line 29) and the Hey¿ in line 31, in response to Phyllis’s direct call for her attention (line 30), further show that Elizabeth wasn’t paying attention to her friend.12 Thus Phyllis’s first two attempts to prompt Elizabeth to tell the story are in vain. Furthermore, it seems subsequent attempts to solicit the narration are not perceived in the light in which they were intended. In line 37, Phyllis produces a nominal predication, ku panguwangu, “the thing/things of the ku class, over that way”. The nominal classifier ku has a very broad range of denotata (animates, flesh, meat, game, dead bodies, non-aboriginal human beings, spirits, totems, totemic sites, money, women’s genitalia). Bare nominal classifiers make very vague referential expressions because they often function like 9 Lerner (1992) suggests there are three types of story prefaces in conversational storytelling: the story prompt, the story provocation and the reminiscence recognition solicit.