University of California Los Angeles Making Language The Ideological and Interactional Constitution of Language in an Indigenous Aché Community in Eastern Paraguay A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology by Jan David Hauck 2016 © Copyright by Jan David Hauck 2016 Abstract of the Dissertation Making Language The Ideological and Interactional Constitution of Language in an Indigenous Aché Community in Eastern Paraguay by Jan David Hauck Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology University of California, Los Angeles, 2016 Professor Paul V. Kroskrity, Chair This dissertation develops a theoretical and empirical framework for the analysis of the ideological and interactional constitution of language. It discusses the process of “making language,” namely, how language emerges as an object of speakers’ attention, the historical processes leading to this type of language consciousness, and the interactional means through which it is achieved and becomes recognizable and analyzable. Integrating work on language ideologies, phenomenology, language so- cialization, practice theory, conversation analysis, and the ethnographic description of ontologies, this work offers insights into the underlying mechanism of how language becomes a meaningful entityin the lifeworld of its speakers. Focusing on the constitution of language opens up new avenues for the investigation into its onto- logical status. Language is here understood as an equivocation that might index potential referential alterity. Individual languages need not always be tokens of the same type and thus arbitrary and trans- latable. Language and languages are specific objects that result from the socialization of speakers into conceiving of and attending to particular communicative practices as languages. To analyze the constitution of language, the dissertation introduces the concept of metalinguistic repair, understood as the deliberate replacement of a term from one code with a semantically equivalent ii term from another in ongoing interaction. Together with other metalinguistic strategies in language play and language teaching, metalinguistic repairs are theorized as phenomenological modifications by which the code is highlighted and language is constituted as an object that is distinct from the speaker, the meaning, and the context of the utterance. The consequence of these modifications is what is called here enlanguagement, a term from studies of pidgin and creole genesis that is redefined to designate the process through which speakers are oriented to notice particular pragmatically salient linguistic features as belonging to different languages, thereby constituting these as distinct entities. This work is based on ethnographic research in an indigenous Aché community in Eastern Paraguay. It draws on five years (2008–2013) of language documentation work with the Aché, as well as one year (2013–2014) of in-depth language socialization research in one Aché community through video- recordings of children’s everyday interactions, interviews, and participant observation. The Aché are a recently settled hunter-gatherer collective, currently experiencing language shift from their heritage language, Aché, to a Paraguayan national language, Guaraní. The presently dominant medium of communication in the communities is a mixed code, using elements from Aché and Guaraní. The context in which the Aché children grow up is unique and ideal for this study, because despite the fact that language differences are not relevant in everyday interaction since language mixing isthe default mode of communication, the children do attend to them in everyday conversation and play. Through spontaneous repairs and corrections, the deliberate use of specific forms, and discussions about language, they demonstrate an awareness of the linguistic code as a distinct aspect of language use. Such situations are analyzed in detail as key moments in which “language” and “languages” are created. The Aché children do not merely use different languages that are somehow already constituted as given entities in their lifeworld. Rather, by employing a multiplicity of linguistic resources in their everyday interactions they end up making language and languages and making them over. This dissertation bridges the domains of ideology and interaction in order to provide an integrated account of how language emerges as a cultural and historical product on the one hand, and as an interactional achievement on the other. iii The dissertation of Jan David Hauck is approved. Marjorie Harness Goodwin John Heritage Elinor Ochs Sherry B. Ortner C. Jason Throop Paul V. Kroskrity, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2016 iv To the Aché children, may you never stop making language … And to Teru (Djakugi), for the joy you bring into our joint exploration of the makings of language. v Table of Contents Introduction ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 1 Metalinguistic Awareness and Phenomenological Modifications . 5 Language Ideologies . 9 History, Socialization, and Ontology . 15 Overview of the Dissertation . 22 1 The Aché and Their Wor(l)ds ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 24 1.1 The Languages of Paraguay . 25 1.2 A Brief Ethnolinguistic History of the Aché . 28 1.3 Approaching Guaraché . 31 1.3.1 Linguistic Differences of Aché and Guaraní . 33 1.3.2 Transcriptions . 35 1.3.3 Everyday Language Use of Aché Children . 37 1.3.4 Mixed Codes and Codeswitching . 55 1.3.5 Language Contact and Convergence . 61 1.4 Language Endangerment and Activism . 66 1.5 Fieldwork and Research Methodology . 68 1.5.1 Selection of Fieldsite . 69 1.5.2 Selection of Focal Families . 71 1.5.3 Ethnographic Fieldwork . 72 1.5.4 Interviews, Meetings, and Radio Sessions . 75 1.5.5 Data Management and Transcription . 77 vi 2 What is Language? :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 78 2.1 The Idea of Language . 81 2.1.1 The Modern Invention of Language . 83 2.1.2 Ideological Purification and Indexical Hybridization . 84 2.2 Language in the Amerindian Imagination . 87 2.2.1 Humanity and Nonhumanity in the Indigenous Americas . 88 2.2.2 Language and Amerindian Ontologies . 91 2.2.3 Linguistic Asymmetries and Nonequivalences . 93 2.3 Arbitrariness and Indexicality in Amerindian Language Ideologies . 100 2.4 No Nature, No Culture, No Language? . 102 2.5 Of Words, Souls, and Word-Souls . 109 2.5.1 The Word-Soul-Nexus among the Guaraní . .110 2.5.2 Souls and Names among the Aché . 111 2.5.3 Endolanguage . 114 3 The Origin of Language among the Aché ::::::::::::::::::::::::: 121 3.1 Language as an Object of Discourse . 122 3.2 Theorizing Change . 129 3.2.1 The Structures of Practice . 131 3.2.2 Reproduction and Transformation . 134 3.3 Becoming Aché . 137 3.4 Encountering the Other . 138 3.4.1 First Encounters . 139 3.4.2 Captors and Captives . 141 3.4.3 A Consequential Decision . 144 3.5 Becoming Paraguayan . 146 3.5.1 Capturing New Aché . 146 vii 3.5.2 Language Contact and Shift . 154 3.5.3 Objectifying Language and Culture . 157 3.5.4 Humiliation and Discontinuous Change . 168 3.6 Becoming Christian . 170 3.6.1 Teaching the Word of God . 171 3.6.2 Post-millennial Purification and Hybridization . 179 3.7 Cultural (Re-)Invention and Language Activism . 181 4 Language as an Interactional Achievement :::::::::::::::::::::::: 186 4.1 Socializing Language Attention . 187 4.2 Metalinguistic Repairs and Language Play . 192 4.2.1 Repairs for the Anthropologist . 192 4.2.2 Shifting Frames in Play . .202 4.2.3 Enacting Roles . 207 4.2.4 Correcting Pronunciation . 214 4.3 Language, the Lifeworld, and its Modifications . 217 4.3.1 Constitution and Intentional Modification . 218 4.3.2 The Lifeworld in the Natural Attitude . .220 4.3.3 The Phenomenology of Language . .221 4.4 The Phenomenological Modification of Language . .223 4.5 Enlanguagement . 225 4.6 Constituting Language in the Classroom . 227 4.7 The Interactional Emergence of Language . .242 Conclusion :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 248 Bibliography ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 253 viii List of Figures 0.1 Semantic and pragmatic meaning . 13 0.2 The code as a distinct aspect . 14 1.1 Children with carrying baskets passing over natural bridge . 42 1.2 Sketch of surroundings of family homes . 73 1.3 Sketch of village . 74 1.4 Children washing food . 76 2.1 Wild honey . 115 4.1 Baby tapir . 198 4.2 Playing volleyball . 206 4.3 Story on blackboard . 228 4.4 Carrying baskets, nokõ ................................... 239 ix List of Tables 1.1 Person markers and pronouns . 39 1.2 Functional Morphemes . 62 x Transcription Conventions For the transcription of naturally occurring discourse and words from the languages used in the Aché communities I use the following conventions: Transcription Symbols Transcriptions of naturally occurring discourse follow mainly the conventions established by Sacks, Schegloff, and Jefferson (1974), M. H. Goodwin (1990, 25–6), Ochs, Schegloff, and Thompson(1996, 461–5), and Jefferson (2004a, 2004b). The table here is meant to serve as a basic orientation tothe reader. See chapter 1 for further explanations of transcriptions. Symbol Description ::: Elongated sounds (number of colons is relative to duration of sound); ;;; Elongated sounds in creaky voice; [ Onset of overlap; [[ Onset of overlap through simultaneous start; = Latching speech; – A dash at a final word boundary indicates a cut-off or drop-out; (.) Micropause (silence of less than .2 seconds); (.4) Pause (number indicates silence