What allows certain individuals and groups to maintain control over the actions and lives of others? Linguistic anthropologist Elizabeth Keating went to the island of Pohnpei, in Micronesia, and studied how people use language and other semiotic codes to reproduce and manipulate status differences. The result is this inside view of how language works to create power and social inequality. This book challenges widely held theories on the nature of social stratification, including women's roles in creating hierarchy."Keating's extensive use of video frames accompanying linguistic interaction and her clear transcriptional practices certainly make this book methodologically exemplary."--Anthropological LinguisticsKeating looks at the relationship between a number of variables in Micronesia: (language, power, social space, and genes), and how they interact to create and maintain the political hierarchy. In particular she looks at how the honorific speech (involving chiefs and cheiftesses) encodes relationships of `power sharing' in regard to ownership of resources. Keating shows in particular how women have an important role in constructing discourse about honour and thus create connections between the political hierarchy and positive emotional states. Her work makes a contribution to the study of how gender and power are created, negotiated and perpetuated in language.What allows certain individuals and groups to maintain control over the actions and lives of others? linguistic anthropologist Elizabeth Keating went to the island of Pohnpei, in Micronesia, and studied how people use language and other semiotic codes to reproduce and manipulate status differences. The result is this inside view of how language works to create power and social inequality.
show more 
show less