Abstract
Ways of talking about diseases, ailments, convalescence, and well-being vary from language to language. In some, an ailment 'hits' or 'gets' the person; in others, the sufferer 'catches' an ailment, comes to be a 'container' for it, or is presented as a 'fighter' or a 'battleground'. In languages with obligatory expression of information source, the onslaught of disease is treated as 'unseen', just like any kind of internal feeling or shamanic activity. Different stages of disease — covering its onset, progression, wearing off, recovery, and cure — form ‘the trajectory of well-being’. Our main focus is on grammatical means employed in talking about various phases of disease and well-being, and how these correlate with perception and conceptualization of disease and its progression and demise. I offer a brief taxonomy of grammatical schemas and means employed across the languages of the world. I then turn to a study of terminologies and grammatical schemas employed in the trajectory of well-being in Tariana, an Arawak language from north-west Amazonia (Brazil), with special focus on cultural and cognitive motivations. The emergence and spread of the COVID-19 pandemic has affected ways of speaking about this disease among the Tariana, especially with regard to the origins and the onset of this affliction.
Highlights
HOW TO CITE AIKHENVALD, Alexandra Y. (2021)
Eu ofereço uma breve taxonomia de esquemas gramaticais e meios empregados em todas as línguas do mundo e, em seguida, ofereço um estudo de terminologias e esquemas gramaticais empregados na trajetória de bem-estar em Tariana, uma língua aruák do noroeste da Amazônia (Brasil), com especial enfoque nas motivações culturais e cognitivas
How can we capture the nature of traditional attitudes and thoughts about the origins of adverse conditions through language? How are diseases understood to be inflicted and spread? What are the patterns involved in describing traditional healing practices and ‘getting better’, as the patient recuperates? And can the emergence of new diseases — such as COVID-19 — affect the linguistic practices?
Summary
Ways of talking about the basic experiences of ailments and disease, and various stages of well-being, involve a number of conventionalised syntactic patterns. These patterns are captured by the notion of a grammatical schema The recurrent structures of predicative possessive expressions can be accounted for by a number of event schemas including action, location, companion, and source The linguistic expressions to do with ailments and diseases may belong to a variety of word classes. Potential correlations between the choice of a schema and stages of well-being are the topic of §1.3
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