Abstract
The following article intends to be a contribution to the study of conflict talk, based on materials in the Shina language from radio dialogues broadcast in the 1980s. Shina is an Indo-Aryan language of the Dardic group. Shina has been studied by linguistically interested scholars since the nineteenth century and more intensively in the twentieth century.2 The first attempts to develop it as a literary language were made in the 1960s. Gilgiti Shina, the language used in the radio features, is spoken in the fertile valley of the Gilgit River, with the greatest number of speakers living in the environs of Gilgit town, Northern Pakistan. Gilgit is a major hub for mountaineering expeditions to the Karakoram. Its population is of various ethnic affiliations, and besides Shina several other languages are spoken, some of them not genetically related to Shina. Most of the inhabitants of Gilgit are Muslim. The stress of the article is on how facethreatening is dealt with in conflict discourse with two participants. In the process it will be shown how discourse strategies familiar from western languages and ancient rhetoric and culturally determined tendencies combine to form a distinctive argumentative style. It is suggested that the character of the radio dialogues is such as to help radio listeners reflect on the role of the people of Gilgit in modern times against the background of their cultural, religious and social heritage.
Highlights
ALMUTH DEGENER affiliations, and besides Shina several other languages are spoken, some of them not genetically related to Shina
It is suggested that the character of the radio dialogues is such as to help radio listeners reflect on the role of the people of Gilgit in modern times against the background of their cultural, religious and social heritage
3 “Radio Pakistan began broadcasting in Shina from Rawalpindi in 1949 and from Gilgit in 1979.” (Kohistani/Schmidt 2006, 140)
Summary
The linguist Barbara Johnstone has categorized persuasive strategies as quasi-logical, presentational, or analogous. In this sense, both participants of the Shina radio dialogues prefer presentational reasoning. Both participants of the Shina radio dialogues prefer presentational reasoning Their strategy is not to adduce logical-sounding arguments which start with words like “because” or “”. Instead, they try to make the other participant literally “see” the truth by moving and involving him. The aim is to make the hearer feel that this idea is already established and worthy of confidence After such an enumeration of several times much the same idea the trangpha asks: “Have you understood this?” (Dialogue 2.2, quoted above). That the presentational strategy is an accepted mode of arguing and leads to this kind of understanding, is borne out by Taaj’s reaction, who (despite continuing dissent) answers: parúdus, parúdus “I have understood, I have understood.”
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