Evidential Strategies Research Articles

Japanese reportive evidentiality and the pragmatics of retelling

This paper presents an analysis of the functions of reportive evidential coding in spoken Japanese narrative retelling. Studies of Japanese evidentiality have focused on semantic and pragmatic properties of the range of grammaticalized forms which convey evidential meanings (e.g. Aoki, 1986; Ohta, 1991; Kamio, 1994). There has been less emphasis on why particular evidential forms are selected in specific discourse contexts and how that selection affects the evidential interpretation of the information. The study discussed in this paper differs from previous studies of Japanese evidentiality by taking a particular discourse context, narrative retellings of other people's personal experiences, as the starting point of the investigation. It uses this context to explore not only the frequency of evidential coding in this context but also the range of evidential strategies that are used by retellers when they report information that they know by virtue of hearing it from someone else. The results support a fine tuning of current models of evidentiality in Japanese (esp. Kamio's, 1994, 1995, 1998 theory of ‘Territory of Information’) to take into account not only the presence and absence of overt evidential coding but also the motivations of speakers to choose particular evidential strategies.

Performing the Past in Electronic Archives: Interdependencies in the Discursive and Non-Discursive Ordering of Institutional Rememberings

This paper examines interdependencies in the discursive and non-discursive ordering of institutional memory in organizational settings. Issues of what happens to historical consciousness in the time of modern technology are examined with reference to how the past is used in the context of electronic archiving of email in corporate cultures. Drawing from ideas in the work of Martin Heidegger concerning interdependencies between the use of technology and the arts of the mind, we examine how the truth of matters is more than an issue of correspondence between language and reality, and more than the rhetorical deployment of what counts as true in establishing stake and interest. We analyse how the work of ordering the archive, which is driven by current projects in the organizations studied, takes place alongside the discursive work of remembering. We illustrate how, without the non-discursive labour of forging relations between components, there is no possibility of playing out evidential strategies that dominate the rhetorical performance of the past. What we call ‘mind’ and what we call ‘society’ emerge in this dual ordering. This dual work of ordering occurs through the joint operation of discursive and non-discursive practices, which together produce remembering and forgetting in a way that draws upon cultural resources at the same time as making sense in the flow of interaction, experiences and events.

Logophoric Marking and Represented Speech in African Languages as Evidential Hedging Strategies

Logophoric Marking and Represented Speech in African Languages as Evidential Hedging Strategies

Material Culture: A Research Guide

This collection of essays brings together six distinguished scholars to examine the progress, problems, and potential of material culture studies in America. From the perspective of their respective disciplines--cultural geography, vernacular architecture, American studies, the history of technology, the decorative arts, and folklife studies--these widely respected authorities survey the major material culture research of the past two decades and assess the most creative and innovative work-in-progress. Thomas J. Schlereth's introductory chapter provides a critical analysis of material culture evidence, articulating the distinctive quality of such data and focusing on the problematic nature of doing research with objects rather than with written records. The chapters that follow, five of which originally appeared in 1983 in a special issue of American Quarterly, represent a succinct summary of those fields and subfields of material culture scholarship that are at the cutting edge of current research. The volume includes an expanded, up-to-date bibliography that will be of use to a wide range of scholars. Today American material culture studies remains a field where the most innovative work is occurring at the local or regional level. The essays in this volume suggest, however, that such work will be part of the wider evidential base and broader interpretive strategy out of which a new synthesis may develop.