Ameka, Felix K., & Breedveld, Anneke (2004). Areal cultural scripts for social interaction in West African communities. Intercultural Pragmatics, 1(2), 167-187. DOI: 10.1515/iprg.2004.1.2.167
Taboos reflect the values and the ways of thinking of a society. They are recognized as part of the communicative competence of its speakers and are learned in socialization. Some salient taboos are likely to be named in the language of the relevant society, others may not have a name. Interactional taboos can be specific to a cultural linguistic group or they may be shared across different communities that belong to a speech area, i.e. an area in which contiguous cultural linguistic groups share similar communicative practices.
The authors claim that tacit knowledge about taboos and other interactive norms can be captured using the cultural scripts methodology. The term areal cultural script is introduced to refer to scripts that pertain to an entire speech area. The article describes a number of unnamed norms of communicative conduct that are widespread in West Africa, such as the taboos on the use of the left hand in social interaction and on the use of personal names in adult address, and the widespread preference for the use of intermediaries for serious communication. It also examines a named avoidance (yaage) behaviour specific to the Fulbe, a nomadic cattle-herding group spread from West Africa across the Sahel as far as Sudan.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
