Gladkova, Anna (2015). Ethnosyntax. In Farzad Sharifian (Ed.), The Routledge handbook of language and culture (pp. 33-50). New York: Routledge.
Abstract:
The author provides an account of research on ethnosyntax, the study of how syntax, including morphology, encodes culture. Maintaining that the theoretical foundations of ethnosyntax were laid by Sapir and Whorf, she makes a distinction between a narrow and a broad sense of ethnosyntax. Ethnosyntax in the narrow sense explores cultural meanings of particular grammatical structures, whereas ethnosyntax in the broad sense examines how pragmatic and cultural norms influence the choice of grammatical structures. Several examples are provided for each approach. As an example of morpho-syntax encoding cultural meaning, the author presents the case of Russian, where address forms often reveal attitudes of endearment and intimacy encoded by a diminutive. As an example of the second broader sense, she compares request speech acts in Russian and English, and examines how these languages employ different grammatical structures to perform the same speech act and how this usage is compatible with broader cultural norms.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
