Language and the frontiers of the human

Aymara animal-oriented interjections and the mediation of mind

Bibliographic Data

ID2279359
AuthorsBenjamin Smith (0000-0003-1215-4093, University of Chicago, corresponding author)
Year2012
Volume39
Issue2
Pages313-324
Publication date2012-05-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAmerican Ethnologist (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0094-0496 • E-ISSN: 1548-1425
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/j.1548-1425.2012.01366.x
OpenAlexW1913425888
LanguageEN
Citations received16
References cited28

In this article, I offer an analysis of Peruvian Aymara speech directed toward sheep and alpacas, children, and marbles (specifically, the use of "animal-oriented interjections"). The use of these forms positions addressees as reduced (quasi) agents and thereby mediates Aymara ideologies about the scaled or graduated character of those enminded beings that regularly act as addressees. Ultimately, the analysis reveals an Aymara human-nonhuman frontier that requires attention to both the interactional encounters sustained across perceived ontological divides (divides understood to turn on species and ethnodevelopmental difference, etc.) and the (scaled) character of the ideologies that renders these divides "ontological."[humans, animals, childhood, materiality, semiotics, mind, Andes

Mediation · Social science · Sociology · Anthropology · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies · Language, Metaphor, and Cognition · Multilingual Education and Policy · Philosophy

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