Linguistic Anti-Structure

The organization of face-to-face languages ranges from an extreme positive structuring to an extreme negative structuring. Positively structured language is a context-independent system of arbitrary, clearly defined units. Negatively structured language is a context-dependent system of multi-channeled, partially motivated, ambiguous unit. Negatively structured language must be said to be a primary and fundamental sort of organization insofar as it performs the task of constituting the social group which in turn constructs and employs positively structured language. Positively structured and negatively structured languages are not part of a static typology of language types. Rather they are dialectically related pressures existing within all language communities. Every resolution of the dialectic tension between these pressures is constrained by the social situation of a people. Specifically, a people who are secure in their social unity and social significance will develop a positively structured language. A people who are dominated and thereby made to doubt their social significance will forsake positively structured language in order to focus on their fundamental task of social and cultural self-definition through the use of negatively structured language

Context (archaeology) · Dialectic · Epistemology · Face (sociological concept) · Linguistics · Political science · Sociology · Structuring · Typology · Anthropology · Computer Science · History · Linguistic research and analysis · Psychology · Social Psychology

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• The construction of ethnographic occasions in late colonial Uluguru1

  P Pels•History and Anthropology•1994

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• Introduction

  P Pels, Oscar Salemink•History and Anthropology•1994

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