I love watching the Dalabon recordings we've made. They're pretty much all on video, so indeed I watch (as well as listen). Apart from all the wonderful language content, and material for analysis, I find looking at these recordings to be a really transporting experience. It takes me back to the session when we made the recording, and, more often than not, I realise more of what was going on in the interaction than I was cognisant of at the time. I also cringe a lot at
a) my laugh,
b) what I perceive as being inappropriate laughter on my part,
c) the poor timing of my questions (I often realise later in the watching that I've cut off a speaker just as they were about to say something probably highly insightful),
d) my language errors, and
e) poorly-thought-out elicitation strategies.
But what I like most about watching these recordings is the humour, and the human-ness of the interactions. Like just now I'm transcribing one, where I'd probably pushed the session longer than any of us could really cope with. It comes up in lots of improvised interactions which are about 'giving up' and being short tempered! These are met with rousing laughter each time :)
The length of the session also shows up in my contributions. The Dalabon expression for talking on the phone is:
Ngah-yang-birdihka fon
1sg>3-word-enter phone
'I'm speaking on the phone (lit. 'I'm entering my words into the phone')'
I tried to elicit a sentence to do with the use of demonstratives (modifying the nominal fon), and wasn't paying much attention to the rest of the sentence. I said:
Ngah-birdihk-iyan kanh fon
1sg>3-enter-FUT that phone
'(lit. 'I will enter that phone')'
LB patiently explained what I'd said - in a mock school teacher voice - and then tried to mime me taking to the person on the other end of the line from inside the phone! We all fell about laughing. Shortly afterwards we called it a day - and not a moment too soon!
Monday, June 16, 2008
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1 comments:
Yo, I would like to know what kind of incredible things I say in language. For example, I learned recently that woh is actually a noun (can't remember what) and has been recorded in the dictionary as such...and I realise I have not heard it as an affirmative interjection. This leads me to believe that when people have looked at me quizzically when I say "woh" in agreement, I couldn't be saying "stick-insect" or "sticky nodule on the behind of a bullock" or "licence-issuing-authority at Tokyo Train Station" (Tookyoo tokkyo kyoka kyoku is the Japanese translation). It's wonderful that that speaker and another I know go so far as to correct us especially with their awesome humour.
Hindsight is incredible. So is the strength of one's own culture and how it informs our interactions (cutting off people when they're telling us useful things). A man from Minyerri (sounds like a Film title) was so kind as to give me a stern talk on the nature of Kriol and when kahnun kirdikird made a comment to change the subject he simply cut her off. I was honoured that he had such important things to say to me.
I need to be careful about reading your blog in internet cafes. PEople don't usually understand why one is rolling around breathless with laughter.
tuneless_lunacy
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