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Linguistic play in its cultural context

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2026

Harold C. Conklin
Harold C. Conklin*
Affiliation:
Columbia University
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Extract

Methods of modifying the normal patterns of speech for purposes of entertainment or concealment are perhaps universal. Where such practices abound in both type and incidence, one may assume that considerable cultural importance is associated with the contexts in which they occur, and that the statuses of the most frequent users are also of particular significance. The following is a brief analysis of the linguistic and sociocultural aspects of such a situation recently noted in the Philippines among the Hanunóo.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 35 , Issue 4: October-December , December 1959 , pp. 631 - 636
Copyright
Copyright © 1959 by the Linguistic Society of America

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References

1 The materials analyzed in this paper were recorded in 1952-4, and checked in 1957. During these periods I was engaged in ethnographic and linguistic field work, facilitated by grants from the SSRC, the Ford Foundation, the National Science Foundation, and the Columbia University Council for Research in the Social Sciences.

2 The consonants in Hanunóo are /ptkbdgmnŋlrshqyw/; of these, /q/ is the glottal catch. The vowels are /i u a/. Vowel length is indicated by /·/. All /C/ occur singly between vowels and in syllable-initial or in syllable-final position, with the following exceptions: /q h/ do not occur before /C/, and /y w/ do not occur in syllable-final position after /i u/ respectively.

3 For a statement regarding a similar pattern of speech modification in another Philippine language, see my paper on Tagalog speech disguise, Lg. 32.136-9 (1956).