CLIC Speaker Abstracts

Laura Ahearn (Anthropology, Rutgers University): "From Grammar to Love?" April 2, 2008, 5pm. Place: Haines Hall 352.

In this paper, first I explore some definitions for the concept of agency proposed by various theorists such as Anthony Giddens, Sherry Ortner, Alessandro Duranti, and Paul Kockelman. To shed further light on what can seem an unworkably vague or abstract set of ideas, I present Nepali love letters as an ethnographic example of how close linguistic analysis can help us understand the intricacies and specificities of different communities' theories of agency. In particular, I look at 35 letters written by two Nepalis in order to determine whether the ergative (also called "agentive") markers they placed on pronouns might reveal how the two writers were thinking about their own and the other's agency. I also explore "meta-agentive discourse"--explicit talk about agency--that shows up in the letters so as to illustrate the shift that has been occurring in the community members' ideas about agency as it is enacted (or not) in the realm of courtship and marriage. In sum, the talk will be about language, agency, and romantic love.