A Linguistic Anthropological Study Of SWK & MLK In Derung

Linguistic Anthropology is a branch of anthropology which studies linguistic phenomena and language performance.It analyzes how an agent adjusts to the social structure and participates in social construction,as well as how social interaction,development and evolution take place in this process.The Derung,who live in the upper,middle and lower reaches of Dulong River,Gongshan Dulong and Nu Nationality Autonomous County of the Nujiang Lisu Nationality Autonomous Prefecture,have been chosen as the study object of this research.Variations of the language of the Derung which is used in different regions and registers are the starting point of this article.Derung,the agent of the society,is placed in its time-space field.The variations of Derung have been studied and identified as a series of complicated interactions between Drung and different ethnic groups in that region.From the perspectives of dialect variation and register variation,this author analyzes why people from the same ethnic group hold different view towards the same parole system named swaη55kha31(SWK)and mlan 55kha31(MLK)and explains how this divergence took place.Then the author explicates the regional divergence encoded in SWK and MLK from the perspective of language ideology and its social process.Variation is the intrinsic attribute of a language system.Language variation and heterogeneous structure exist in every speech community.These old language phenomena and forthcoming ones have been constructing the new linguistic historic facts.The different living state of language and common features of an alternating series make the holistic existence of language system distinct.In order to understand the society and how this system stays stable or makes changes in the cultural transmission from generations to generations,we should be aware of the key function language plays.The appearance of language at every moment is closely related to its function in a social system and it is the latter that makes language evolve in certain way.The upper,middle and lower reaches of the Dulong River is a relatively closed and independent social circle which is formed and united on the basis of blood and geographical relationship.The social characteristics of the village determine that the change and variation of parole cannot be separated from the inner and outer social and language environment.Because of different migration routes,disparate settlements,varied natural environments and various contacts with different ethnic groups etc.,Derung,who settled in different parts of the Dulong River,presents a great divergence in religion,life style and production model.And it leads to a significant difference in its local dialect and the registers of its parole.Kongdan Village in the middle reaches of the Dulong River is regarded as the dividing line for Derung and its local dialects.Since there is a large difference in their speech,Derung who live in different parts of Dulong River regard each other as different groups.Language is a compound system of the verbal usage which can be observed in a certain language community.There exists a close connection between language and social structure.The existence of a language community and its scale are the characteristics of the social structure.Language contact and transmission,the unity of several independent communities into one large language community and the opposite process are all related to the social structure.By means of multi-sited ethnography and pluralism(the combination of multi-emic and multi-etic ethnography),the author carries out a study on the history,culture,social and linguistic change of Derung who live in different regions of Dulong River.Transcending the traditional way of of doing ethnology,the author starts with the study of the relationship between surrounding minorities and Derung who locate in different regions in the upper,middle and lower reaches of Dulong River,and analyzes the Derung variation of SWK and MLK under the contact of different ethnic groups in Dulong River.By comparing current festival sacrifice activities,the diversity of the original religion and traditional customs in different settlements along the Dulong River,the author analyzes the current language and the social change happening in the communities of Derung inhabitants.From the perspective of Pluralism the author analyzes and explains the causes of the discrepancies and social factors.Through the analysis of the linguistic,cultural and identity changes of the Derung who live in different time and space,the reasons for regional language differences and the separation of the verbal communication in different layers resulting from the differences between social process and social structure,have been worked out.Some regular rules existing in the language variation of SWK and MLK can reflect the object’s consciousness,logic,religion and behavior etc.SWK and MLK are highly generalized and they can symbolize the past and present situation in Derung society at different symbolic levels.They are the "local knowledge" and they are abstract,metaphorical and highly general.SWK equates to the index of Derung’s collective memory.The comprehension of it contributes to the construction of social values and a space-time range.The classifying and setting function of SWK and MLK can transcend different settings.They can present different objects which are away from the present and existing in correlation between time,space and social relations.SWK and MLK can integrate these factors together and form a meaningful community.The analysis and interpretation of the language variation’s differentiation and universal characteristics can explain the divergence between the social structure and culture within different Derung social groups which are located in different regions.The vocabulary change in dialect can,in part,be understood by analyzing the change in regional culture.Through discussing these two factors people can get to know how Derung’ social transformation and language change correlate with each other within their relatively half-closed social environment.Then the author investigates the co-variation between the language variant and non-language factors and tries to find out the nature of language,the rules of language change and the essence of variation.In the social context the aim of studying the variation is to find the "orderly" aspect of language,to explore the general laws of human language,and to give insight into the state of human consciousness.The aim of this study is to understand the social system,the social process and social structure of Derung by studying the use and change of Derung parole.SWK and MLK,which were found by the author in her research,can be used as a symbol which can generalize the variations and discrepancies of Derung living between the upper,middle and lower reaches of Dulong River.According to the classification and interpretation of SWK and MLK,the social and historical causes of these two variations—dialect variation(determined by the language users)and register variation(determined by the use of language)can be explicated clearly.Furthermore,the reasons why the same ethnic group holds different views towards the same set of speech system will be worked out,as well the causes why Derung from different settlements have different views towards each other’s identity.These two kinds of variations reflect the process of language change.Language does not just passively reflect the reality and the pre-assigned pattern of social relationship.Language actively participates in the construction of this physical world.Language variation is an indispensable part of the dynamic evolution of a society.To endow language with variation value is the symbolic expression in which the social values work upon the social structure.The variant is regarded as the carrier of social values;these different types of social context which have meaning exchange are defined by the social structure and they are endowed with importance.Language structure not only reflects the social structure but also represents the social structure.In the creative process language structure actively represents social structure.When we treat language as a set of symbolic sign systems which construct social structure and social behavior,and the real or imaginary symbolic forms of the individual psychology,language which is used as symbolic is endowed with a definite independent meaning index.Through a series analysis and interpretation,three pairs of relations which are contained in SWK and MLK(the symbolic characteristics of language)is presented as follows:separability and dynamics,sacredness(sanctity)and secularity,in-itself and for-itself.Being the metaphors of a social system they keep in a steady state and can be regarded as a highly specific and well-defined representation of social relations and social structure.Though we cannot establish a specific boundary to the time of social change and language change,we can interpret language through its status in the process of a social system.By means of the functions that language undertakes in language evolution we can explicate the intrinsic and inner structure change of Derung and the Derung society.By observing the synchronic variation in language people can explore the current state of language;by observing how the current changes take place in reality,people can infer how changes in the past unfolded;by analyzing the past and current language change people can predict what language changes will take place in the future.This article tries to find the connection between language system and social system via the analysis of social factors of linguistic being,and tries to find the intrinsic universal laws between language and social structure.