| Based on sociolinguistic and ethnographic data obtained through the investigator's ten-month field research among a group of Tibetan refugees in Kathmandu, Nepal, the dissertation examines a multiplicity of meanings associated with uses of evidential verbs in Modern Spoken Tibetan. Evidentials in Tibetan constitute the core of the language's verbal system and exhibit a close relationship between grammar and discourse. Previous studies of evidentiality in Tibetan and elsewhere have put a primary emphasis on normative functions of these forms gathered almost exclusively from data elicitation techniques. To complete the vital social aspect of this study of evidentials, the researcher has investigated, through a number of dialogues and metapragmatic discussions with the native speakers, heterogeneous meanings of evidentials in a wide range of discourses such as conversations, folktales, and personal stories. Another major concern of the dissertation is the study of how children conceptualize evidential contrasts, and to what extent language socialization plays a role on children's acquisition of these linguistic forms.;It is argued from the outcome of the research that evidentials are not only used to indicate the source and reliability of knowledge, but are also used to convey various functions depending on social situations in which speakers find themselves. As demonstrated in the ways children talk and are socialized, evidentials, like other linguistic tools, are pragmatically contested and can be skillfully manipulated.;The study calls for a non-autonomous model of syntactic analysis that treats language as a social form of life and thus gives significance to the interplay between form and meaning. In its extensive discussion of the methodology of data collection and its proposal to redefine crucial concepts related to field research, such as field, data, and informant, the study bridges the gap between linguistics and other social science disciplines. |
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