Eloquence in Trouble captures the articulation of several troubled lives in Bangladesh as well as the threats to the very genres of their expression, lament in particular. The first ethnography of one of the most spoken mother tongues on earth, Bangla, this study represents a new approach to troubles talk, combining the rigor of discourse analysis with the interpretive depth of psychological anthropology. Its careful transcriptions of Bangladeshi troubles talk will disturb some readers and move others--beyond past academic discussion of personhood in South Asia.
Author(s): James M. Wilce
Year: 2003
Language: English
Pages: 304
Contents......Page 14
Transcription Conventions......Page 16
Cast of Key Characters Presented......Page 18
1. Troubling Ourselves with Bangla Troubles Talk......Page 24
2. Listening in Matlab: Where Troubles Talk Led Me......Page 47
3. Signs and Selfhood......Page 55
4. Personhood: The "I" in the Complaint......Page 65
5. Self and Indexicals: Language and Locus of Control......Page 101
6. Learning to Tell Troubles: Socialization of Crying and Troubles Telling......Page 125
7. Icons and Icon Indexes: Complaint Practices and Local Views......Page 140
8. Troubles Talk and Social Conflict......Page 155
9. Interacting with Practitioners......Page 175
10. Metacomplaints: Conflict, Resistance, and Metacommunication......Page 203
11. The Pragmatics of Madness: Performance and Resistance......Page 221
12. Legitimacy, Illegitimacy, and Madness in Bangladesh......Page 245
13. Troubles Talk and Its Troubling (and Troubled) Eloquence......Page 254
Appendix: Transcribing Matlab Speech......Page 264
Notes......Page 270
References......Page 296
B......Page 314
E......Page 315
I......Page 316
L......Page 317
N......Page 318
R......Page 319
T......Page 320
Y......Page 321
