Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-g4j75 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-10T20:41:42.811Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Drunken speech and the construction of meaning: Bilingual competence in the Southern Peruvian Andes1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

Penelope M. Harvey
Penelope M. Harvey
Affiliation:
Institute of Latin American Studies, University of Liverpool
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article examines the language use of drunken speakers in a bilingual community of the Southern Peruvian Andes. When drunk, speakers are less constrained in their linguistic choices by considerations of individual linguistic competence and of differential status between speaker and addressees. Cultural norms of heightened potency and diminished responsibility allow drunken speakers to extend their linguistic repertoires and to challenge established social relations. Spanish and Quechua carry very complex and ambiguous meanings related to local conceptions of power and evaluations of an Hispanic and a pre-Hispanic past. Drunks exploit the ambiguities in implicit social meanings that normally function to maintain the status quo as they use their extended communicative competence to present alternative views on the nature of social relations. (Bilingualism, language and power, social anthropology, South America)

Type
Articles
Information
Language in Society , Volume 20 , Issue 1 , March 1991 , pp. 1 - 36
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1991

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Allen, Catherine. (1978). Coca, chicha, and trago: Private and communal rituals in a Quechua community. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.Google Scholar
Allen, Catherine. (1983). Of bear-men and he-men: Bear metaphors and male self-perception in a Peruvian community. Latin American Indian Literatures 7 (1)138–51.Google Scholar
Allen, Catherine. (1984). Patterned time: The mythic history of a Peruvian community. Journal of Latin American Lore 10 (2): 151–73.Google Scholar
Allen, Catherine. (1988). The hold life has: Coca and cultural identity in an Andean community. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press.Google Scholar
Asad, Talal (ed.). (1973). Anthropology and the colonial encounter. London: Ithaca.Google Scholar
Asad, Talal. (1986). The concept of cultural translation in British social anthropology. In Clifford, James & Marcus, George (eds.) Writing culture: The poetics and politics of ethnography. Berkeley: University of California Press. 141–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bastien, Joseph. (1978). Mountain of the condor. New York: West.Google Scholar
Bell, Michael. (1975). Running rabbits and talking shit: Folkloric communications in an urban Black bar. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre. (1977). The economics of linguistic exchange. Social Science Information 16 (6): 645–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, Penelope, & Levinson, Stephen. (1978). Universals in language usage: Politeness phenomena. In Goody, E. (ed.), Questions and politeness: Strategies in social interaction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 56–289.Google Scholar
Cameron, Deborah, Frazer, Elizabeth, Harvey, Penelope, Rampton, Ben, & Richardson, Kay. (forthcoming). Researching language: Issues of power and method. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carter, William E. (1977). Ritual, the Aymara, and the role of alcohol in human society. In du Toit, B. (ed.), Drugs, rituals, and altered states of consciousness. Rotterdam: A.A.Halkema. 101–10.Google Scholar
Casaverde Rojas, Juvenal. (1970). El mundo sobrenatural en una comunidad. Allpanchis 2: 121–243.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cerrón-Palomino, Rodolfo. (1982). Aula quechua. Lima: Ediciones Signo Universitario.Google Scholar
Cusihuamán, Antonio. (1976). Gramática quechua: Cusco-Collao. Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos.Google Scholar
Delrán, Guido. (1974). El sentido de la historia. Allpanchis 6: 13–28.Google Scholar
Doughty, Paul. (1971). The social uses of alcoholic beverages in a Peruvian community. Human Organization 30: 187–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Douglas, Mary (ed.). (1987). Constructive drinking: Perspectives on drink from anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Earls, John. (1973). La organization del poder en la mitologia quechua. In Ossio, J. (ed.), Ideología mesíanica del mundo andino. Lima: Ignacio Prado Pastor. 395–414.Google Scholar
Escobar, Alberto. (1978). Variaciones sociolingüísticas del castellano en el Perú. Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos.Google Scholar
Escobar, Alberto. (1972). El reto del multilinguismo en el Peru. Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos.Google Scholar
Frake, Charles. (1964). How to ask for a drink in Subanum. American Anthropologist 66: 127–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gose, Peter. (1986). Work, class, and culture in Huaquirca, a village in the Southern Peruvian Andes. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, London School of Economics.Google Scholar
Gow, David. (1976). The gods and social change in the High Andes. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Wisconsin, Madison.Google Scholar
Gow, Rosalind, & Condori, Bernabé. (1976). Kay Pacha (Biblioteca de la Tradición Oral Andina, no. 1). Cusco: Centre de Estudios Rurales Andinos “Bartolomé de las Casas”.Google Scholar
Hage, Per. (1972). Munchner beer categories. In Spradley, J. (ed.), Culture and cognition: Rules, maps, and plans. San Francisco: Chandler. 263–78.Google Scholar
Harris, Olivia. (1978). Complementarity and conflict: An Andean view of women and men. In La Fontaine, J. (ed.), Sex and age as principles of Social differentiation. London: Academic. 21–40.Google Scholar
Harris, Olivia. (1980). The power of signs. In MacCormack, C. & Strathern, M. (eds.), Nature, culture, and gender. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 70–94.Google Scholar
Harris, Olivia. (1982). The dead and the devils among the Bolivian Laymi. In Bloch, M. & Parry, J. (eds.), Death and the regeneration of life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 45–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harvey, Penelope. (1987a). Language and the power of history: The discourse ofbilinguals in Ocongate (Southern Peru). Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, London School of Economics.Google Scholar
Harvey, Penelope. (1987b). Lenguaje y relaciones de poder: consecuencias para una polftica linguistica. Allpanchis 29/30, Año XIX: 105–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harvey, Penelope. (1989). Género, autoridad, y competencia lingüística: participación política de la mujer en pueblos andinos. (Documento de Trabajo no. 33.) Lima: Instituto de Estudies Peruanos.Google Scholar
Harvey, Penelope. (1991). Gender, community, and confrontation: Power relations in drunkenness in Ocongate (Southern Peru). In McDonald, M. (ed.), Gender, drink and drugs. Oxford: Berg.Google Scholar
Heath, Dwight. (1971). Peasants, revolutions, and drinking: Interethnic drinking patterns in two Bolivian communities. Human Organization 30: 179–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heath, Dwight. (1975). A critical review of ethnographic studies of alcohol use. In Gibbins, R., Israel, Y., Kalant, H., Popham, R., Schmidt, W., & Smart, R. (eds.), Research advances in alcohol and drug problems, vol. 2. New York: Wiley. 1–92.Google Scholar
Heath, Dwight. (1987a). Anthropology and alcohol studies: Current issues. Annual Review of Anthropology 16: 99–120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heath, Dwight. (1987b). A decade of development in the anthropological study of alcohol use, 1970–1980. In Douglas, M. (ed.), Constructive drinking: Perspectives on drink from anthropology. 16–69.Google Scholar
Isbell, Billie Jean. (1978). To defend ourselves: Ecology and ritual in an Andean village. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Isbell, Billie Jean, & Roncalla Fernandez, Fredy A. (1977). The ontogenesis of metaphor: Riddle games among Quecfaua speakers seen as cognitive discovery procedures. Journal of Latin American Lore 3 (1): 19–49.Google Scholar
Mannheim, Bruce. (1984). Una nación acorralada: Southern Peruvian Quechua language planning and politics in historical perspective. Language in Society 13 (3): 291–3O9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mannheim, Bruce. (1985). Southern Peruvian Quechua. In Klein, H.E. Manelis & Stark, L. R. (eds.), South American Indian languages: Retrospect and prospect. Austin: University of Texas Press. 481–515.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mariscotti de Gorlitz, Ana María. (1978). Pachamama Santa Tierra: contribución al estudio de la religión autóctona en los Andes centro-meridionales. Berlin: Gebr. Mann Verlag.Google Scholar
Nuñez del Prado, Juan. (1970). El mundo sobrenatural de los quechuas del sur del Peru, a traves de la comunidad de Qotobamba. Allpanchis 2: 57–120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ossio, Juan (ed.). (1973). Ideologia Mesidnica del mundo andino. Lima: Ignacio Prado Pastor.Google Scholar
Parker, Gary. (1969). Ayacucho Quechua grammar and dictionary. The Hague: Mouton.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Poole, Deborah, (n.d.). The choreography of history in Andean dance. Unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar
Price, John. (1975). An applied analysis of North American Indian drinking patterns. Human Organization 34 (1): 17–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Saignes, Thierry. (1989). Borracheras andinas: por qué los indios ebrios hablan en español? Revista Andina 7 (1): 83–113.Google Scholar
Sallnow, Michael. (1987). Pilgrims of the Andes: Regional cults in Cusco. Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.Google Scholar
Silverblatt, Irene. (1987). Moon, sun, and witches: Gender ideologies and class in Inca and colonial Peru. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spradley, James. (1970). You owe yourself a drunk: An ethnography of urban nomads. Boston: Little Brown.Google Scholar
Spradley, James, & Mann, Brenda. (1975). The cocktail waitress: Woman's work in a man's world. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Szeminski, J., & Ansión, Juan. (1982). Dioses y hombres de Huamanga. Allpanchis 19: 187–233.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Urbano, Henrique. (1980). Dios Yaya, Dios Churi y Dios Espíritu: modelos trinitarios y arqueología mental en los Andes. Journal of Latin American Lore 6: 111–27.Google Scholar
Wagner, Catherine Allen. (1978). See Allen (1978).Google Scholar
Zuidema, R. Tom. (1964). The Ceque system ofCuzco: The social organization of the capital of'theInca. Leiden: E.J. Brill.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zuñiga, Madeleine. (1974). La educación Bilingüe y la enseñanza de pronunciación castellana a niños quechua-hahlantes (Documento de Trabajo 29). Lima: Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos Centre de Investigatión de Linguistica Aplicada.Google Scholar