Colloquium: Elena Mihas, James Cook University

Universals and variation in the organization of talk: Evidence from Alto Perené Arawak of Peru

Based on extensive linguistic an ethnographic fieldwork in 2009-2015, this talk will examine a variety of language-specific linguistic resources and generic base of interactional organization in Alto Perene, a small and highly endangered Kampa Arawak language of Peru. The study is relevant to the contemporary research in comparative conversational analysis, linguistics, and linguistic anthropology, which focus on universals of human interaction and the diversity of grammar-culture relationships.

Elena Mihas is a postdoctoral associate in Anthropological Lingistics in the Language and Culture Research Centre of James Cook University. She is the the author of two monographs, ‘Upper Perene Arawak narratives of history, landscape and ritual’ (Nebraska University Press, 2014) and ‘A grammar of Alto Perene (Arawak)’ (Mouton de Gruyter, 2015).