A Multi-Modal Study of Spatial Language in Hawu in Typological Perspective

Abstract

This dissertation is a comprehensive study of the state of research on language and space in Malayo-Polynesian languages as well an in-depth study of the multimodal expression of space in Hawu (ISO 639-3 hvn), a language spoken in East Nusa Tenggara (NTT), Indonesia. The goals of this work are to 1) provide a typological overview of absolute spatial orientation and demonstrative systems in Malayo-Polynesian languages; 2) discuss the approaches to the study of spatial language and what this has revealed about patterns of spatial orientation in the Pacific; 3) outline methods of spatial orientation in Hawu; 4) describe the grammar of pointing gestures produced by Hawu speakers; and 5) understand how Hawu speakers utilize both modalities when they communicate about space. The typologies presented in the first two chapters reveal that speakers of Malayo-Polynesian languages use a variety of spatial orientation strategies that are motivated by features such as the genetic relationship to other languages, environment, landscape, culture, people's individual interactions with the world around them, and a variety of other factors. These motivating features have resulted in absolute orientation strategies that are based in at least six environmental features including the land and sea, coastlines, elevation, rivers, wind patterns, and the path of the sun. Demonstrative systems are similarly diverse. They vary based on who may serve as the deictic center, which may include just the speaker or both speaker and addressee. Some systems may also differentiate distance on horizontal and vertical axes. These typologies further reveal a distinct lack of gesture studies on Austronesian languages. The work on Hawu is based on a corpus of approximately 24.5 hours of audiovisual data. This work shows that within the corpus, speakers rarely use absolute orientation. Hawu speakers primarily rely on a demonstrative system of ten terms for spatial orientation. The system is based on features such as distance from speaker, number, the speaker's knowledge about the referent, and whether the referent is being individuated. The study of pointing supports this analysis and further shows that speakers are more likely to produce a point alongside a distal demonstrative. However, speakers more often employ speech and gesture opportunistically, thus relying on both modalities to effectively communicate about space. Through this dissertation, I hope to bring attention to the impressive amount of work that has been conducted on language and space in Malayo-Polynesian languages, but I also hope to highlight the areas that have thus far been overlooked. I further aim to highlight the revealing role that gesture may serve in language description and particularly in the analysis of language and space.