Abstract
A fine-grained analysis of the transcript of a Bangladeshi woman's lament is used to argue for an anthropology of "madness" that attends closely to performance and performativity. The emergent, interactive production of wept speech, together with the conflicting use to which it is put by the performer and her relatives, is linked problematically to performance genres and to ethnopsychiatric indexes of madness. Tuneful weeping is taken by relatives to be performative of madness, in a sense something like Austin's. Yet, exploration of the divergent linguistic ideologies which are brought to bear on the lament not only enables more nuanced ethnographic treatment but also has reflexive ramifications for medical and psychological anthropology. This leads to a critique of the referentialism in our own treatment of language. The role played by transparent reference is overshadowed by indexicality and by dialogical processes of proposing and resisting labels for speech genres attributed to the "mad.".
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1-54 |
| Number of pages | 54 |
| Journal | Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry |
| Volume | 22 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| State | Published - Mar 1998 |
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ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Psychiatry and Mental health
- Social Sciences (miscellaneous)
- Anthropology
Cite this
The pragmatics of "madness" : performance analysis of a Bangladeshi woman's "aberrant" lament. / Wilce Jr, James M.
In: Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry, Vol. 22, No. 1, 03.1998, p. 1-54.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article
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TY - JOUR
T1 - The pragmatics of "madness"
T2 - performance analysis of a Bangladeshi woman's "aberrant" lament
AU - Wilce Jr, James M
PY - 1998/3
Y1 - 1998/3
N2 - A fine-grained analysis of the transcript of a Bangladeshi woman's lament is used to argue for an anthropology of "madness" that attends closely to performance and performativity. The emergent, interactive production of wept speech, together with the conflicting use to which it is put by the performer and her relatives, is linked problematically to performance genres and to ethnopsychiatric indexes of madness. Tuneful weeping is taken by relatives to be performative of madness, in a sense something like Austin's. Yet, exploration of the divergent linguistic ideologies which are brought to bear on the lament not only enables more nuanced ethnographic treatment but also has reflexive ramifications for medical and psychological anthropology. This leads to a critique of the referentialism in our own treatment of language. The role played by transparent reference is overshadowed by indexicality and by dialogical processes of proposing and resisting labels for speech genres attributed to the "mad.".
AB - A fine-grained analysis of the transcript of a Bangladeshi woman's lament is used to argue for an anthropology of "madness" that attends closely to performance and performativity. The emergent, interactive production of wept speech, together with the conflicting use to which it is put by the performer and her relatives, is linked problematically to performance genres and to ethnopsychiatric indexes of madness. Tuneful weeping is taken by relatives to be performative of madness, in a sense something like Austin's. Yet, exploration of the divergent linguistic ideologies which are brought to bear on the lament not only enables more nuanced ethnographic treatment but also has reflexive ramifications for medical and psychological anthropology. This leads to a critique of the referentialism in our own treatment of language. The role played by transparent reference is overshadowed by indexicality and by dialogical processes of proposing and resisting labels for speech genres attributed to the "mad.".
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M3 - Article
C2 - 9657058
AN - SCOPUS:0032015871
VL - 22
SP - 1
EP - 54
JO - Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry
JF - Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry
SN - 0165-005X
IS - 1
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