Preliminary results of the research in textual cohesion were presented at the Third International Workshop on
Information Structure of Austronesian Languages, held at the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies.
Referential cohesion and textual variation in Bunun. Invited talk at the Third International Workshop
on Information Structure of Austronesian Languages, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, Tokyo, Japan, 18-20 February 2016.The presentation was not published in the proceedings, because elements of it are currently reworked into an article.
Referential cohesion and textual variation in Bunun
The Third International Workshop on information structure in Austronesian languages
• ± 50,000 ethnic members, speaker numbers dwindling
– Christianity and the Bunun language
• Christian texts as innovated genres
International Workshop on “Special Genres”
in and around Indonesia, ILCAA, 2013 (see De Busser 2013)
• “relations of meaning that exist within the text , and that define it as text” (Halliday &
Hasan 1976: 4)
• “the set of resources for constructing relations in discourse which transcend grammatical structure” (Martin 2001: 35)
• “a property of a language segment that assists language users in interpreting this segment as a semantically and pragmatically coherent
– Interacting with, but not identical to comprehensibility / coherence
ES.: […] Nothing to be done.
VL.: […] I'm beginning to come round to that opinion. All my life I've tried to put it from me, saying Vladimir, be reasonable, you haven't yet tried everything. And I resumed the struggle. […] So there you are again.
ES.: Am I?
VL.: I'm glad to see you back. I thought you were gone forever.
ES.: Me too.
VL.: Together again at last! We'll have to celebrate this. But how? […]
Get up till I embrace you.
ES.: […] Not now, not now.
（Samuel Beckett, 1953, Waiting for Godot: Tragicomedy in 2 acts) ES.: Estragon VL.: Vladimir
46
Cohesion
• Cohesion is said to be an indicator of text type / style / genre / …
• What does this mean?
– Differences in referential elements?
– Differences in cohesive complexity?
– Differences in chain length?
– Which text types / styles / genres?
– Cross-linguistic variation?
Referential cohesion
• Referential relations under identity – Pronominal and deictic reference – Reiteration
– Metaphor and metonymy under identity – Meronymy, holonymy, hyponymy, hyperonymy
[A] But, when it wasn’t really evening yet, Tiang had returned, he had come back from the mountain and told us: [B] “Well, tomorrow is possible, two of us will have to go together, and disperse when we get to this place, and we will climb upwards to the deer that is in that place above. [C] A, if he will go in that direction, he will get stuck there, without a way out.” [D] But Big Atul forbade us: “no, when it has become morning, it will have left, it will have been frightened. [E] Well, it will not be there anymore, it will be gone, it will have run away during the night.”
(TVN-008-002:130-134)
47
Analysis: Bible text
[A] Philip went down to the city of Samaria, and he talked to the people living there in those days about the life of Christ. [B] The people that had gathered there listened carefully to what Philip said. [C] They listened to his words and saw his works that were difficult to believe. [D] Many filthy spirits yelled and came out from these people into the world; many who were comatose or crippled were healed. [E] Everybody that belonged to the city of Samaria was happy.
(BIB-BUB-NT-ACT-007:38.2-38.6 / Acts 8:5-8)
Comparison
Oral narrative (TVN-008-002)
Bible translation (BIB-BUB-NT-ACT-007)
No. of words 51 62
References 24 20
Ref. / # words .4706 .3226
No. of chains 7 9
Avr. chain length 3.4286 2.2222
Med. chain length 2 1
Comparison
Word class of the Reference
Oral narrative
(TVN-008-002) Bible translation (BIB-BUB-NT-ACT-007)
anaphoric marker 3 0
demonstrative article 3 0
demonstrative pron. 3 0
place word 3 0
manner word 0 0
noun 4 10
numeral 1 0
personal pronoun 1 3
time word 4 0
verb 1 7
48
Comparison
• This is a dialect-related factor
– Spatio-temporal reference (oral > bibl.) – Exophoric reference (oral < bibl.)
• Preliminary research
Conclusion
• What has cohesion to do with information structure?
– H&H: semantics not really – Pragmatics not really
– Martin: discourse structure yes, but – Information structure seems about right
• Cohesion as referent tracking++
– Cohesion ~ coherence?
– Cohesion ~ topic continuity?
Bibliography
De Busser, Rik. Under review. Spatial deixis, textual cohesion and functional differentiation: The case of Takivatan Bunun. Oceanic Linguistics.
De Busser, Rik. 2015. The role of Bunun deixis in information structure:
An initial assessment. Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Information Structure of Austronesian Languages, 127–140. Tokyo:
ILCAA, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies.
De Busser, Rik. 2013. The influence of Christianity on the Bunun language: A preliminary overview. Proceedings of the International Workshop on “Special Genres” in and around Indonesia, 59–76. Tokyo:
ILCAA, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies.
Halliday, M. A. K. & Ruqaiya Hasan. 1976. Cohesion in English. London:
Longman.
Martin, James R. 2001. Cohesion and texture. In Deborah Schiffrin, Deborah Tannen & Heidi E. Hamilton (eds.), The Handbook of Discourse Analysis, 35–53. Malden: Blackwell.
49
Thank you for your attention
50
52
Conference paper 2: Concept of God
A second paper presented first results of the comparative database component of the project at the Biennial Conference of the Pacific History Association in Guam.
Introducing God to the indigenous people of Taiwan. Talk at the Pacific History Association 22st
Biennial Conference (PHA 2016), University of Guam, Guam, 19-21 May 2016.Introducing God
• Approx. 85 % are Christian
(Lardinois & al. 2004:114) – Presbyterian
– Catholic
Christian missionaries in Taiwan
• First wave: 17thcentury – Dutch: Protestantism
• 1624: East India Company arrives near Tainan
• 1627: Candidius starts mission in Siraya village of Sinkan
• 1662: Surrender to Koxinga
– Spanish: Catholicism
• 1626: Spanish arrive near Tamsui with two Dominican missionaries
• 1642: Spanish are driven from Formosa by the Dutch
Christian missionaries in Taiwan
• First wave: 17thcentury
– Dutch protestants & Spanish Catholics
• Second wave: 19thcentury – now – Catholic Church
• 1859: Dominicans return to Kaohsiung – English Presbyterian Church
• 1865: James L. Maxwell arrives in Tainan – Canadian Presbyterian Church
• 1872: George L. MacKay arrives in Tamsui
Christian missionaries in Taiwan
• Austronesian Taiwan
– 1931: Illegal proselytization starts in Taroko
– After WWII: Officially sanctioned access to Indigenous areas
• Relatively rapid conversion
• No comprehensive overview of the proselytization activities of individual missionaries
Bible translations
• Mid 1940s onwards
• Nowadays, translations are mostly coordinated by the Bible Society in Taiwan
• Complex process involving a translation team – Foreigners, Han Chinese, locals
– Coordinator, translators, language consultants, consultant theologians – Translation cycles
53
Bible translations
• Bunun
1949 Bunun Story of Noah's Flood
1951 Bunun Matthew
1955 Bunun Luke
1959 Bunun Acts
1962 Bunun Timothy 1-2
1983 Bunun Abbreviated NT
1990 Bunun (Takivatan) Parallel partial NT
1993 Bunun Jonah, Micah
2003 Atayal Partial OT, Complete NT
Bible translations
1969 Paiwan Sermon on the Mount
1973 Paiwan NT
1993 Paiwan Partial OT, Complete NT
Conceptual indigenization
• Christianity brings a new conceptual universe
• These concepts are introduced through language
“… the reliance on indigenous categories to translate Christian concepts during the proselytizing process has significant bearings on how Christianity is adopted.” (Yang 2008:70)
Questions
• How are introduced Christian concepts translated (or otherwise expressed) into the target language?
– Which linguistic strategies are used?
– How do these strategies fit in with traditional cultural concepts?
– How do these strategies change the language?
– How do the conversion history and translation process influence this process?
Questions
• How are translations produced?
– What motivates certain translation choices?
• Personal or institutional ideologies
• Earliest or longest contact with missionaries
• Access to information
• …
– How do these choices influence the interpretation of Christian concepts?
54
The data
• Translation equivalents of common concepts
– Based on KJV frequency lists
• … in translations of the Bible
– Greek, Latin, English, Japanese, Chinese – Bunun, Atayal, Paiwan, (Siraya)
• Today: God
God in Taiwan
• Concept of a monotheistic Christian god
• Conceptual innovation
• Encodings in King James Version 1. Lord (7830 tokens) 2. the LORD God (464 tokens) 3. Jehova (4 tokens) 4. God (4442 tokens)
55
Terms for God
• Adaptation of indigenous concepts
• With the exception of
Bunun 2000 Paiwan Atayal
Sasbinaz ‘Lord’ Malailaing ‘leader’ Mrhuw ‘Lord’
Sasbinaz Dihanin
‘Lord in Heaven’
Cemas ‘spirit’ Mrhuw Wagiq ‘Lord most High’
Tama ‘Father’ Mrhuw Wagiq Utux Kayal
‘Lord Most High Spirit in Heaven’
– Mostly based on existing indigenous terms – Conceptual-semantic transfer from source
to target language
Where from?
• How are these terms exactly selected?
– Conceptual transfer: Selection of terms to refer to God is influenced by previous translations
• Chinese > Japanese > English
– Conceptual reinterpretation: But the terms for God themselves are largely indigenous
• Cross-linguistic differences in how the concept of God is encoded through different terms
God in Taiwan
• Different terms for God represent slightly different meanings
– E.g. Lord vs. Father
• Equivalent terms exist between languages
• But the distribution of these terms throughout the Bible is different for each language
God in Taiwan
• Heavy reliance on Mandarin
• To a lesser extent on Japanese
• To an even lesser extent by English
• But almost never by Greek or Latin
• Although…
56
God vs. gods
• Christian monotheistic God vs. non-Christian gods
• Common term in – Greek, English
• Different terms in:
– Japanese → Bunun, Atayal
• Different terms for gods and image:
– Latin → Chinese → Paiwan
What’s going on?
• Discrepancy between ideals and practice
– Guidelines: Reliance on (Hebrew and Greek) source texts
– Actual practice: Reliance on a variety of sources
• Determined by training, accessibility of sources, ideological choices, …
• Discrepancy in conceptual segmentation between languages
– Conscious and subconscious choices of translators – Tradutore traditore
Conclusion
• It looks simple
• But it’s complicated
Implications
• No fixed correlation between – historical progression of a missionary
movement ↔ introduction of novel concepts in a target culture
– interpretation of the introduction of a religion into a community ↔ introduction of the conceptual universe associated with that religion in the target culture
Implications
• Implications for research on the history of ideas
– Ideas are not people
– Both move at a different pace and possibly along different paths
• Implications for research on the history of a language
57
Bibliography
Bunun Bible. 1983. 布農新約聖經. Bahlu Sinpatumantuk tu Patasun. Taipei: The Bible Society in the R.O.C.
Paiwan Bible. 1993. Kai nua Cemas. 排灣語聖經. Kai nua Cemas a pinayuanan. Taipei: The Bible Society in the R.O.C.
Bunun Bible. 2000. Tama Dihanin tu Halinga. 布農語聖經. The Bunun Bible. Taipei: The Bible Society in the R.O.C.
Atayal Bible. 2003. Sinsman ke Utux Kayal Biru na Tayal. 泰雅爾 語聖經. The Tayal Bible. Taipei: The Bible Society in the R.O.C.
Bibliography
De Busser, Rik. 2013. The influence of Christianity on the Bunun language: A preliminary overview. Proceedings of the International Workshop on “Special Genres” in and around Indonesia, 59–76.
Tokyo: RILCAA, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies.
Lardinois, Olivier (丁立偉), Chan Chang-hui (詹嫦慧) & Edmund Ryden (雷敦龢). 2004. 天主教與原住民相遇（台灣天主教原住民地方教會 歷史）[A history of the Catholic Church among the Aboriginal peoples of Taiwan]. In 丁立偉, 詹嫦慧 & 孫大川 (eds.), 活力教會：天主教在 台灣原住民世界的過去現在未來/ Church Alive: The Catholic Church among the Aboriginal Peoples of Taiwan: Past, Present and Future. Taipei: Kuangchi Cultural Group.
Yang, Shu-Yuan. 2008. Christianity, Identity, and the Construction of Moral Community among the Bunun of Taiwan. Social Analysis 52(3):
51–74.
Bibliography
Lin Zhi-ping (林治平) (Ed.) 1998. 台灣基督教史 ― 史料與研究回顧：
國際學術研討會論文集. 台北: 宇宙光.
Uninang!
58
12
科技部補助專題研究計畫出席國際學術會議心得報告
日期： 105 年 12 月 14 日
一、 參加會議經過
5 月 17 日：抵達關島 5 月 19 日：會議開幕
5 月 20 日下午 13:45 點：演講 5 月 21 日：會議閉幕
5 月 22 日凌晨：參觀 12th Festival of Pacific Arts (FestPac) 2016 開幕活動 5 月 22 日下午：回程
二、 與會心得
The Pacific History Association 22st Biennial Conference (PHA 2016) is the largest conference on history and related disciplines in the Pacific area. It is unique in that it is interdisciplinary in nature and tries to involve community members, such as indigenous artists, activists, and politicians. For anybody interested in issues related to the historical development of the cultures in the Pacific area, it is a very interesting conference to attend. The interdisciplinary nature of this conference and its focus on Pacific cultures, makes it extremely relevant to the present project, which focuses on the interaction between languages and cultures in Taiwanese Austronesian culture.
The talk I gave at PHA 2016 was part of a workshop titled “Trans-Pacific Movements in Mission and Church”, which discussed the mechanisms of the Christianization of cultures in the Pacific area.
Since our project focuses on the introduction of Christianity to indigenous cultures of Taiwan, it represented the western-most geographical area in this movement. The complete abstract for the workshop proposal is given below:
Christian missionary movements in the Pacific were often trans-national undertakings.
Individual missions were typically part of an international network. This international outlook goes back to the first wave of missionaries in the Pacific: In the seventeenth century, Catholic missions in Taiwan were under the control of the Archbishopry of Manila. When these missions grew into indigenized churches, they facilitated the movement of indigenous Christians
計畫編號 MOST 104－2410－H－004－139－
計畫名稱 基督教對布農語的影響 出國人員
姓名 戴智偉 服務機構
及職稱 國立政治大學語言學研究所 會議時間
105 年 5 月 17 日 至
105 年 5 月 22 日
會議地點 關島 (Guam)
會議名稱 (中文) 第 22 屆太平洋歷史學會雙年會議
(英文) Pacific History Association 22st Biennial Conference (PHA 2016) 發表題目 (中文) 把「神」引入台灣原住民的文化
(英文) Introducing God to the indigenous people of Taiwan
13
throughout the Pacific Region. Many Pacific Islanders of the colonial era travelled across the Pacific to proselytise. London Missionary Society, Methodist and Catholic Polynesians evangelised in Melanesia, while Christian Melanesians moved across colonial boundaries to work as missionaries. Denominations forged specific routes between mission sites: for example, Oceania Methodists were joined in a chain that linked Samoans, Fijians, Rotumans, the people of Roviana in the Solomon Islands, the Tolai and Trobriand Islanders of New Guinea and Northern Australian Aborigines. With the beginning of decolonisation and the spread of post war ecumenism, new pathways were formed across mission borders and in support of political objectives. Indigenised churches have been agents in the spread of indigenous cultural and political activism across the Pacific, from Taiwan to Hawai’i. This panel considers the trans-colonial and trans-national movement of Pacific Islanders along the routes of mission, and the linguistic, political and theological implications of encounters between Pacific peoples joined by denomination but separated by language and distinct colonial empires. This cross disciplinary panel will consider the histories of Maori in the Melanesian Mission; the importance of Pacific theological colleges in the spread of political theories in the post-war period; the role of Fijian Methodists in Aboriginal demands for land rights and linguistic changes across the Pacific as a result of Christian encounters.
三、 發表論文全文或摘要
摘要
This talk focuses on how different waves of Christian missionaries introduced the concept of a monotheist God to indigenous cultures of Taiwan. Traditionally, Austronesian cultures in Taiwan had animist belief systems and therefore lacked the concept of an overarching deity. Christianity was introduced to Austronesian communities in the 17th century, erased by subsequent Chinese rulers, and reintroduced after the end of the Second World War. This talk investigates how different missionary movements introduced the concept of a Christian God in various Austronesian cultures and how this concept evolved through the translation and dissemination of religious texts.
四、 建議
– The PHA conferences could be a great model for related conferences on indigenous issues in Taiwan, in that they create an atmosphere in which scholars and various stakeholders of the cultures that are being investigated can interact in a constructive manner.
五、 攜回資料名稱及內容
– Information, in the form of books and other documents, related to the history of Guam and its Christianization process by Catholic missionaries. From a historical and linguistic perspective, the introduction of Christianity to Guam is particularly interesting because it represents another island nation in which missionary movements targeted an Austronesian population.
– Contacts of people that are involved in the study of missionary movements in the Pacific.
六、 其他
–
科技部補助計畫衍生研發成果推廣資料表
日期:2016/12/26
科技部補助計畫
計畫名稱: 基督教對布農語的影響 計畫主持人: 戴智偉
計畫編號: 104-2410-H-004-139- 學門領域: 南島語言
無研發成果推廣資料
104年度專題研究計畫成果彙整表
(1) De Busser, Rik. 2017. Spatial deixis, textual cohesion, and functional differentiation in Takivatan Bunun. Oceanic
Linguistics 56(1). 89–121. (ACHI, MLA, LLBA)
(2) De Busser, Rik. Under review.
An overview of nominal markers in Bunun dialects variation in Bunun. Invited talk at the Third International Workshop on Information Structure of
Austronesian Languages, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, Tokyo, Japan, 18-20 February 2016.
Introducing God to the indigenous people of Taiwan. Talk at the Pacific History Association 22st Biennial Conference (PHA 2016), University of Guam, Guam, 19-21 May 2016.