Across much of the postcolonial world, Christianity has often become inseparable from ideas
and practices linking the concept of modernity to that of human emancipation. To explore …

Linguistics and Literature is the first book to offer an overview of how linguistic theory can be
applied to the oral and written literatures of the world. Introducing basic concepts in …

Some 800 Austronesian languages are spoken in the area extending from Madagascar to
eastern Indonesia and to the north to Taiwan and the Philippines. They vary greatly in …

" Poetry, defined as language divided into lines, is found in most known human cultures.
This masterful survey of poetry and its constituent components demonstrates the functions …

This collection of eighteen papers explores issues in the study of semantic parallelism—a
world-wide tradition in the composition of oral poetry. It is concerned with both comparative …

Sumbanese descriptions of the “traditional house” as a microcosm and emblem of local
identity are neither unproblematic expressions of a cultural totality nor simply objectifications …

Many societies stress communicative practice in their models of the social world. In
Anakalang, Sumba, the process of marriage negotiation helps constitute and display the …

Ritual languages, special registers and speech decorum reflect the social and cultural
features of the societies in which they occur. They thus constitute linguistic usages that are …

O Koni wu kanihya O Mbiri dadi pyeha Pena ba kalete pango a limya lodo Eia kere awango
hada? Pena ba kahonga pango a witti wyulla Eia alipo pa rara? Pena ba inde mburu yila …

This book presents a comparative study of the traditional religions of the Austronesian-
speaking peoples, from Taiwan to Madagascar and New Zealand. It argues that there is a …