ABSTRACT
Linguistic anthropologists have long recognized the great variety of speech communities and the perspective that research in different speech communities offers on discourse generalizations and findings (Brody, 1991; Duranti, 1988; Goodwin, 1981; Gumperz, 1982; Hill, 1995; Hymes, 1981; Ochs, 1988). They have also recognized the perspective that research in different speech communities offers on the social construction of cultural categories, for example, the social construction of incompetence as a Foucaultian sort of “dividing-practice,” often expressed in asymmetrical relationships of dependency in certain institutions of Western cultures. In this paper, however, I present a non-Western speech community wherein the central relationship promotes asymmetrical dependency but at the same time profoundly nurtures competence through language.
