ABSTRACT
This chapter explains how I analyse socially occurring discourse by and about women. Audio recordings of Tongan village public activities and lower- and higher- level trial court proceedings constitute the key interactional data base from which a subset of recordings is selected for analysis. In linguistic anthropology language is conceptualised as a set of resources drawn upon selectively to achieve different social and cultural ends. Systematic sampling of different forms of socially occurring speech make it possible to better understand how that selectivity is achieved. The traditional ethnographic research methodologies of participant observation and interviews with key consultants have also been crucial methods for gaining insight into the social organisation of the recorded Tongan speech. Substantively my published writings on gender have focused on how gender ideology is embedded in various forms of talk or discourse genres. The social organisation of discourse shapes the way Tongan language ideology about key male–female dyads is realised in speech. As a feminist, I am concerned with how we can activate more positive gender ideologies in ways that give women agency and respect and I show how Tongans do that. Queen Sālote of Tongan herself was gifted in such positive practices.
