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On the unity of types: Lao gambling, ethno-metapragmatics, and generic and specific modes of typification

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 August 2021

Charles H. P. Zuckerman Open the ORCID record for Charles H. P. Zuckerman [Opens in a new window]
Charles H. P. Zuckerman*
Affiliation:
The University of Sydney, Australia
*
Address for correspondence: Charles H. P. Zuckerman, Department of Linguistics, Building A20, The University of Sydney, NSW 2006 Australia charles.zuckerman@sydney.edu.au
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Abstract

In Luang Prabang, Laos, pétanque players distinguish two types of gambling: ‘gambling for beer’ and ‘gambling for money’. They readily and vividly contrast these types in abstraction but are more circumspect about identifying actual games as instances of one kind or another. In this article, I trace how players use these types in two modes of typification—as generics and specifics—and articulate a new way to approach similar salient and ideologically weighty ‘ethno-metapragmatic terms’, which can appear messy and unwieldy. I argue that pulling apart these modes of typification clarifies how and why people use such terms for social action, and where anyone studying them—or the types that are thought to underly them—should begin. (Generic reference, specific reference, typification, social types, explicit/implicit, metapragmatics, linguistic anthropology, Laos)*

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Language in Society , Volume 50 , Special Issue 4: The Generic , September 2021 , pp. 557 - 582
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Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

*

Kimberly Ang, Nick Enfield, Susan Gelman, Judith Irvine, Didem Ikizoglu, Webb Keane, Michael Lempert, Scott MacLochlainn, Bruce Mannheim, Janet McIntosh, Michael Prentice, Kamala Russell, Joshua Shapero, Michael Silverstein, Chelsie Yount-Andrè, and two anonymous reviewers all helped me think through various aspects of this article. Jack Sidnell and John Mathias both read and discussed several drafts. I thank them, as well as the editors and editorial staff at Language in Society, for their tremendous help. The research presented here was conducted with the support of a Wenner-Gren Dissertation Fieldwork Grant, a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship, and the University of Michigan. None of it would have been possible without the friendship, generosity, and patience of countless people in Luang Prabang, for which I am extremely grateful.

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