Russel-Research-Method-in-Anthropology

Qualitative Data Analysis I: Text Analysis 479
Ñähñu
1. n'a zi ñ’ – oh – o rc zi m – emapa ˘sä maa rä za 'm – efi. 2. i'm – u n'a rä tuya rä zi mane.
3. i geetw – u rä besinu ko rä 'm – ehñä nu'ä rä zi ñ – oh – o. 4. nde handäth – o nu'ä rä zi
tiiya eenbi ko nu'ä rä 'm – ehñä'ä rä zi ñ' – oh – o di pa rä 'm – emapa. 5. i maa rä zi
'm – efi'ä rä zi ñ' – oh – o mi ˘sudi. 6. bi m' – efa'ä rä zi 'm – ehñä bi hñätsä rä ñhuni. 7. di
ge'ä b – os yaa maa bi 'wini'ä rä däme. 8. 'ne bi pengi pa 'm – u rä ngu nu'ä rä
'm – ehñä pa 'wingyä mbo'oni nu rä nguu.
Literal English Translation
1. a little man the little laborer has gone to his little work. 2. and there is a
the old lady his little comadre. 3. and nearby his neighbor with his wife this
the little man. 4. well, she sees only this the little old lady that is to say with
this his wife this the little man he goes to the laborer. 5. and he went to the
little work the little man in the morning. 6. she went after the little women
she brought his meal. 7. from this well already she goes to give to eat to her
husband. 8. then she goes back to stay in her house this the woman to give
to eat to her animals this her house.
Free English Translation
1. Once there was a nice little peon who went to work. 2. His comadre lived
near this man and his wife, and she could see what the wife was doing. The
man would go to work and his wife would follow him later and bring his meal.
8. Then she would go back to her home and feed her animals.
Figure 17.1. Excerpt from Ñähñu stories.
SOURCE: H. R. Bernard and J. Salinas Pedrazas, ‘‘Otomí Parables, Folktales, and Jokes,’’ International Journal
of American Linguistics, Native American Text Series, Vol. 1, no. 2, 1976 by The University of Chicago
Press. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.
ogists try to understand and present to an audience the meaning of cultural
utterances and practices. Tedlock’s work with Andrés Xiloj, Sherzer’s with
Alberto Campos, and my work with Jesús Salinas are experiments in method
to understand the grammar of narrative performance.
Sherzer and Woodbury (1987) observed that highly artistic, creative performance
may be based on an underlying cognitive representation—a schema
for performance that goes beyond the lexical and syntactic levels of grammar—and
you can discover schemas by systematically comparing texts across
performances. It is to schemas that we turn next.
Schemas, Models, and Metaphors
Schema analysis combines elements of anthropological linguistics and cognitive
psychology in the examination of text. For example, we hear sentences