Citation

Haviland JB. J. Ling. Anthropol. 2010; 20(1): 195-213.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2010, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/j.1548-1395.2010.01057.x

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Society regiments argument: what one fights about, with whom, and the frontiers of possible resolutions. But arguments can catastrophically rearrange social relationships. I consider a Zinacantec theory of the links between mutual talk and sociality, then sequential facts of Zinacantec fighting, and wider sociopolitical constraints on who can fight with whom, as illustrated by an extended family dispute. Whereas orderly disputes may refashion social arrangements but leave them largely intact, a common Zinacantec idiom for winning a verbal battle—reducing one's opponent to silence—suggests how argument can entirely close down a social relationship. [Tzotzil, Mayan, Zinacantán, Chiapas, Mexico, fights, verbal interaction, legal argument, indexicality, ritual language, land tenure]