An ethnological approach to Sister Nations’ verse: new insights into native American de-colonial discourse

Abstract

With an integrative approach combining critical discourse analysis, Gricean pragmatics and cognitive linguistics, this paper seeks to provide new insights into Native American women’s verse as a lingua franca for the dissemination of social discourses at the intra and intercultural levels. To this end, it starts from the ethnographic notions of speech and discourse communities, applies them to the recently coined concept of Sister Nations, and goes on to explore their poetic production as a multidimensional anthropological practice performing cognitive, mediating and dialogical functions. Sister Nations’ poems not only call into question the traditional definitions of genre and interpretative communities or serve as vehicles for the expression of a dual discourse of reconciliation and resistance, but also evidence the importance of figurative language in the interpretation of cultures and act as ceremonial dialogues between societies in conflict.