Social Constraints on Cochabamba Quechua by Xavier Alb Review by: Dwight B. Heath Language in Society, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Apr.

, 1972), pp. 175-176 Published by: Cambridge University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4166678 . Accessed: 01/11/2011 12:29
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Lang. Soc. x, 175-176.

Printed in Great Britain

REVIEW XAvIER ALB6, Social constraintson CochabambaQuechua. (Latin American Studies Program, Dissertation Series, I9.) Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, I970. Pp. 448. This unprepossessingmonograph has more in the way of new data, fruitful suggestions for data-collection, and fresh analyses that link behavioral and linguistic approaches, than do most recent books from major publishers. It deserves- and will reward- a much broader readershipthan the title implies. Dr Alb6 has done a genuinely interdisciplinary job of combining solid 'hardcore' ethnography with thoroughly respectable linguistics (although the constraintswith which he deals are solely those of society on language).His work is rich in empirical data, offering a comprehensive description of social forces underlyinglinguistic variationsin the Quechua-speaking ruralpopulationof the Cochabamba region of highlandBolivia. In orderto collect datain such a setting, however,Albo was not able simply to use a corpus of 'standard'techniques or to do a simple replicationof other studies. Turning this handicapto an advantage, he devised some imaginativenew techniques for informal but controlled sampling, eliciting both social and linguistic data, and getting reading-like formal styles from illiterateinformants. In conceptualizing the relevant dimensions for complex sociolinguistic situations, he spells out a set of rules determining what kinds of features, through what components, and in what combinations, generate what kinds of linguistic variancein a given sociolinguisticsystem. Sex, education, social class, and specific situations are systematicallycompared;furthermore,his distinction between 'deep structure'and 'surfacestructure'of situations is a useful innovation that does much to clarify the meaning of his data, and may well be more broadlyapplicable. A crucial distinction in local usage is characterized as the dichotomy between 'affective (society as "communitas"; language as a symbol)' and 'effective (society as a differentiatedstructure; language as a sign)', which accounts for most of the variation found in strictly situational dialects of Quechua, and in choices by bilinguals between Quechua and Spanish. Alb6 even ventures to deal with '. . . articulationin the social network ... as the latent unmarkedsociolinguisticfeature of any sociolinguisticevent'. This is an ambitiousattempt to reversethe usual flow of methodologicaladoptions and adaptations (from linguisticsto social anthropology).In fact, that promisingnew dimensiondid prove to be a useful indicatorin the limited 'test' he made, using a set of linguistic measures of social articulation- (articulationwith the national I75

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fittedon a 13-step politicalsystem, in this instance).The measures,imaginatively Guttmanscale, were sufficientlysensitive to distinguishdifferentlevels of articulation between men and women in a given community. Another by-product of this dissertation that many consider a major contribution in itself is his system for the computerizationof Quechua transcriptions, which should be helpful to others in a numberof ways. Although the methodological innovations are imaginative and unusual, I should not let them obscure the solid workmanlikefindings that make this an exciting contribution in very different terms. New insights into settlement patterns, mourning practices, suffixes and their meanings, subcategories of numerals, and other aspects of Quechua language and culture constitute genuine additions to ethnographicknowledge in an area where various kinds of study have a respectablehistory. anthropological In sum, this is not just an exceptional dissertationbut also an exceptional monograph- on a number of counts. It makes several substantial and varied contributionsto our understandingof the Quechua, and it also offers a number of valuable contributionsto sociolinguisticsas a field of study. Furthermore,it - for those who may have come to doubt it provides a timely demonstration that imagination and diligence often complement and reinforce each other rather than being mutually exclusive, and that truly interdisciplinaryinsights and approachesare still available and relevant.
Reviewed by DWIGHT B. HEATH Department of Anthropology Brown University

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