Juegos de rutina en tehuelche : ambigüedades semánticas en contextos de documentación lingüística
This paper presents an interview within the framework of the ethnographic documentation of the Tehuelche language (TEH) of Patagonia, made in 2018 with a single speaker. The contexts in which the Tehuelche language emerges are analyzed, departing from the idea that each linguistic statement establishes relationships between the participants while, at the same time, it shapes the conversation according to its pragmatic effects. It is shown, in the frst place, that the “languages” thus “obtained” are a very particular construction that arises from the particular development of the interview, and that they lose their communicative capacity when they are extracted from the context. Second, it is argued that the effective communicative competence of a speaker cannot be determined by techniques that respond to external criteria bounded to expressions of power. Finally, the consequencesof those approaches that do not contemplate language as a complex semiotic medium are analyzed in revitalization contexts.
Tehuelche Linguistic documentation Last speaker Linguistic revitalization Refexivity