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LANGUAGE SHOCK.
Copyright
0
1994byMichael
H.
Agar.All rights reserved. Printed inthe
UnitedStates ofAmerica. No partof this book may be used or reproduced inany manner
whatsoever without writtenpermission except in thecase of brief quotations embodied in
criticalarticlesandreviews. For information address HarperCollins Publishers Inc., 10East
5Jrd Street, New York,NY 10022.
HarperCollins books may bepurchasedforeducational, business, orsales promotional use.
Forinforma!ion please write:Special Markets Department, HarperCollins Publishers Inc.,
10East5Jrd Street, New York,NY 10022.
Firsr Quilledition published 1996.
Reprinted inPerennial 2002.
Designed by Dorothy Balcer
Libraryof ongress Ca13/oging-in-PubJication Data
Agar. Michael.
Language
shock I
MichaelAgar.
p. em.
1
BN
0-688-14949_9
I.
Language and culture.
I.
Title.
P35.AJ7 1993
306.4'4-<lc20
92-21470
CIP
14 15 16 RRD 0 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21

Contents
PREFACE / 7
CULTURE BLENDS /
I3
Language carriesmore meanings than you everdreamed, and
culture iswhere you find them
THE CIRCLE /
3
I
A circle around language isolates grammar and dictionary,
but it leaves culture out
I
THE CIRCLE AND THE FIELD /49
The story of how language and culture came unglued
CULTURAL SIGNIFIEDS /61
How a
fire-prevention
engineer argued that you couldn't pull
language and culture apart
SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES /73
The way that language and culture- "languaculture">-
differences turn transparent when laid against our common
human background
"

I
6
CONTENTS
SITUATIONS /89
Language comesto lifein the realworld and changes from
wordsand sentencesinto discourse
CULTURE /
108
Thestory of an important and confusing concept, and how
theconfusion clearsup whenyou attach cultureto language
SPEECH ACTS / 140
How people do things with words, and why the lie you
thought you weretellingturns outto be thetruth
SPEECH ACT LUMBER AND PAINT /
16
4
How torecognizeaspeechactwhenyou meet one,and how
toheartheculturethatgivesitcolor
COHERENCE /
19
2
The pieces fall together when you figure out a different
languaClilture,andtheblendtakesyou somewhere new
VARIATIONS ON A FRAME
/21 I
Just when you think you've got itstraight, same new bit of
languacullurealwaysspringsup
SAILORS AND IMMIGRANTS /24
2
Whypeoplewhoknow wherethey'refrom butlivesomeplace
elsearegUidesintothenext century
NOTES / 259
INDEX /273

Preface
B
ACK
in the eighties I went off to live for the summer on the
island of Skyros in Greece. I went for all the obvious reasons,
but I also had two projects in mind. I wanted to try my hand at
demotic Greek, a language with a fascinating history and strong
current political passions behind it, with the idea of writing some-
thing about what it was really like to learn a second language in a
new place. My second project involved fiction. I'd 'been a profes-
sional ethnographer for many years, but I wanted
to
experiment and
see if I couldn't build a book using scenes from life on the island to
create a novelistic portrayal rather than an academic one.