Differential Identity and the Social Base of Folklore Author(s): Richard Bauman Source: The Journal of American Folklore,

Vol. 84, No. 331, Toward New Perspectives in Folklore (Jan. - Mar., 1971), pp. 31-41 Published by: American Folklore Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/539731 . Accessed: 16/05/2013 08:17
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RICHARD

BAUMAN

Differential Identityand the SocialBase of Folklore'

AME'RICO PAREDESHAS RECENTLYSUGGESTED that "American folklorists think

of theirdiscipline as the studyof 'special chiefly groups'-age groups,occupationalgroups, of thecountry identilivingin certain regions [andgroups groups national or that the ethnic the extent this on focus To fied] by origin."2 partof American indicates a concern for the socialbaseof folklore,it repfolklorists a fruitfulreorientation resents fromthemoretraditional whichwere approaches, textand and which viewed folklore as heavily genre-oriented, solely pertaining to peasants or primitives. Thereare,nevertheless, certain implicitassumptions muchof the thinking of folklorists folkloreandgroups underlying concerning whichappear to beexerting a constraining influence ontheempirical development of the discipline andwhichappear alsoto involvea degree of conceptual distortion.I propose in thisarticle to examine someof theseassumptions witha view towards a morefruitfulperspective on the socialmatrixof folklore, indicating for this,afterall, is whatthe interest in folklore andspecial is all about. groups Forthe sakeof illustration andas a pointof departure, we mayexamine two formulations from the mostwidelyused generaltextbooks in the field, Alan
Dundes' The Study of Folklore and Jan Brunvand's The Study of American Folklore. Dundes defines the field for his students as follows:
It is possible . . to define both folk and lore in such a way that even the beginner can understand what folklore is. The term 'folk' can refer to any group of people whatsoever who share at least one common factor. It does not matter what the linking factor is-it could be a common occupation, language or religion-but what is important is that a group formed for whatever reason will have some traditions which it calls its own. In theory a group must consist of at least two persons, but generally most groups consist of many individuals. A member of the group may not know all other members, but he will probably know the common core of traditions belonging to the group, traditions which help
1 Some of the ideas on which this article is basedwere developedduring the tenureof a postdoctoralfellowshipfrom the Universityof Texas,which is herebygratefullyacknowledged. I would also like to thankDan Ben-Amos, and AmericoParedesfor theirgenerousand peneJoel Sherzer, on an earlierversionof this paper. tratingcomments 2 Am'rico Paredes,"Tributaries to the Mainstream: the EthnicGroups,"in Our Living Tradi-

tions, ed. Tristram P. Coffin (New York, 1968), 70.

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32

BAUMAN RICHARD

the group have a sense of group identity. Thus if the group were composed of lumberjacks or railroadmen, then the folklore would be lumberjackor railroadman folklore. If the group were composed of Jews or Negroes, then the folklorist could seek Jewish or Negro folklore. Even a military unit or a college community is a folk.3

Brunvand recommends the following strategy to students and collectors: "a ... concept that has grown out of recent collecting is that of the theory of recognizing 'folk groups.' Rather than defining such groups in terms of social, political, or geographic factors, they may be identified for folklore purposes first by their distinctive folk speech and other traditions-the lingo and lore which set one group apart from others." A little later, he writes, "The first test of a folk group is the existence of shared folklore; then the background of this conformity can be investigated." Brunvand suggests that the bearers of American folklore might be classified into occupational groups, age groups, regional groups, and ethnic or nationality groups, though sometimes it is also possible to distinguish folk groups that are set apart by religion, education, hobbies, neighborhood, or even family.4 The basic premise which appears to underlie both these formulations is that folklore is a function of shared identity. One may look first for the group, as Dundes does-people who share at least one common factor-and be confident that it will have some traditions which it calls its own; or one may operate on Brunvand's premise that the first test of a folk group is the existence of shared folklore. Either way, the assumption is that the sharing of identity features within a group is what paves the way for the presence of a body of shared folklore.5 Closely related to the conceptualization of folklore-bearing groups in terms of shared identity is the conceptualization of folklore as a within-group phenomenon. The identity features that define folk groups cut the social universe into various kinds of discrete segments, and it is within these segments that the principal ordering of the folklore universe takes place as well. Even William Hugh Jansen, whose "Esoteric-Exoteric Factor in Folklore" is one of the few systematic considerations of the intergroup dimensions of folklore, is in fact concerned with developing the idea that folklore "has peculiar virtues arising from its existence within a more or less peculiar group," the "general assumption that the folklore of a group has certain inherent qualities (perhaps virtues) because it belongs to or has been shaped by that group."6 In other words, Jansen's chief concern, like that of almost every other folklorist, is with the special qualities of folklore within groups as he conceives them, that is, with matters which are fundamentally esoteric. Folklore is understood as being shared within group boundaries and made distinctive by this esoteric sharing. A number of reasons may be suggested for the overwhelming predominance of this esoteric perspective among folklorists. From the very beginning of modern folklore study, the ideology of romantic nationalism has emphasized the distinctiveness of folklore within cultural units and directed the attention of folklorists to the traditions of national cultures, regional subcultures, and linguistically de3 Alan Dundes, ed., The Study of Folklore (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1965), 2.

4 Jan Brunvand, The Study of American Folklore (New York, 1968), 21-22.
5 6

in Change(New On the conceptof identityfeatures,see Ward H. Goodenough,Cooperation Factorin Folklore,"in Dundes, The Study of William Hugh Jansen,"The Esoteric-Exoteric

York, 1963), 179-186.

Folklore, 45, 50o;emphasis added.

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DIFFERENTIAL IDENTITY AND THE SOCIAL BASE OF FOLKLORE

33

fined ethnic units. A second majorinfluencehas been the predominant view of folklore as collective representation, the productthrough creationor recreation of homogeneoussocial groups, and the expressionof their collective character. Holism and functionalism in anthropology, emphasizingthe internalintegration of social systems,have also served to foster the notion of folklore as a withingroupphenomenon. Let us considerfor a momentthe kind of relationbetweenfolkloreand people which is represented by the viewpoint we have been discussing.The basic conseems with which we are concerned ceptualoperationunderlyingthe perspective to be correlation, the association collecon some abstract level of a superorganic, tive-representationalized corpusof folklore traditionswith a populationwhich is identifiedas a folk group and participates in it collectively.The folklore is the of the whole group and its forebears, product through creationor re-creation and an expressionof their commoncharacter. It is spoken of in terms of traditions, with a traditionconceivedof as a superorganic temporalcontinuum;the folk are "tradition on through that is, they carrythe folklore traditions bearers," time and space like so much baggage-particular people and generationscome and go, but the groupidentitypersistsand the traditionlives on in two essentially separaterealms.There is a high degree of abstraction implicit in this point of abstracboth the are analytical folklore its with its bearers and connection view; on the emlore at a far the and from between remove tions, integration people level. of If we are with the social base concerned folklore, other pirical truly must to a between be will allow us see connection which perspectives developed folklore in and more terms. direct and people empirical I have arguedelsewherethat the future of folklore as an empiricaldiscipline traditionto of attentionfrom folkloreas superorganic dependsupon a redirection folklore as action.7 My argumenthere is that this kind of focus on the doing of is the key to the real integrationbefolklore, that is, on folklore performance, tween people and lore on the empiricallevel. This is to conceptualize the social baseof folklorein termsof the actualplace of the lore in socialrelationships and its use in communicative interaction. association of a corpus Now, once we have shifted our focus from the abstract of folklore with an aggregationof people to the integrationof folklore with we may reexamine the empiricalutility people at its very source,in performance, or conceptualvalidity of viewing folk groups in terms of sharedidentity.This would imply that the performance of folkloretakesplace only betweenpeople of same identity,since folk groupsare conceivedof in termsof the sharingof features of social identity.If this were true, it would clearlybe of majortheoretical But is it true? importance. With regardto social interactionin general, Merton'sconcept of "role set" of role relationships which personshave by virtueof occupy("that complement ing a particularstatus")8 and Goffman's"role other" ("The individual'srole enactment with role occurslargelythrougha cycleof face-to-face socialsituations
7 Richard Bauman, "Towards a Behavioral Theory of Folklore: A Reply to Roger Welsch,"
JOURNAL OF AMERICAN

8 Robert Merton, Social

FOLKLORE, 82 (1969),

167-170.

Theory and Social Structure (Glencoe, Ill., 1957), 369.

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RICHARD BAUMAN

underlineandsystematize the factthatinterothers,thatis, relevantaudiences"),9 action may take place betweenpeople playing different,complementary roles as well as parallelroles. In otherwords,the identityfeaturewhichis relevantto the of one party in a social relationshipmay be the same or different participation from that of the other partiesto the relationship. The questionis, does the performanceof folklore only occurin interaction betweenpeople of parallel,shared betweenpeople of differential identity,or does it figurein relationships identity as well? It shouldbe madeclearthatI am not concerned herewith the differential identitiesof "performer" vs. "audience member,"but with the identity features which are relevantto the participants' in the engagingin the folkloreinteraction firstplace, that is, for assumingthe additionalidentityof performer or audience member.'0 One group of folkloristswhose interestmight have put them in a positionto contributeto the elucidationof this problem was the diffusionists,for their was with the transmission of folkloreacross principalconcern groupboundariesat least certainkinds of groupboundaries. Most diffusionstudies,of course,were very far removedfrom a concernwith the socialbase of whateveritem was being studied;the emphasiswas on the fundamentalintegrityof the item itself. The shift to an in-groupperspective,in fact, was a reactionagainstthis shreds-andof the diffusionists, an attemptto reassert the connection patchessuperorganicism of folklore with people. The problemwas that closed socialsystemsare easierto than open ones, and the intergroup of folklore never transmission conceptualize found its way into theoriesinvolving folklore and groups,exceptperhapsto be as a significant factor." explicitlydiscounted of cases folklore of differNevertheless, involving participants performance ential identity did find their way into the diffusionistliterature.Considerthe following account,involving the Tahltan and the Tlingit, two tribes of northwesternCanada:
The Tahltan assert that in the old trading-rendezvouson the upper Stikine, members of the

story-telling. Tahltan raconteurstold their stories one day, and Tlingit told theirs the following day. Sometimes they thus told stories turn about for weeks. Occasionally the tribes competed in story-telling to see which had the most stories. As a result, it came to be

twotribes was forweeks of meeting associated there andthatoneof thefeatures together

that the Tlingithad considerably morestoriesthanthe Tahltan.In thisway, acknowledged

it is said, the Tahltan learned Tlingit stories, and vice versa.'2

We have here a situationin which membersof two different culturaland of theirdifferential identities,engagecollectively linguisticgroups,fully conscious in the face-to-faceperformanceof folklore as participantsin institutionalized and highly structured folklore events, with formal rules governingperformance as well. This is a sequenceand an elementof competitionsometimesintroduced aredirectlyrelevant identitiesof the participants case,then, wherethe contrasting
9 Erving Goffman, Encounters (Indianapolis, Ind., 1961), 85. 10 Compare Robert Georges, "Towards an Understanding of Storytelling Events," JOURNAL OF
AMERICAN FOLKLORE, 82 (1969), 318.

11 C. W. von Sydow, Selected Papers on Folklore, ed. Laurits Bodker (Copenhagen, 1948), 17, 51. 12 James Teit, "Kaska Tales," I am 428-429. JOURNAL OF AMERICAN FOLKLORE, 30 (1917), indebted to Joel Sherzer for calling this example to my attention.

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DIFFERENTIAL IDENTITY AND THE SOCIAL BASE OF FOLKLORE

35

to the structuring of the situationand to their understanding of it. The folklore is used as a mechanismof interaction acrosstriballines, and no image of homogeneousfolk with sharedidentityand a collectivefolklorecan accountadequately for the realities of the situationon the ground. The only relevantsharing of folklorewhichtakesplaceis a communicative sharingthroughperformance. The objection with maybe raised,of course,thatit would be perfectlyconsistent to view Tahltan the and as group theory Tlingit storytellers jointly constituting a group in their own right, by virtue of their interaction in face-to-facetradingIt would then true that the exchangeof be storytellingrelationships. technically folklorebetweenthemoccurswithin the boundaries of the group.Not only would this be valid in a sociologicalsense, but it is illuminatingas well, for it draws attentionto the interactional dimensionof folkloreperformance which is central to the issueof this paper.This is not the sense,however,in whichfolklorists(and thatis, for a set of I, at times,following theirusage) haveusedthe term "group," with shared an Such is termed people identity. by sociologistsa "social aggregate "a of who are not category": plurality persons organizedinto a systemof interaction (and thereforedo not form a group) but who do have similarsocialcharacteristics or statuses."'3 The key factor,let it be stressed,which has been lacking from the conceptualformulationsof folklorists is interaction,the interaction whichis a concomitant of the performance of folkloreto others. In orderto establishand strengthenour case, it will be useful to demonstrate for those identity featureswhich have been of most interestto folklorists that differenceof identity,not necessarily sharing,can be at the base of folkloreperformance.Allowing the Tahltan-Tlingitcase to serve as an exampleof the use of folklore betweenmembersof differenttribal and linguisticgroups, we may considerethnicity,religion, region, occupation, age, and kinshipaffiliation. i. Ethnicity.A case involving the use of folklore betweenmembersof different ethnicgroupsis containedin TheodoreReik'sprovocative book,Jewish Wit. Reik commentsthat until a few yearsago, Jewish humor "was restricted to the and could almost be called a of kind tribal communication. Jewish group Jokes were told by one Jew to another.Gentiles as listenerswere not taken into consideration."In recentyears,however,owing partlyto the prominenceof Jewish comediansbut also to the ongoing acculturation of Jews in America,these same between Jews and jokes have begun to figure frequently in communication gentiles.14 Here a formerlyesoterictraditionhas become exotericas far as performanceis concerned,for an awareness of differentialidentityremainsa factor in these performancesituations.The traditional,text-orientedfolklorist would still identify these jokes as an in-group form becauseof their esotericsubject matter, but an awarenessof the intergroupcontexts in which the stories now occurbringsone much closerto productiveinsightsinto the social matrixof the form. The jokes emergeas a significant featureof the mutualadjustment of Jews and gentiles in America,signaling perhapsgreatertoleranceon the part of genon the part of Jews, and greatermutual familiarity. tiles, less felt vulnerability
13 George A. Theodorson and Achilles G. Theodorson, Modern Dictionary of Sociology (New York, 1969), 384. For analysis of a case in which folklore is employed to make an aggregate of previously unrelated individuals into a corporate group, see Richard Bauman, "The Turtles: An American Riddling Institution," Western Folklore, 29 (1970), 21-24. 14 Theodore Reik, Jewish Wit (New York, 1962), 31.

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RICHARD BAUMAN

relations betweenreligiousgroups 2. Religion.Hostile, rather thanbenevolent, areexpressedin the tauntsrecorded Peter and by Iona Opie in the sectionof their Lore and Languageof Schoolchildren entitled "Sectarian Rhymes."The followfor is at shouted instance, ing, by Presbyterians: Episcopalians
Pisky, Pisky, say "Amen," Doon on yer knees and up again,

to whichthe retortof the Episcopalians is,

Presby, Presby, canna bend, Sit ye doon on man's chief end.15

in the exchangeare childrenmay be To be sure,the fact that all the participants used as a basis for calling it all a part of children'slore, as the Opies, in effect, of these have done; but it is not commonage which underliesthe performance difference. but rhymes, religious 3. Region. An example of folklore which has its locus in the confrontation between inhabitantsof different regions is to be found in Mody Boatright's analysisof western regional humor, Folk Laughteron the AmericanFrontier. frontierhumor,Boatright In tryingto cometo termswith the essenceof American may be explainedas a suggeststhat manyof its specialforms and characteristics and distortedview of the frontier reactionof the frontiersmen to the exaggerated and other "civilized"outsiders.The westerners and its people held by easterners to be turned took over the stereotypes and built them into extravagant burlesques back on the credulousand opinionatedoutsiders.Writing about the exuberant frontierboast,for example,Boatright andoutrageous suggests,
Now the men who poled keelboats up the Mississippi, the squatters and trappers who hunted and fought the Indians together, the cowboys who rode and stopped stampedes on the cattle trails-these men saw one another perform. They soon knew what the other could and would do in a crisis. They did not show off before one another. Their theatrics were for the benefit of outsiders. There can, I think, be little doubt of the ripsnorter's exuberance of spirit born of freedom and self-confidence. But tall talk is more than an expression of exuberant self-confidence. It is a notification of the repudiation of the values of the outsider, that is, of gentility. But the repudiation of a set of values does not necessarily imply an inferiority complex. The frontier braggart assumed the role expected of him; but in exaggerating it to comic
proportions, he satirized it.16

Here again,then, and elsewherein Boatright's book,17we find a folklore form which derives its fundamentalmeaning from its directiontowards outsiders, people of differentidentity, though also, on occasion,performedand enjoyed themselves. amongthe frontiersmen 4. Occupation.We should expect to find instancesof folklore performance and othersof differentidentityin conbetweenpeople in an occupational capacity
nection with trade, service, and professional occupations, which involve identity differences almost by definition. The entire genre of street cries, for instance, involves the performance of folklore by vendors in their occupational capacity to
15 Iona Opie and Peter Opie, Lore and Language of Schoolchildren (Oxford, 1959), 345. 16 Mody C. Boatright, Folk Laughter on the American Frontier (New York, 1961), 41. 17 Ibid., 31, 75.

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DIFFERENTIAL IDENTITY AND THE SOCIAL BASE OF FOLKLORE

37

people of differentidentity, namely, customers.Identity differencesare particularlyclearin this fabric-vendor's cryfromTurkey:

Run, ladies, run! Run to fabrics without tearing one another to pieces! Printed calicoes! Let's give the reds, the purples! Flowers of the seven mountains! Come, ladies and gentlemen! What your eyes see and what your hearts like are all here!'s

It is not, of course,necessaryfor identitydifferences to be mentionedexplicitly in the text, for any streetcry implies a distinctionbetweenbuyerand seller and servesthe purposeof bringingthe two together. 5. Age. For age groups, we may draw upon materialwhich is perhapsthe most generallyfamiliar.There is a large corpusof folklorewhich is often classified as children'slore,'9thoughits performance almostinevitablyinvolvespeople who are beyondthe age of childhood,suggestingthat this lore might be more the interactionbetween membersof difproductivelyconsideredas structuring ferent age categories.The nurseryrhyme,for example,is a clear case in point. Here is a form which is typicallytaughtto childrenby adults and subsequently performedby the childrenfor adult audiencesas a vehicle for display.We may also include lullabies, knee-bouncing,finger- and toe-counting,and tickling rhymes,which have in commonthat they are characteristically performedto children by adults, as are certainproverbs,like "Childrenshould be seen and not for the social controlof childrenby their heard,"which operateas mechanisms elders.There are also whole classesof narratives and ficts20told by adultsto childrenfor the purposeof instruction, All these formsare or entertainment. control, similarin that they characteristically-some even by definition-involve children in interaction with adults,and are by their very naturedifferentfrom children's lore used among children,adult lore used only among adults, and lore which is commonto all age groups.Viewed in the contextof performance, they structure one dimensionof the interaction betweenadults acting as adults, and children acting as children. The lore is shared in the sense that it constitutesa communicative bond between participants, but the participantsthemselvesare different,the forms they employ are different,and their view of the folklore passingbetweenthemis different. 6. Kinship. Two illuminatingand conceptually relatedcases involving folklore and kinship affiliation are to be found in EdmundLeach'sPoliticalSystems of Highland Burma21and RaymondFirth'sHistoryand Traditionsof Tikopia.22 Both these anthropologists were fundamentally concerned,as we are, with taktheoretical account of the between institutionand act, between distinction ing the uniformities of actual and regularities of analytical and the diversity structures
Is Ahmet E. Uysal, "StreetCries in Turkey,"JOURNAL OF
204.

AMERICAN FOLKLORE, 81 (1968),

19 Kenneth Clarke and Mary Clarke, Introducing Folklore (New York, 1963), 94-95. Edmund Leach, Political Systems of Highland Burma (Boston, 1965), ch. 9; reprinted in Studies on Mythology, ed. Robert Georges (Homewood, Ill., 1968), 184-198. 22 Raymond Firth, History and Traditions of Tikopia (Wellington, New Zealand, I96I), ch. io; reprinted in Georges, Studies on Mythology, 168-183.
21

20 Von Sydow, 87-88.

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RICHARD BAUMAN

individualbehavior.In their respectivestudies of myth and legend among the Kachinandthe Tikopia,theybecameawarethattraditional talesin thesesocieties, of as the communalexpression unitarysocial groups formerly conceptualized (tribes), were in fact pressureinstruments employedby variouskinship groups in contendingfor status.That is, the identityfeatureunderlyingthe exchangeof these tales is the differentialkinship affiliationof the performerand a key segof othergroups,although ment of his audience.The tales are directedat members and serve certainesoteric own kinsmen are to the teller's also attended they by functionsas well. of a perspective In a papersuchas the presentone, exploringthe implications which runs directlycounterto conventionalmodes of analysis,the selectionof Still, the foregoing examples examplesmust be more heuristicthan systematic. a new for need the be sufficient to should conceptualand empirical suggest folklore. As social base of long as folklore is constrategyin the study of the connected ceptualizedas a self-containedrealm of culturalproductsabstractly in and with some homogeneousbody of people identifiedas a folk participating it collectively,the use of folklore in situationsinvolving differentialidentity of the social base of folklore will be obscuredfrom view. A true understanding which focus upon those socialidentitieswhich must be basedupon investigations situof folklore within the contextof particular are relevantto the performance ationsand events for it is only here that we will find the true locus of the interbetweenthe folkloreandits bearers. relationship is made, it becomesapparentthat folklore Once the necessaryreorientation membersof and in both found be relationships; symmetrical asymmetrical may each with folklore or social other, on categoriesmay exchange particular groups of on the differential basis with or shared of the basis others, identity. identity, thatthe lorebe a collective doesnot require The point is thatfolkloreperformance and belongingequallyto all of them. of the participants, pertaining representation It maybe so, but it mayalso be differentially distributed, differentially performed, As folk groupsare generunderstood. differentially perceived,and differentially havean equalstakein theircommonfolklore all the members ally conceptualized, and are equallyeligible to performit, whereasin all of our examplesthe lines between performer and audience are clearly drawn, based on differencesof identity. the exotericfrom the esotericperto differentiate Nor are texts alone sufficient that a nurseryrhymewill be formanceof folklore in everycase. The probability used in situationsinvolvingdifferential high, but someof the identityis certainly to an esotericsetting. other examplesinvolve lore which is equallyappropriate must be investigatedin their own right, as part The identitiesof the participants is definedby the interrelaof an overall communication system,whose character one.23 not and its any single by tionshipsamong components Anotherfactorwhich is broughtinto relief by the perspective being advanced conas a mechanism of conflict instrument much an as be folklore that is here may is of folklore the functions on literature The social to persolidarity. tributing the stabilityof culture"and "integrating meatedwith phraseslike "maintaining
23 Dell Hymes, "Models of the Interaction of Language and Social Setting," Journal of Social Issues, 23:2 (1967), 8-28.

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DIFFERENTIAL IDENTITY AND THE SOCIAL BASE OF FOLKLORE

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society and maintaining social cohesion,"24as a natural consequence of conceptualizing folklore as the collective representation of a unitary social group. Awareness of the exoteric dimension of folklore performance brings with it the realization that folklore can be an instrument of conflict and aggression as well as solidarity. Here again, texts and forms alone are not reliable indices, for one and the same text may signal hostility in one situation but solidarity in another; dialect jokes are a clear case in point. The argument of this paper thus far has been an essentially negative one in that it has been concerned with exposing the inconsistencies of a widely held folkloristic principle. But now that we have established that shared identity is not necessary for folklore performance to take place, can we say anything about what is necessary, by way of indicating where a performance-centered approach may lead in the analysis of the social base of folklore? Up to this point, we have been begging the question of the nature of folklore, depending upon the universal acceptance of certain genres as belonging to folklore whatever one's view of the essential nature of folklore may be. To approach an answer to the above question, it will be useful to be somewhat more explicit. One possible entree into the social nature of folklore performance may be approached in terms of folklore as verbal art, though this phrase identifies the material of folklore and may be usefully be reformulated as "artistic verbal performance" to bring it into line with the present emphasis upon the doing of folklore as opposed to the things of folklore. Folklorists, even those anthropological ones among whom the term verbal art has had its greatest currency, have never actually conceived of the field as encompassing all verbal art-oratory, for instance, has been a notable omission-but certainly all the verbal forms concerning which there is agreement among folklorists relative to inclusion in the canon do involve the artistic use of spoken language. It is not, therefore, necessary to define folklore as artistic verbal performance to draw upon the concepts here discussed. By the artistic use of spoken language, artistic verbal performance, is meant language usage which takes on special significance above and beyond its referential, informational dimension through the systematic elaboration of any component of verbal behavior in such a way that this component calls attention to itself and is perceived as uncommon or special in a particular context. It may validly be argued that all speech has an esthetic dimension, but it is the point at which awareness of the esthetic dimension is achieved, at which the esthetic is invoked and the speech is intended or recognized as special, which holds the key to artistic verbal performance and responses thereto.25 From this point of departure, it becomes useful to make an analytical distinction between artistic verbal performance and artistic verbal communication. Analysis of the former centers on the act itself and on the performer and directs attention to a particular range of factors bearing upon the performance itself.
24 William Bascom, "Four Functions of Folklore," JOURNAL OF AMERICAN FOLKLORE, 67 (1954), 348. 25 I have been influenced in this formulation by Bohuslav Havrinek, "The Functional Differ"Standard Language and Poetic Language," entiation of the Standard Language," Jan Mukarovsk3, in A Prague School Reader on Esthetics, Literand Jan Mukarovsk', "The Esthetics of Language," ary Structure and Style, ed. Paul L. Garvin (Washington, D.C., 1964), 3-69.

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RICHARD BAUMAN

As a form of social behavior,artisticverbalperformance is subjectto the same kind of implicitand explicitculturalruleswhichgovernall humanbehavior,and the relevantquestions becomewhere,when, for whatpurposes, and to whomdoes a person with a particular set of attributes, or identityfeatures,employ (or not form of verbalart?To cite a negativeexampleof the kinds employ) a particular of rules pertinent to such investigation,the seventeenth-century Quakers felt themselvesbound by the admonitionof the apostles and saints, who "bid all 'Redeemtheir time to avoid folish talking, vain jesting, profanebabblings,and fabulousstories,'" which renderedthe telling of a wide rangeof folk narrative formsinappropriate in anycontext.2"" The analysisof artisticverbalperformance from another may be approached in which he what is the view of the situation direction,by asking performer's finds himself, includingthe physicaland temporalsetting, his own identityand and to the situation,the people with whom he is interacting, goals with reference his competence in the rulesof his cultureconcerning artisticverbalperformance? As indicated,one of the contributing factorswill be the actor'sview of the other in the situation,and his actualor potentialrelationship with themparticipants whatpersonsmayconstitute an audiencefor his performance? All of these factors intermust be determined and delineatedin termsof theircontextual empirically with as of a that a acts such instead only assuming priori relationships performer like himself. people we may distinguishanotherpheBy contrastto artisticverbal performance, Consistentwith its nomenon which we will call artisticverbal communication. to involve the transmission we take communication use in communication theory, of informationfrom one personto another.Analysisof artisticverbalcommunication thus takes in both the performerand the auditor,centeringupon their communicative interaction.In artisticverbal communication, part of the inforwhich mationresidesin the veryexerciseof those elementsof verbalperformance which the of esthetic of the are part structured performer spokenlanguageupon as artistic.For artisticcommunicahas drawnand which distinguishthe utterance tion to occurthen-for the artisticinformationto be transmitted-requiressome on the part of senderand receiverof the estheticconvensharedunderstanding tions of the expressivesystembeing employed.The auditormust be able to perin orderto decodethe artistic as involving artisticelaboration ceive the utterance informationbuilt into it by the sender. And, of course,the performeris more likely to employ folklore if he anticipatesthat his auditor will perceive and its use. Discussingsignifying in the Oakland,California,black comunderstand as verbal art, for example, and emphasizingthe quality of indirection munity writes: Mitchell-Kernan this speechact,Claudia whichcharacterizes
It [indirection] must be employed, first of all, by the participants in a speech act in the recognition that signifying is occurring and that the dictionary-syntacticalmeaning of the utterance is to be ignored. Secondly, this shared knowledge must be employed in the reinterpretation of the utterance. It is the cleverness used in directing the attention of the
26 William Penn, No Cross, No Crown, ch. 17, sec. 5, quoted in Luella M. Wright, Literature and Education in Early Quakerism (Iowa City, 1933), 53. For an analysis of folklore performance in terms of cultural rules for the use of spoken language, see Richard Bauman, "Quaker Folk Linguistics and Folklore," to appear in The Communication of Folklore, ed. Kenneth Goldstein and Dan Ben-Amos.

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DIFFERENTIAL FOLKLORE F AND THE DIFFERENTIAL IDENTITY IDENTITY AND THE SOCIAL SOCIAL BASE BASE OOF FOLKLORE

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hearer aand nd audi ence to tthis his sshared hared which a hearer audience to which a knowledge knowledge upon upon

is talent artistic is talent artistic speaker' s speaker's

judged. judged.27 27
verbal ifif tthe he fformal ormal oof f tthe he art istic fform orm aare re markers verbalcommunication, artistic markers communication, whol ly wholly
or

FFor or mos t fol klore a a shared ffor or art istic isis aalso lso ccode ode most folklore shared artistic fforms, orms, linguistic necessary linguistic necessary

ffor or like iin n Ot her like Other fforms, orms, however, linguistic, however, ssongs ongs Engl ish. linguistic, English. example, proverbs example, proverbs oror ki markers iif f nnot uunininesic ot whi ch bbe e wi or chant s, markers kinesic which chants, ccarry ar y dely ma y paralinguistic widely paralinguistic may wi thout aat t aall. l. ThThe e most ffundaundawithout most versal ly recognized versally recognized aany ny linguistic linguistic comprehension comprehension ment al ffor or art istic verbal remai ns esthetic mental artistic verbalcommunication communication remains a shared esthetic shared prerequisite prerequisite oof f o f t h e features whi c h mus t a l s o b e determined of the features which must also be determined language, spoken spoken language, bby y empirical empirical n ThThe e oof f what ffor or iis s iin ssuch uch shared whatmakes makes shared understandings investigation. understandings investigation. questi question on ffact act t h e o f o f fundamental nat u re i s f a r t h e cul t u re a n d a questi the of of fundamental nature is far the culture and i t s e l f , itself, beyond beyond question on oof f tthis his FFor or tthe he ttime ime wwe e tthe he fol klore oof f advance folklore a advance sscope cope paper. bei ng, mamay y sstudy tudy paper. being, considerable di stance t h os e where i t do e s considerable distance those where it does bby y concentrating concentrating relationships upon upon relationships eexist xist aand nd ourselves klore inin tthe shoul d he communicative bonds ourselves folklore should communicative bonds why aski ng whyfol ffigure igure asking nnot ot iin n tthose iit t iis s absent oof f tthese hose ffrom rom whi ch hese aand nd . which absent. relationships relationships
a a a

The The Texas University University of of Texas Texas Texas Austi n, Austin,
27 27

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Behavior in Black a CaliClaudia Mitchell-Kernan, Language Claudia in Black Language Behavior a Urban CaliMitchell-Kernan, Urban (Berkeley, Community (Berkeley, Community oof f tthe he NNo. o. Ii2i. 2M. Research Laboratory, 23 23 Working Pa per , Working Paper Language-Behavior 1969), Language-Behavior Research Laboratory, 1969)

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