The Grammar of Politics: Morality, Agency, and Voice Selection in Toraja Political Discourse

Voice alternations in Austronesian languages have typically been explained either in terms of clausal transitivity or in terms of nominal pragmatic salience. Here I combine grammatical and ethnographic analysis to argue that speakers of Toraja (a language of Sulawesi) select grammatical voice forms to represent moral and political stances with respect to ongoing actions; voice selection is connected to the micropolitics of situated interaction and to the broader cultural context (vernacular moral theories and local styles of self-presentation). Patient voice mitigates the assignment of agency, and thus aids in reproducing local models of the disinterested and subdued political self; conversely, actor voice projects an agentive and authoritative speaking subject. Such integrated analysis not only reveals the essential role of linguistic practices in reproducing a community’s moral system, but also advances the understanding of voice alternation.