Michael Silverstein The ‘value’ of objectual language ABA 198u Weitng about "the mystery of the fetishistic character of commodities" (1867), Marx observed that "Value does not wear an explanatory label. ..value | changes all labour products into social hieroglyphs. ...the specification of a useful object as a value is just as mch a social product as language is." Seeing tactile objects, products of one sort of labour, as language-like, | and hence subject to analysis in terms of the codes of exchange, takes the set of objects and makes it language-ike, by an interesting metaphor. | Tn an opposite vein, Ferdinand de Saussure~or his editors, of course-- uses the econmic metaphor of currency to explain what he means by linguistic valeur, the "value! op, systeminterally, the ‘valence’ of Linguistic signs. Linguistic signs, he argues, are like the five-franc piece: exchangeable against a determined quantity of something, e.g., bread, and comparable to another value in the same op a different system of currency ©916) 51960;159-60). For Saussure, however, linguistically constituted value is completely dis- tinct from its, as he puts it, "natural" basis, and is completely determined by the structure of relationships within the system of language. In economics, he asserts--fetishizing the commodities exactly as Marx claimed we do--the value of en estate of land, for example, is proportional to its size, all other things being equal ([1916] 1960:116), though not exclusively, for the system of sign-values intrudes here as well, to a certain extent. What I wish to call to attention here is the fact that Linguistic signs, | conceived of as cultural symbols, must be seen as values constituted by a culturally-local systen of validated omership, alienability, and usufruct according to a social understanding of what holds instances of use of lan- guage together. The most exquisite example of this I know is the case of Proper names, so-called, in Northwest Coast societies, such as the Chinookans of the Columbia River, Personal names are so explicitly 1ike what we call. | antiques, in the way such societies deal in them, that the more literal | economic sense of value obtrudes much more than the normally understoodanalytic understanding we have of proper names 2s labels for individuals. For proper names, in each instance of use, are really displayed, brought out Like an object of value fron the trunk where it hes been stored, and index ‘the ordinal position of the beaver in terms of en economy of total worth. Similarly, though less obviously, sung-and-danced corrobaree pieces among ‘the northwest Australian Aborigines, such as the Worora and their neighbours, become items of verbal and musical art-performance art, if you will--that are part of a lerge system of essentielly exchange of goods and services. This cultural perspective on the constitution of Linguistic value con- trasts, I believe, with the usual functionalist assumptions that forma backdrop for our cross-cultural understanding of language, even in the most well-meaning ethnography of commnication or anthropology of languege. Function-as-purpose or function-as~indexical-value, tacked on to the Buro- centric view of language as a means of referving end predicating, makes assumptions about the constitution of Linguistic value in use that rest firmly on a kind of representationalism. Language stands-for something in suchiviens, whether the intentions of a spesker to communicate, or the implicit institutional contexts of communication, just as language stands- for the objects of reference and the situations of predication in the nar= rower Western tradition. The Linguistic sign is the underlying conven- tion of standing-for, instanced on each of the infinite number of occasions on which it is used, and it is just our task to find the conventions by examining instances of use, letting the forms be cur guides. That the conventions are conventions of representation, however, is the key func- tionalist assumption in investigation, a universal grid of possibilities thus Set Up against which we have only to order the cultural particulars The extent to which what lcoks like or language-in-use to us is, however, not simply language/in thé 1dcal culture, representational Z Aewever rerk 16 2 franetionalesh the extent to which/function itself is epistemologically problematic \ is temptConsider the case of the Linguistic heirlooms of the Northwest Coast, in particular those I have investigated among Upper Chinockans. Even in ‘these groups bordering on the Plateau, with attenuated expression of classic Northwest Coast institutions, personal names have the characteristics of groups further to the west and north. To be sure, each person is theoretically attached to his or her lebel on each occasion of use, or prommeiation of the form of the name he or she bears at any given time; we can find the grinciple of individuation in reference, just as Russell or Searle would have it, But traditionally, names were not used in face-to-face or other kinds of references definite descriptions, such as kinship terms, were used. relative or ordinal economic value Rather, the essence of proper names is ike that of heirloom antiques/as investment property: everyone wanted as many as possible, and in two senses. First, a person was invested with a name first at the age of about ‘the second year of life, anywhere from about 8 months to 2 years, Sapir & Spier tell us in their "Wishrem Ethnography (1930:258-60). At many cocas- ions of life-cycle transformation, the person got new names, in the best case of greater and greater intrinsic worth, of higher and higher ordinal value. And while the person lived, any of this property was alienable, in the sense that any one of the names could be given to someone else, generally @ relative of lower generation, by consanguineal or affinal comection. "Given" in the sense of invested in that other person, op rather the other + @ person would vacate a name, as it were, taking a new one, and alienating the erstwhile one to the new owner. But, without such alienation, al] the cumilation of names were the bearer's, and they formed a ranked or ordered set, generally in the order of acquisition. ‘There '$ a second sense in which people "owned" names, that of contrel. People lay claims to names of deceased ancestors, generally in descent Lines among the Upper Chinookens, like the "house" oy "crest" corporations in the ie Nort!compete for contyol over the investiture of this store of names upon new bearers, and do so when the occasion arises. Included here is the self- naming with any of the nenes, i.e., taking the name as one's oi at the appropriate time, especially as one becomes older, and there is no one more senior (especially of the grandparent in) to bestow L or higher generet ‘the name upon the person. So while the whole store of names are not owned in the first sense, it is the prerogative of certain individuals to om ‘them in this second sense, to anrenge for others to do so. Since every name has an intrinsic relative value with respect to every other, at any given time, having a name conferred upon one is an assertion of the e rank or ordinal position of the bearer with respect to others, who bear different names. This assertion of ranked position is made and validated in an elaborate naming ceremony, of the classic “potiatch" var~ iety, in which all people present, i.e., all names present, are called by vank from high to low upon/to recognize the new bearer of the nane as bearing it, and to receive clothes § accessories, in exchange valuables, nowadays beadwork, blankets, hides, traditional ‘trade goods like beads, china, flatware, ete. for women, firearms, etc. for men. Obviously, there is a correlation, or we might say c2libration, of the validated worth of the name--and hence of its bearer--by the amount and Kinds of wealth given away at such an occasion, and it is a delicate matter for the sponsors of the ceremony, for example the old people who allow the bestowal of the name, and the entire family of the new bearer, to have en appropriate amount of wealth in toto and in particular to each recipient. ‘he wealth thus constitutes a back-prestation in response to the audience's having come and called the new bearer by that name, this act effectively validating the claim to it as at a certain ranked ordinality with respect to their names. The naming cerenony is of particular interest in terms of the formilaics of name bestowal. The word for nane is an inalienably possessed now, i |