tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Apr 20 16:59:19 1995

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Perspectives on Klingon Communication

Hello!  My name is JoAnn Long, and I'm graduating from the University of 
Idaho this semester in English (focus on linguistics).

I've been "monitoring" this listserver for about two weeks now, and it's 
been quite an educational experience.  I'm taking the Klingon Language 
Postal course, and should feel comfortable with the easiest of sentences 
shortly.  My reason for all of this study is personal AND professional:
I am writing a paper for a cross-cultural communication class on cultural 
barriers to effective communication.  I'm doing this study on Klingon- 
Federation cultural relationships, and to that end would like any 
information on Klingon culture, ESPECIALLY where it would cause 
communication breakdown.  An example is the fact that Klingons appear, 
from my study thus far, to put emphasis on action rather than existence, 
as their lack of an existence verb in the usual sense portrays.  But 
whether these concepts are able to be specifically equated to single 
language illustrations is not the issue.  I'm after anything from how 
Klingons organize paragraphs (parallelism, spiralling around the topic, 
pyramid, reverse-pyramid, tangents, etc.) to taboo structures to sentence 
setups, etc.  Even just background on history, any particular rites and 
rituals, etc., would be helpful.   

Thank you all so much!

L8r,
JoAnn

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