15plants and animals are embedded. Using semi- naturalistic speech data (semi-
naturalistic, in that the data were obtained through interviews), I investigate the
explicit knowledge that Solega people have of the forest and its inner workings, and
of the ecological relationships between different named organisms. I also ask how
Solega people regard themselves as fi tting into this network of relationships, and
why they should know so much about interactions between organisms that seem-
ingly have no bearing on their own lives.
Chapter 7 takes the study of encyclopedic knowledge to its logical conclusion, by
attempting to describe all facets of the Solega’s knowledge of a culturally signifi cant
group of creatures—the honeybees. A key reason for undertaking this study was to
demonstrate that a speech community can indeed possess highly detailed and sophis-
ticated knowledge of biological entities and processes, even if their folk classifi ca-
tion might seem simple or shallow in comparison to those of others. Berlin [ 9 ] has
argued that there are fundamental perceptual differences in the ways which hunter
gatherer s and agriculturalists categorise the natural world. This dichotomy has
already been criticised by Ellen [ 72 ], partly because there are few, if any, instances
of people who are purely ‘ agriculturalist ’ or purely ‘ hunter-gatherer ’. In the case of
the Solega, small-scale agriculture has defi nitely been practiced for several genera-
tions, but these people have never been beekeepers. Being, in effect, honey ‘hunt-
ers’, they provide an excellent case study for a comparison with a pre- industrial
beekeeping society. Greece at the time of Aristotle was indeed such a society, and
the philosopher has kindly left us extensive writings on the honeybee- related lore of
his beekeeping contemporaries. Comparing Solega honeybee TEK with that of
Aristotle’s Greece, I ask whether there are signifi cant differences between the two,
and if the latter system of knowledge is any better than the former.
1.4 Concerns About Scope and Method
As early as the 1970s, William Labov had voiced concerns about traditional linguis-
tic research techniques such as textual analysis, elicitation and intuitions having
little to offer by way of explaining the functioning of language as “ a vehicle of com-
munication in everyday life ” ([ 73 ]; p. 108). Suggesting the observation of speakers
as the most diffi cult—but probably the most rewarding—data collection method,
Labov identifi ed three reasons why linguists might prefer alternative procedures:
One widely propagated belief which is used to discourage the study of ordinary language is
that speech is incoherent. Chomsky has often remarked that the child must discard the larg-
est part of what he hears as ungrammatical (1965: 58). This view is a myth based upon no
evidence at all, except perhaps a few transcripts of learned conferences...
Secondly, we fi nd that most investigators describe their own community as exceptional,
rife with dialect mixture and chaotic variation as compared to the homogeneous nature of
traditional speech communities. But such homogeneous communities are also myths...
We fi nd a third ideological barrier in the claim that all such data belong to some other
far-away discipline called the study of performance, to be realized when we have mastered
the facts of competence. The distinction between competence and performance may have
its uses, but as it is now drawn it is almost incoherent. (p. 109–110)1.4 Concerns About Scope and Method