The Oral Tradition in Auction Speech
1992; Duke University Press; Volume: 67; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.2307/455565
ISSN1527-2133
Autores Tópico(s)Names, Identity, and Discrimination Research
ResumoA UCTION TRADITIONS ARE WORLDWIDE and of considerable antiquity. Herodotus is the first writer to describe an auction, one in Mesopotamia for brides, where the most attractive brought the highest bids and the least attractive were provided with dowries financed from the proceeds of the auction of the more attractive young women. Later, the praetorian guard in one of its more disgruntled moods put the Roman Empire up for a Roman auction. Today there are auctioning systems of diverse character in different parts of the world. In parts of Asia bids are placed by signing into the auctioneer's hand, which is hidden under a cloth. At the flower auctions at Aalsmeer in the Netherlands a clock begins to wind down in descending order; the first bidder to stop the clock by pressing a button is the buyer (Cassady 1967). The auctioning tradition which is most familiar in the English-speaking world had its origins in England and was exported to the English colonies all over the world. The evidence which will be presented here for this hypothesis is based on historical reconstruction. By comparing different contemporary auctioning traditions in the English-speaking world, some of the central features of the tradition can be inferred, and, thus, a theory about what Proto English Auction Speech (PEAS) was like will be proposed. The range of current traditions which provide the basis for the reconstruction includes livestock auctions from Whateley, Massachusetts, Toronto, Canada, Banbury, England, and Christchurch, New Zealand; antique auctions at Sotheby's in London, Douglas Galleries in Deerfield, Massachusetts, and R. G. Bell's auction rooms in Kaiapoi, New Zealand; tobacco auctions in Fuquay-Varina, North Carolina, and Danville, Virginia; and wool auctions, real estate auctions, and produce auctions, all in Christchurch, New Zealand. These traditions are not only geographically diverse but also diverse by commodity. Although the focus of this study is the linguistic character of auctions in the English tradition, such auctions also have a social character. To contextualize what follows, here first is a description of one auction, that of the Whateley Cooperative Livestock Auction in Whateley, Massachusetts. It is not a prototypical auction. There are no prototypical auctions. But it is a good example of how auctions work. The Whateley Cooperative Livestock Auction is situated on a back road. It is a rather ramshackle building with a
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