35 Renée Hirschon Greek Adults' Verbal Play, Or, How to Train for Caution Renée Hirschon ______________________________________________________________________________ Abstract This anthropological analysis treats from various viewpoints a common mode of discourse between Greek adults and children characterized as "verbal play" and constituting promises, threats, and false stories. A taxonomic refinement for Greek statements of intention is suggested since many utterances function as "statements of affect." The analysis deals with structure and also with social and cultural dimensions. In structural terms, verbal play is an expression of asymmetry of status and inequalities of power, a key explanatory notion being that of "obligation." The social and cultural dimensions of verbal play involve its role in the process of socialization where it inculcates into children a sense of caution and, disbelief regarding verbal utterances. Since these verbal deceptions also take place within the family, it is this primary locus of trust and security that initiates children existentially into the world-view of Orthodox Christianity -into phenomenal reality's fallen condition and humanity’s consciousness of imperfection. Power and verbal play The structural principles ordering social relationships can be distinguished in analytical terms along two axes-equality and hierarchy. The diacritical variable is relative power, the degree to which social actors exercise their own will and achieve their ends in relation to others (Lukes 1974: 54). In sociolinguistics, Brown and Gilman (1960) showed how pronouns of address/pronominal forms in various languages reveal ordering principles of a similar kind, those of power and solidarity. Their now classic analysis, widely quoted (for example, by Trudgill 1979: 106-108, Tannen 1986: 100-117, and others) provides a standard illustration of one way in which linguistic usages map out structural and diachronic elements in social behavior. In many social contexts where inequality of status is inherent and the power dimension asymmetrical, other linguistic indicators, e.g., address terms, may be discerned (Wardhaugh 1986: 258ff.). Since relationships between social actors are fluid and their relative ranking is seldom permanent or enduring, the ordering of all relationships can be fruitfully explored through the use of language. Among the principles of social organization employed in anthropological analysis, age - or, more specifically, generational difference - is salient in defining hierarchy (see Needham 1974: 72ff.). Universally the adult generation is superordinate over children, at least at the formal structural level. In actual practice, however, this power relationship may or may not favor the adult, a feature that will depend on context, personality, or even actual age (as, for example, with infants whose needs are so overwhelming and compelling that they override adult concerns until satisfied). In the process of socialization, the exercise of power by adults upon malleable children is largely seen as unavoidable and essential. It occurs in many ways, both conscious and unconscious; indeed, the power differential is an inherent and integral part of adult-child relationships in most cultures. By definition, this role-set is not one of peers nor is it based on equality, a state which might be achieved only in fleeting moments (see below). How power is actually exercised in this particular social set – child-adult - is specific to culture and within that to context and time. Recent studies of language acquisition and verbal interchange show how subtle changes occur at different stages of the child's development. The modified registers used with children in most cultures change gradually and subtly at stages that are both personally and culturally defined (see e.g., Brown 1977: 12-20). The significance of language acquisition in the process of socialization is Journal of Modern Greek Studies, Volume 10, 1992.