抄録
To clarify the structure of the floor and the way that agreement is reached in Malinke’s tonsigi meetings, this paper examines the organization of the meeting talk interactions. In recent years, the “tradition of dialogue” in Mali has been pointed out. This tradition is characterized by the right of all participants to voice their opinions and by the reaching of decisions only when all participants in the meeting agree. This idea is anchored in the ethnographic descriptions of tonsigi meetings in rural areas of Mali where Malinke people live. However, these descriptions are based on field research conducted in the 1960s, and without analysis of primary data such as the organization of meeting talks. In this paper, I show that tonsigi are still held, and I examine (1) how all participants can voice their opinions, focusing on the role of a chairperson who controls the floor, and (2) how collective decisions are made by participants, focusing on how agree to respective assertions, by analyzing the organization of meeting talks as they occurred.
As a result of the discussions, tonsigi are practiced today by children in rural areas of Mali. The right of all participants to voice their opinions is realized through localized interactions such as a chairperson allowing a sufficient pause in transitions on the floor. Collective decisions are reached by both of two types of the agreement. The one is the passive agreement such as silence, and the other is the active agreeing such as the repetition of an opinion previously voiced.
