This article discusses the multifaceted and shifting nature of “shame” (ha'amā) associated with Tahitian, one of the Indigenous languages of French Polynesia. Despite congregants at the Mā'ohi ...Protestant Church contesting the colonial degradation of Mā'ohi Indigeneity and promoting the spiritual significance of Indigenous languages, the idea of shame and awkwardness attached to speaking practices remains the largest psychological obstacle for language revitalization. This research establishes that while “language empowerment” attempts to reverse colonial stigma, the site of “shame” is shifting from its colonial associations to an age‐based habit and, further, to the speakers' failure in owning it.
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FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
Word meanings tend to weaken over time with exposure to more listeners and lose some of their original power. This process of semantic inflation will be motivated in this paper as a major linguistic ...force that systematically triggers semantic change. Then, it will be illustrated that this process is widespread, being attested in various domains such as metaphor, superlatives, terms of address, and swear words. In particular, we will show how it is responsible for the phenomenon of pronoun avoidance, the fact that Korean and some other East and Southeast Asian languages do not possess a polite form of second person pronouns in their pronominal paradigm and have to rely on an honorific term of address in their places. (Kyung Hee University)
Conversational agents (CAs) are a novel approach to delivering digital health interventions. In human interactions, terms of address often change depending on the context or relationship between ...interlocutors. In many languages, this encompasses
-formal and informal forms of the second-person pronoun "You"-that conveys different levels of familiarity. Yet, few research articles have examined whether CAs' use of T/V distinction across language contexts affects users' evaluations of digital health applications.
In an online experiment (
= 284), we manipulated a public health CA prototype to use either informal or formal T/V distinction forms in French ("tu" vs. "vous") and German ("du" vs. "Sie") language settings. A MANCOVA and
tests were performed to examine the effects of the independent variables (i.e., T/V distinction and Language) and the moderating role of users' demographic profile (i.e., Age and Gender) on eleven user evaluation variables. These were related to four themes: (i) Sociability, (ii) CA-User Collaboration, (iii) Service Evaluation, and (iv) Behavioral Intentions.
Results showed a four-way interaction between T/V Distinction, Language, Age, and Gender, influencing user evaluations across all outcome themes. For French speakers, when the informal "T form" ("
) was used, higher user evaluation scores were generated for younger women and older men (e.g., the CA felt more humanlike or individuals were more likely to recommend the CA), whereas when the formal "V form" ("
) was used, higher user evaluation scores were generated for younger men and older women. For German speakers, when the informal T form ("
) was used, younger users' evaluations were comparable regardless of Gender, however, as individuals' Age increased, the use of "
resulted in lower user evaluation scores, with this effect more pronounced in men. When using the formal V form ("
), user evaluation scores were relatively stable, regardless of Gender, and only increasing slightly with Age.
Results highlight how user CA evaluations vary based on the T/V distinction used and language setting, however, that even within a culturally homogenous language group, evaluations vary based on user demographics, thus highlighting the importance of personalizing CA language.
This article presents research on the system of T/V distinction in Hebrew from the 16th to the 20th century. As the article is the first attempt to describe the phenomenon, it aims to give a general ...overview of the T/V distinction in European Hebrew, introducing new language data, and posing new questions. One book served as terminus a quo for the whole article: Course of the Russian Language by Zalkind (Epstein, Zalkind. 1869.
. Warsaw: Schriftgisser), written in Hebrew, contains approximately 100 pages of everyday dialogues in both Hebrew and Russian. The question of whether the Hebrew language of the 19th century was a dead or living language is still a matter of debate. In that regard, the course book provides valuable material that does not fit into the framework of the general idea of the history of the Hebrew language. Basic elements of conversational politeness are the focus of the analysis. The system, in which V-forms of address are expressed by a third-person singular, is reconstructed from the conversations in the Epstein’s book and traced back to the 16th century in a wide range of various Hebrew sources. The T/V distinction in Hebrew is also compared to the similar phenomena in Polish and German. Originating before the 16th century, the T/V distinction disappeared in modern Israeli Hebrew. However, it is still in use in some specific communication situations, which can be regarded as residues of earlier forms of traditional speech practices.
This paper provides a descriptive analysis of address rules governing two nominal types of free forms of address (i.e., personal names and titles), which are used between two human beings in biblical ...Hebrew prose. Using the bidimensional power/solidarity model as a theoretical framework (Brown and Gilman 1960; Brown and Ford 1961), I attempt to show whether the usage of personal names and titles in biblical Hebrew exhibits unique rules and patterns or accords with their claim of “linguistic universal”-the linguistic form referring to an inferior is used mutually by intimate equals, while the form referring to a superior is used mutually by distant equals. After describing the general rules of address, I attempt to identify possible examples of what Brown and Gilman call “expressive shift,” that is, strategic violation of address rules to communicate the speaker's temporary feelings and attitudes.
Abstract In many languages, a person can be addressed either in the second person singular or the second person plural: the former indicates familiarity and/or lack of respect, while the latter ...suggests distance and/or respect towards the addressee. While in Ancient Greek pronominal reference initially was not used as a ‘politeness strategy’, in the Post-classical period a T–V distinction did develop. In the Early Byzantine period, I argue, yet another pronominal usage developed: a person could also be addressed in the third person singular. This should be connected to the rise of abstract nominal forms of address, a process which can be dated to the fourth century AD.
In many languages, a person can be addressed either in the second person singular or the second person plural: the former indicates familiarity and/or lack of respect, while the latter suggests ...distance and/or respect towards the addressee. While in Ancient Greek pronominal reference initially was not used as a ‘politeness strategy’, in the Post-classical period a T–V distinction did develop. In the Early Byzantine period, I argue, yet another pronominal usage developed: a person could also be addressed in the third person singular. This should be connected to the rise of abstract nominal forms of address, a process which can be dated to the fourth century AD.
This article analyses the usage of T/V forms of address in Peninsular Spanish in a context of high formality —four interviews on Spanish national television of ca. 40 minutes each to frontbench ...politicians by top political analysts. Whilst the interviewers used V consistently, from the different choices of T/V pronouns made by the interviewees a number of intriguing conclusions are inferred. Unlike previous research into the addressees’ social factors, this research shows that the addressees’ age, sex and power/authority did not necessarily have an impact on the speakers’ choice of T or V. Conversely, the factor common to those speakers who used T was their young age (not the addressees’). Additionally, the cases of variation within the same speaker’s speech, changing from V to T, were prompted by the speaker’s desire to implicate less solidarity in moments when they disagreed with their interlocutors. In sum, this research reveals that the choice of T or V, even in contexts of the highest formality, may depend on the speaker’s idiosyncrasy and will to express more or less distance with their addressee.
Many languages make a T/V distinction when addressing an interlocutor, and Basque also has two main levels of formality: 'zuka' (formal) and 'hika' (informal). The peculiarity of the Basque informal ...form of address 'hika' is that its verbal morphology varies depending on the addressee's gender. The use of 'hika' has dramatically decreased in most parts of the Basque Country, and even in those areas where it is still widely spoken, the female form '(noka)' is on the verge of extinction. In this study, we seek to provide data to confirm this decreasing trend to examine the reasons behind such pronounced gender differences in usage. We used a questionnaire consisting of both numeric and narrative parts to elicit data, and 1,247 participants responded. The results corroborate the decreasing tendency found in other studies, and the loss of female forms is attributed to several factors including lack of prestige, transmission gap, and sexism.
This article investigates forms of address, in particular the TN distinction in German, in conversational interviews with German-speaking immigrants to English-speaking Canada & their descendants. ...From among 77 interviews conducted in two urban areas in Canada, we discuss instances of both the interactional use of & metalinguistic comments on forms of address. Our analysis is largely guided by conversation analysis & interactional sociolinguistics (e.g. Goodwin & Heritage 1990). Using Clyne, Norrby & Warren's (2009) model of address as a backdrop, we investigate the construction of group identity & group socialization through the lens of positioning theory (e.g. van Langenhove & Harre 1993; Dailey-O'Cain & Liebscher 2009). This combination of analytical tools can explain shifts in both usage of & attitudes toward the TN distinction that cannot be explained through language attrition arguments alone. Adapted from the source document
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