Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/1959.11/17027
Title: On Politic Behaviour: The Personal Pronoun as an Address Term in the Ndebele Language of Zimbabwe
Contributor(s): Ndhlovu, Finex  (author)orcid 
Publication Date: 2014
Handle Link: https://hdl.handle.net/1959.11/17027
Abstract: The use of the personal pronoun as an address term in different speech communities around the world is widely documented. The pioneering work of Brown and Levinson (1987), Brown and Gilman (1968), Friedrich (1972), Gumperz (1982), and Gumperz and Hymes (1972) on politeness strategies long established that both singular and plural personal pronominal forms are often used to express respect, social distance, intimacy and solidarity. More recent studies (Watts 2003; Allan and Burridge 1991, 2006; Allan 2012) concur with the early studies on politeness strategies. Most of their conclusions are based on data mainly from French, Italian, Russian and English speech communities. This chapter presents the most recent empirical evidence from the Midlands Ndebele speech community of Zimbabwe to support the argument that the personal pronominal address system is more complex than is currently acknowledged in the literature. The data indicates that the use of both the singular (wena - you SING) and plural (lina - you PL) forms of the personal pronoun in the Ndebele language betrays an uneasy and unpredictable situation. This uneasiness and unpredictability revolves around a lack of clarity about when it is deemed appropriate to be euphemistic, when to display solidarity or endearment and when to express social distance.
Publication Type: Book Chapter
Source of Publication: Wrestling with Words and Meanings: Essays in Honour of Keith Allan, p. 176-197
Publisher: Monash University Publishing
Place of Publication: Melbourne, Australia
ISBN: 9781922235312
Fields of Research (FoR) 2008: 200403 Discourse and Pragmatics
200499 Linguistics not elsewhere classified
200405 Language in Culture and Society (Sociolinguistics)
Fields of Research (FoR) 2020: 470405 Discourse and pragmatics
470499 Linguistics not elsewhere classified
470411 Sociolinguistics
Socio-Economic Objective (SEO) 2008: 950201 Communication Across Languages and Culture
970120 Expanding Knowledge in Language, Communication and Culture
970116 Expanding Knowledge through Studies of Human Society
Socio-Economic Objective (SEO) 2020: 130201 Communication across languages and culture
280114 Expanding knowledge in Indigenous studies
HERDC Category Description: B1 Chapter in a Scholarly Book
Publisher/associated links: http://nla.gov.au/anbd.bib-an52722497
Editor: Editor(s): Kate Burridge and Reka Benczes
Appears in Collections:Book Chapter
School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences

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