SOCIOLINGUISTICS
“Solidarity and Politeness”
By:
Hany Khoirotun Nikmah (
3213103071 )
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
When
we speak, we must constantly make choices of many different kinds: what we want
to say, how we want to say, and the specific sentence type, words, and sounds. The
linguistic choices available for a speaker to address another are influenced by
three social variables: kinship, age and gender. These variables set up hierarchical
relations between interact ants. The kinship system gives people in some kin
positions certain rights and privileges over others in other kin positions. Older
persons have a higher status than younger persons, and wives are subordinate to
their husbands. These hierarchical relations are expressed and reinforced
through different socio-cultural institutions and practices including linguistics
forms and behavior.
It
means that a communication needs some rules. The rules were used when we have a
talk in our society. We all know that there are many kinds of dimensions in our
society based on age, gender, or social status. We should know how to use the
language in where and to whom we want to have an interaction. How we say something is at least as important
as what we say; in fact, the content and the form are quite inseparable, being
but two facets of the same object. In this paper, our group will discuss about
the solidarity and politeness in sociolinguistics. In each case we will see the
certain linguistic choices a speaker makes indicate the social relationship
that the speaker perceives to exist between him or her and the listener to
listener.
The
purpose of this paper is to consider the aspects of solidarity and politeness
including face-threatening acts from the point of view of their linguistic
components, relevance for social interaction and their usage in male/female
discourse.
CHAPTER II
A.
SOLIDARITY
Another
type of social relations encoded in language is social distance or closeness
between individuals, or relations of ‘power’ and ‘solidarity’. Brown and Gilman
(1960) argue that in some European languages, beyond the deictic functions of
the second person pronouns tu (T) or vous (V), there are in the
choice of either pronoun, signals of relationships of ‘power’ and ‘solidarity’,
where ‘power’ reflects relative superior status, social distance unfamiliarity,
and deference, and ‘solidarity’ reflects closeness, familiarity, common
experiences and shared intimacies. [1]
In sociolinguistics,
the T (tu) and V (vous) distinction are a contrast, within one language,
between second-person pronouns that are specialized for varying
levels of politeness, social
distance, courtesy, familiarity, or insult toward the addressee. The expressions T-form (informal) and V-form (formal) were introduced by Brown and Gilman (1960),
with reference to the initial letters of these pronouns in Latin, tu and vous. In Latin, tu was originally the singular,
and vous the plural.[2]
Share
relationship of solidarity or differences in power relationships are reflected
in reciprocal or non-reciprocal use of the T/V pronouns in address (Brown and
Gilman 1960, Chaika 1982, Trudgill 1983). According to Hudson (2001) every
language has some way of signaling relationships of power and solidarity, and
languages that do not show the T/V distinction may have other devices to signal
these relations, as in English, where speakers have the choice between first
name only and title plus family name (Hudson, 2001: 123).
Reciprocal V usage
became ‘polite’ usage. This polite usage spread downward in society and it
became expected between husband and wife, parents and children, and lovers.
Reciprocal T usage was always available to show intimacy. Solidarity has tended
to replace power, so that now mutual T is found quite often in relationship
e.g. father and son, and employer and employer.
A
book published in France entitled Savoir-vivre
en France (Vigner,1978) gives the following advice to foreigners on the
current use of tu and vous there. Tu should be used between spouses, between
brothers, and sisters regardless of age, between parent and children, between
close relative, between young people or between adults who have a friendship of
long standing. Vous should be used between strangers, between those who have no
ties in any kind, and between inferior and superior.
Establishing social relationship between
individuals is perhaps the first step to every communicative event. One
important issue in studying communication is to learn how individuals manage to
open conversations or how people may address one another in a given language.
Forms of address have their roots in sociocultural context of a society.
Oyetade (1995) defines address terms as words or expressions used in
interactive, face-to-face situations to designate the person being talked to.
Afful (2006) "terms of address constitute an important part of verbal
behavior through which the behavior, norms and practices of a society can be
identified. Address terms in different speech communities are worth study. They
are likely to be different because different languages have different
linguistic resources to express what is culturally permissible and meaningful.
B.
POLITENESS
Politeness
is taking account of sense: feelings of others, making others feel comfortable.
Linguistically is speaking appropriately to the relationship between speaker
and hearer. Linguistic politeness requires understanding how language works in
variety of social contexts.
According to Brown and Levinson (1987: 46) ‘the most
conspicuous intrusion of social factors into language structure’ is deference
phenomena. They observe that deference is realized under the general theory of
politeness and involves paying attention to the ‘face want’ of the addressee.
‘Face’ is described as the ‘public self image’ that all rational adult members
have when engaged in spoken interaction. Face consists of two related aspects;
positive face and negative face.[3]
Positive face includes the want that one’s self
image be appreciated and approved, whilst negative face is the claim of every
‘competent adult member’ to personal preserves, non-distraction and freedom
from imposition, and to the desire that their actions be unimpeded by others. Both
negative and positive face needs of participants in interaction are constantly
under threat by various acts or omissions of other participants. Face is
therefore highly valued; it can be lost, maintained or enhanced, and must be
constantly adhered to in interaction.
Based on
linguistically, politeness is speaking appropriately to the relationship
between speaker and hearer. Linguistic politeness requires understanding how
language works in variety of social contexts.
Some languages seem have to have built into them
very complex systems of politeness. Javanese, one of the principal languages in
Indonesia, is a language in which, as Geertz (1960, p. 248) says “it’s nearly
impossible to say anything without indicating the social relationship between
speaker and the listener in terms of status and familiarity. Before one
Javanese speaks to another, he or she must decide on an appropriate speech
style: high, middle or low.
But, there is still another level of complication.
Javanese has a set of honorifics, referring to such matters as people, body
parts, possessions, and human actions. There are both high honorifics, e.g.
dahar for eat, and low honorifics, e.g. neda for eat. Only high honorifics can
accompany high style, but both high and low honorifics can accompany low style.
Neda is found in the high style with no honorifics, the middle style (which
cannot have honorifics) and the low style with low honorifics. Dahar for eat
always signals high honorifics in either high and low honorifics.
Level in Javanese
Speech Level Example
Eat now
3a high style,
high honorifics dahar samenika
3 high
style, no honorifics neda samenika
2 middle
style neda saniki
1b low style,
high honorifics dahar saiki
1a low style,
low honorifics neda saiki
1 low style, no honorifics mangan saiki
Level name : 3a krama inggil
3
krama biasa
2 krama madya
1b ngoko sae
1a ngoko madya
1 ngoko biasa
The Japanese are also always described as being an
extremely “polite” people. Martin (1964) has summarized some of the ways in
which Japanese use language to show this politeness: honorific forms
incorporating negatives (analogues to English); “Wouldn’t you like to……?” are
more polite than those without negatives. Martin is of the opinion that there
are four basic factors at work here and that, in choosing the proper, or
polite, address term of another, a Japanese considers out-groupness, social
position, age difference, and sex difference in that order.[4]
We can turn to a European language, French, to show
still another aspect of politeness. In Savoir-vivre
en France (Vigner,1978) we find some examples that clearly illustrate how
longer utterances are considered to be more polite than shorter ones in certain
circumstances.
e.g.:
‘At
three o’clock, with your car’
‘You
should come and get me at three o’clock with your car’
‘Could
you come and get me at three o’clock with your car?’
In using language, we make use of the devices that
the language employs to show certain relationship to others and our attitudes
toward them. In using French, we cannot avoid the tu-vous distinction; in
communicating English, we must refers to others and address them on occasion;
in speaking Javanese or Japanese, we must observe the conventions having to do
with the correct choice of speech level and honorifics
CHAPTER III
CONCLUSION
Expressing the same speech act /speech function may
differ markedly from culture to culture. They reflect social values and
attitudes of societies. Being polite involves knowing expression of a range of
speech functions in a culturally appropriate way. Learning another language
means / involves more than just learning literal meaning of words, how to put
them together, etc. Learners also need to know what they mean in the cultural
context, so they need to understand cultural and social norms of their users.
This makes sociolinguistic competence, important component of communicative
competence
Talking solidarity and politeness, those are related
each other. Before we apply the politeness, we have to consider solidarity
toward the addressee. We have known that there are many kinds of dimension in
our society, such as lower classes and upper classes, we consider to use high
honorifics language. For the example, when we talk with our father, we should
use high honorifics style. It is different when we talk with our friends, we
should not use high honorifics style.
REFERENCES
1.
Wardhaugh,
R. (2006). An Introduction to Sociolinguistics Fifth Edition. Blackwell
Publishing: Australia. Pages 268
2. Salifu,
Nantogma Alhassan, http://www.deepdyve.com/lp/de-gruyter/politeness-sociolinguistic-theory-and-language-chance-hYKfn6i, downloaded on Monday March 11th
2013 at 10.00 a.m.
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TandVdistinction,downloaded
on Monday, March 11th 2013 at 09.50 a.m.
[1]
Wardhaugh, R. (2006). An Introduction to Sociolinguistics Fifth Edition.
Blackwell Publishing: Australia
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%E2%80%93V_distinction,
downloaded on Monday, March 11th 2013 at 09.50 a.m.
[3] Salifu,
Nantogma Alhassan, http://www.deepdyve.com/lp/de-gruyter/politeness-sociolinguistic-theory-and-language-chance-hYKfn6iTQv,
downloaded on Monday,March 11th
2013 at 10.00 a.m
[4]
Wardhaugh, R. (2006). An Introduction to Sociolinguistics Fifth Edition.
Blackwell Publishing: Australia. Pages 268
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