Abstract
The study explores the phenomenon of politeness vis-à-vis collective identity in two indigenous languages of Arunachal Pradesh, India: Miju and Digaru. Through the differential use of discourse markers in various language settings, this paper examines politeness strategies used by the speakers of both languages to form inferences on the speakers’ worldview and social knowledge of their respective communities in different contexts. The intrinsic structure of the language of a community and its lucid usage construes politeness together with a society's socio-cultural principles. The socio-cultural characteristics fabricate the speakers' cognitive structure that formulates the phenomenon of politeness falling in with the language principles and boundaries. The current paper examines the production, projection and perception of politeness through discursive approach including inclusiveness/ exclusiveness strategies to understand natives’ perspective on collective identity as speakers of endangered languages themselves. Further, the study takes linguistic politeness as a meta-pragmatic entity and tries to explore this phenomenon in the Miju and Digaru languages from the native’s socio-cognitive understanding. In doing so, the paper appropriates Koller (2012), which, in introducing critical analytical parameters for analysing collective identity in discourse, talks about three levels of discourse – Macro-level, Meso-level, and Micro-level.
Highlights
The paper explores the phenomena of politeness in relation to collective identity in two languages of Arunachal Pradesh, India, viz., K’man or Miju, and Tawra or Digaru (Note 1), both of which belong to Mishmi language subgroup of Tibeto-Burman languages
The present paper makes an effort to understand the complexity of collective identity as speakers of minority languages in the context of production, perception and projection of politeness in discourse
The study has applied these parameters and has identified some discourse features among the speakers of both the languages which invokes collective identity from the aspect of politeness which leads us to conclude: 1) Discourse markers such as politeness maker with hortative modality; inclusive pronouns and inclusive particles in imperative construction are used to present a positive collective identity in certain formal situations of interlocution (Extract I and III) where speech was prepared in advance
Summary
The paper explores the phenomena of politeness in relation to collective identity in two languages of Arunachal Pradesh, India, viz., K’man or Miju, and Tawra or Digaru (Note 1), both of which belong to Mishmi language subgroup of Tibeto-Burman languages. Miju and Digaru are spoken in five districts of Arunachal Pradesh: Dibang Valley, Lower Dibang Valley, Lohit, Namsai and Anjaw. As per 2001 Census of India, there were about 17,257 Mishmi speakers in Arunachal Pradesh of which 17,013 dwelled in Lohit district itself. The total population of the subgroup, noted by 2011 Census, is 44,100, of which Mishmi has 15,871 and others have 28,229 speakers. It has not shown the demographic breakdown within the Mishmis and others
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