Semantic and interactional indirectness in Tongan lexical honorification

Abstract

This paper compares semantic indirectness and interactional indirectness in Tongan lexical honorification and relates them to each other, demonstrating a need for greater methodological and theoretical attention to interactional indirectness, both in the study of honorific systems and more generally in the linguistic conceptualization of indirectness. Semantically the Tongan honorific vocabulary is created primarily through metaphorical extensions and semantic bleaching of everyday words. These processes are common in linguistic honorific systems. While the metaphorical extensions predominate in Tongan language ideology, the semantically bleached words predominate in the actual use of the honorific vocabulary. There are conventions of entextualization of the Tongan honorific speech register that give it common linguistic features across a range of Tongan public social activities, and a common approach to the social personae who are the targets of honorification. These conventions render the semantically bleached words more semantically specific in use. In addition, in the lived reality of ongoing interaction, speakers collaborate in producing shared denotationally specific meanings of honorifics, while maintaining the surface vagueness of the semantically bleached honorific terms.