The Semantics and Pragmatics of Honorification

Abstract

This book provides an approach to the semantics and pragmatics of honorifics and expressions with honorific import, treating them as carrying expressive content which contributes either directly or indirectly to a register corresponding to the current formality of the speech situation. This system is given empirical application to a wide range of honorific expressions including utterance and argument honorifics in Japanese, Thai and several other languages, and it is proposed that languages use distinct strategies for honorification which has implications for the grammaticality of certain combinations of honorifics; on the theoretical side, philosophical connections are drawn to a wider range of issues in theory of the construction of social reality, social meaning, and the expression of gender.