CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Introduction This chapter has three aims. First it defines some key terms in this study: personal address terms and reference terms. Second, it gives an outline of the study, stating the objectives, the thesis of the study and provides a rationale for the thesis by discussing the factors that govern address and reference behaviour and the justification for the study. Third, it outlines the scope and organisation of the study. 1.2 Terminology This first section introduces the two terms used frequently in this thesis: personal address terms and reference terms. It is crucial to define these at the start for two reasons. First, existing research has either focussed on forms of address only (e.g. Brown and Gilman 1960, Mehrotra 1981, Fasold 1990, Fitch 1991, Oyetade 1995, Dickey 1996 and Mashiri 1999), or attempted to look at forms of address and reference terms together (e.g. Das 1968, Murphy 1988, and Carl 2000), but without clearly explaining their relationship. Yet, as Dickey (1997: 257) rightly observes, “a pragmatic study of the actual relationship between the forms of address and forms of reference is necessary.” Second, there is need to clarify, using naturally occurring data, the distinction between the terms’ lexical and social meaning which has vexed sociolinguists for some time (e.g. Zwicky 1974, Bean 1978, Braun 1988, and Dickey 1996). 1 1.2.1 Personal address terms Personal address terms have been widely defined from different points of view. Here we provide only a few definitions that assist to identify them, especially with regards to their relationship with reference terms, referred to above. According to Oyetade (1995: 515) address forms are, “words or expressions used to designate the person being talked to while talk is in progress.” Carl (2000: 12) defines address terms as “a communicative activity in which speakers address or refer to each other.” Fitch’s (1991: 255) says, “Personal address terms are a ubiquitous feature that reflects a universal communicative activity: speakers addressing and referring to each other.” First, it is clear that Oyetade’s use of the phrase, ‘… the person being talked to…’ alludes to his sensitivity to the need to distinguish the occurrence of an addressing and referring activity. Nevertheless, the problem remains unsolved, since in some societies, Shona included, speakers may use children and dogs as pseudo-addressees while the target of the message is a co-present referent. Carl and Fitch’s definitions, contrary to Oyetade’s give the impression that address terms and reference terms are synonymous. Carl and Fitch’s use of the word ‘activity’ alludes to the goal-oriented nature of address systems, quite central to this study. There is implicit reference to the significance of considering the speaker’s characteristics as a determinant factor in the address process. As Braun (1988: 29) notes, “interpreting instances of address solely in terms of addressee characteristics and speaker-addressee relationship, more often than not is insufficient. For many speaker characteristics affecting the choice of address variants are not relational.” 2 Finally, the word ‘universal’, that Fitch uses in her definition implies that personal address terms exist in all cultures and languages. This means that every socio-cultural system has a functional slot for this kind of activity. However, the factors bearing on the particular form to be selected for this purpose may vary considerably from one culture to another (Coulmas 1979: 245). Thus, Fitch (1998: 34) also stresses the connection between the address system and culture, which forms the basis of this thesis: The personal address resource that exist, and the patterns and meanings of their uses, are culture specific: they reflect communal understandings of the personhood that are important enough to draw attention in a particular social structure. This thesis corroborates this view and illustrates how some observations made by studies on European address systems, such as Brown and Gilman’s (1960) and Brown and Ford (1961) (American), or even on those few on other African languages, such as Oyetade (1995), for example, may not be valid for Shona. In spite of some of the shortcomings identified in Oyetade’s, Carl and Fitch’s definitions, taken together, provide an adequate picture of the basic function of terms of address. 1.2.2 Personal reference terms Personal reference has not been as well investigated as addressing has, although the contributions by Das (1968), Murphy (1988), Carl (2000) and Dickey (1996, 2002) are duly recognised. However, none of these is on an African language. In African languages, the sociolinguistics of personal reference is just as scarce as that of terms of address. Commenting on the state of research on address systems in non-European 3 languages, Fasold (1990: 30) says, “indigenous languages of the Western hemisphere and African languages have received much less attention.” The present effort therefore intends to provide a springboard for a consolidated study of personal address and reference in African languages and cultures. Murphy (1988: 318) says of reference terms, “personal reference differs from address in that the person named is not being spoken to”. Carl (2000: 13) notes that, “While personal address terms are terms that are used to address others who are co-present in an interaction, person reference terms may be used to refer to a person or group of people who may or may not be co-present.” Both Murphy and Carl define personal reference terms in relation to personal address terms. This is necessary, since we have already suggested the necessity to study them together or simultaneously with an intention to contribute to the clearing of the misunderstanding surrounding these speech acts1. Of the two definitions, apparently the only ones we came across in all the literature consulted, we adopt Carl’s. Besides noting that the referent may be one or more people, Carl appreciates the fact that the referent may or may not be co- present. This definition therefore, caters for instances of pseudo-addressees, raised above. If we take Keevallik’s (1999: 125) view that “address forms are a sensitive means of expressing social relations between interlocutors” as valid, then it follows that personal reference terms, thus provide a safe context or buffer for reducing the risk involved. The implication is that personal reference terms may be taken as an indirect form of address that speakers choose to “speak the unspeakable” (Obeng 2000 and 1 In this study it will be clear that indirect communication strategies speakers use to avoid confrontation with co-present referents fall under Searle’s (1969) speech-act theory – performing a primary illocutionary act by way of a secondary illocutionary act. 4 Mashiri, Mawomo and Tom 2002). Hence, both Murphy’s and Carl’s definitions show that the referent (s), whether s/he [they] is [are] co-present or not, is [are] not a ratified addressee (s). This hypothesis may mean that terms of address and terms of reference are governed by different conditions or rules, contrary to Zwicky’s (1974: 788-89) suggestion that: In general, the conditions on the use of an NP as a vocative [i.e., an address term] to someone are the same as the conditions on its use to refer to someone; if it is appropriate to speak to someone as Grandma Myshkin… then it is appropriate to speak of someone as Grandma Myshkin… other things being equal. Zwicky’s hypothesis also has a bearing on the relationship of lexical/denotative and social/indexial meaning that we shall discuss later in this chapter. 1.3 Categorisation of address and reference terms Theoretical linguists often classify address [and reference] terms into syntactically ‘bound’ and ‘free’ forms2 (Braun 1988: 11-12, Dickey 2002: 5). Bound forms are those integrated into the syntax of a sentence, and free are those not so integrated (Dickey 1996: 5). Thus, in the request: Ambuya tingagarisane here? ‘Mother-in-law, could you please move over’ [to create space on a bus seat], ambuya is a free form and ti- ‘inclusive pronoun (we)’, a bound form. 2 The use of the terms ‘bound’ and ‘free’ makes implicit reference to morphemes. The implication of this reference is that we regard words used as address or reference terms as morphological items. Yule (1985: 60) defines ‘free’ morphemes as words “which can standby themselves as single words” and ‘bound’ morphemes as “those which cannot normally stand alone, but which are typically attached to another form.” The morphological form of address or reference terms has no direct relevance to their pragmatic function. 5 In Shona, as in most African languages, free forms tend to be pronouns and nouns and bound forms are usually affixes and they tend to be anaphoric. This syntactic classification of address [and reference] terms is, however, only useful for identification purposes, since it has very little, if any, effect on their sociolinguistic function explored in this study. It is important to mention that nouns are generally divided into common nouns, proper nouns or names and kinship terms. The details concerning their definitions and variations are given in Chapters four through nine. 1.4 Outline of the study Personal address and reference terms are taken-for-granted sociolinguistic resources that reflect a universal communicative activity, but are structured by ‘cultural codes’ (Philipsen 2002: 52) that are in turn, assumed to vary across cultures. Hence, this study adopts Philipsen’s (1989a) axiom of cultural particularity whose central claim is that efficacious resources for creating shared meaning and motivating coordinating action vary across cultures. Our interest in Shona address and reference terms was prompted by their pervasiveness in everyday language, connection to relationships and communication, and their link to context based cultural meaning.