Persian address pronouns and politeness in interaction
In this thesis, I aim to investigate the variation of Persian pronominal address system and politeness strategies in contemporary Iranian society from a quantitative and qualitative sociolinguistic perspective. I focus on Persian speakersâ use and perception of pronominal address forms in the light of socio-cultural norms in contemporary Iran. Persian, has two personal pronouns for singular address, to ([to]) the familiar or intimate âyouâ and sÌoma ([â"oma:]) the deferential or formal âyouâ (historically the second person plural but now also used as second person singular). Moreover, Persian is a pro-drop language, so the interaction between address pronouns and agreement marking on the verb must be taken into account. Another significant feature of colloquial Persian is a hybrid usage of the overt deferential second person pronoun and informal agreement forming a mismatch construction (i.e. sÌoma with 2s verb agreement) and intra-speaker pronominal address switches that occur between the deferential and casual pronominal address forms. Those deviations from the prescribed forms and/or distribution of the address pronouns are very interesting aspects that may show different levels of politeness
Nanbakhsh, Golnaz
linguistics ; sociolinguistics ; pronominal ; Persian ; Iranian society ; personal pronouns
Persian address pronouns and politeness in interaction. In this thesis, I aim to investigate the variation of Persian pronominal address system and politeness strategies in contemporary Iranian society from a quantitative and qualitative sociolinguistic perspective. I focus on Persian speakersâ use and perception of pronominal address forms in the light of socio-cultural norms in contemporary Iran. Persian, has two personal pronouns for singular address, to ([to]) the familiar or intimate âyouâ and sÌoma ([â"oma:]) the deferential or formal âyouâ (historically the second person plural but now also used as second person singular). Moreover, Persian is a pro-drop language, so the interaction between address pronouns and agreement marking on the verb must be taken into account. Another significant feature of colloquial Persian is a hybrid usage of the overt deferential second person pronoun and informal agreement forming a mismatch construction (i.e. sÌoma with 2s verb agreement) and intra-speaker pronominal address switches that occur between the deferential and casual pronominal address forms. Those deviations from the prescribed forms and/or distribution of the address pronouns are very interesting aspects that may show different levels of politeness
persian address pronoun politeness interaction aim_investigate variation persian pronominal address system politeness_strategy contemporary iranian_society quantitative_qualitative sociolinguistic perspective focus persian speaker_use perception pronominal address form light socio_cultural norm contemporary iran persian personal_pronoun singular address familiar intimate deferential formal historically second_person plural also use second_person singular moreover persian pro_drop language interaction address pronouns agreement mark verb must_take account another significant_feature colloquial persian hybrid usage overt deferential second_person pronoun informal agreement form mismatch construction verb agreement intra speaker pronominal address switch occur deferential casual pronominal address form deviation prescribe form and distribution address pronouns interesting aspect may show different_level politeness