Switching number in pronouns as social indices in Dream of the Red Chamber
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/eap.v1i2.30052Keywords:
Chinese, pronoun, switched numbers, (im)politeness, distance, powerAbstract
The role of pronouns as indications of power and solidarity in social interactions has long been a fascinating topic, especially within the Indo-European languages. It is much more complex in a traditional Chinese community, in which group identity and group awareness are always above that of an individual. The family is a strictly hierarchical community, generally governed by age and patriarchal hierarchy, from grandparents to parents. This study examines a particular phenomenon of switched number in the pronouns in Dream of the Red Chamber. For example, plural pronouns are used to refer to a singular referent and vice versa. It shows that one has to understand the usage of these pronouns in the Chinese context in which the interlocutors are well aware of the social hierarchy. The pragmatic use of these switches indicates the attitudes of the speakers toward the people they are speaking to or referring to. The switching of pronoun number is a form of social indexicality, showing attitudes in the context of hierarchical social network.
References
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Stewart, M. (2001). Pronouns of power and solidarity: The case of Spanish first person plural nosotros. Multilingua, 20(2), 155–169. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/MULTI.2001.007
Stirling, L., & Manderson, L. (2011). About you: Empathy, objectivity and authority. Journal of Pragmatics, 43, 1581–1602. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2010.12.002
Wang, L. (1954). Zhongguo yufa lilun. (A Theory of Chinese Grammar) Beijing: Zhonghua Shudian.
Zhu, Z. (1934 [1963]). Ni Wo. (You I). Hong Kong: Taiping Shuju.
Braun, F. (1988). Terms of address: Problems of patterns and usage in various languages and cultures. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/9783110848113
Brown, P., & Levinson, S. C. (1987). Politeness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Brown, R., & Gilman, A. (1960). The pronouns of solidarity and power. In T. Sebeok (Ed.), Style in language (pp. 253–276). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Cao, X. (1993). Hong Lou Meng. Beijing: Renming Wenxue Chubanshe.
Chen, X. (2013). ‘Polysemous’ per self-referring forms in Honglou Meng. In Y. Pan & Daniel Z. Kadar (Eds.), Chinese discourse and interaction: Theory and practice (pp. 292–309). London: Equinox.
Culpeper, J. (2008). Reflections on impoliteness, relational work and power. In D. Bousfield & M. A. Locher (Eds.), Impoliteness in language (pp. 17–44). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Cysouw, M. (2003). The paradigmatic structure of person marking. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
De Cock, B. (2011). Why we can be you: The use of 1st person plural forms with hearer reference in English and Spanish. Journal of Pragmatics, 43, 2762–2775. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2011.04.009
Friedrich, P. (1972). Social context and semantic feature: The Russian pronominal usage. In J. Gumperz & D. Hymes (Eds.), Directions in sociolinguistics: The ethnography of communication (pp. 270–300). New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Goffman, E. (1967). Interaction ritual: Essays on face-to-face behaviour. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books.
Grasso, J. M., Corrin, J. P., & Kort, M. (2004). Modernization and revolution in China: From the opium wars to world power. New York: M. E. Sharpe.
Gu, Y. (1990). Politeness phenomena in modern Chinese. Journal of Pragmatics, 14(22), 237–257. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0378-2166(90)90082-O
Haugh, M., & Hinze, C. (2003). A metalinguistic approach to deconstructing the concepts of ‘face’ and ‘politeness’ in Chinese, English and Japanese. Journal of Pragmatics, 35(10, 11), 1581–1611. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0378-2166(03)00049-3
Hawkes, D. (1977). The Story of the Stone (103 vols.). Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Head, B. F. (1978). Respect degrees in pronominal reference. In J. Greenberg (Ed.), Universals of Human Language, Vol. 3 (pp. 151–211). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Helmbrecht, J. (2003). Politeness distinctions in second person pronouns. In F. Lenz (Ed.), Deictic conceptualisation of space, time and person (pp. 185–203). Amsterdam: Benjamins. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/pbns.112.10hel
Helmbrecht, J. (2005). Politeness distinctions in pronouns. In M. Haspelmath, M. S. Dryer, D. Gil, & B. Comrie (Eds.), The World Atlas of Language Structures (pp. 186–190). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Helmbrecht, J. (2014). A typology of non-prototypical uses of personal pronouns: Synchrony and diachrony. Journal of Pragmatics, 88, 176–189. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2014.10.004
Holmes, J., & Schnurr, S. (2005). Politeness, humour and gender in the workplace: Negotiating norms and identifying contestation. Journal of Politeness Research, 1(1), 121–149. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/jplr.2005.1.1.121
Hong, B. (1985). Politeness in Chinese: Impersonal pronouns and personal greetings. Anthropological Linguistics, 27, 204–213.
Kadar, D. Z. (2007). Terms of (im)politeness. Budapest: Eotvos Lorand University.
Kadar, D. Z., & Haugh, M. (2013). Understanding politeness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139382717
Kitagawa, C., & Lehrer, A. (1990). Impersonal uses of personal pronouns. Journal of Pragmatics, 14(5), 739–775. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0378-2166(90)90004-W
Laberge, S., & Sankoff, G. (1979). Anything you can do. In T. Givon (Ed.), Syntax and semantics: Vol. 12. Discourse and syntax (pp. 419–440). New York: Academic Press.
Lee-Wong, S. M. (2000). Politeness and face in Chinese culture. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.
Locher, M. A. (2004). Power and politeness in action: Disagreements in oral communication. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/9783110926552
Locher, M. A., & Watts, R. J. (2005). Politeness theory and relational work. Journal of Politeness Research, 1(1), 9–33. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/jplr.2005.1.1.9
Lu, S. (1985). Jindai hanyu zhidaici [Anaphora in Modern Chinese]. Shanghai: Xuelin Chubanshe.
Mao, L.-M. R. (1996). Chinese first person pronoun and social implicature. Journal of Asian Pacific Communication, 7(3, 4), 106–128.
Maitland, K., & Wilson, J. (1987). Pronominal selection and ideological conflict. Journal of Pragmatics, 11, 495-512. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0378-2166(87)90092-0
Muhlhausler, P., & Harre, R. (1990). Pronouns and people: The linguistic construction of social identity. Oxford: Blackwell.
Myers, G., & Lampropoulou, S. (2012). Impersonal you and stance-taking in social research interviews. Journal of Pragmatics, 44(10), 1206–1218. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2012.05.005
Okamoto, S. (1999). Situated politeness: Manipulating honorific and non-honorific expressions in Japanese conversations. Pragmatics, 8(2), 51–74.
Pan, Y., & Kadar, D. Z. (2011). Politeness in historical and contemporary Chinese. London: Continuum.
Proctor, K., & Su, L. I. (2011). The 1st person plural in political discourse – American politicians in interviews and in a debate. Journal of Pragmatics, 43, 3251–3266. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2011.06.010
Silverstein, M. (2003). Indexical order and the dialectics of sociolinguistic life. Language and Communication, 23, 193–229. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0271-5309(03)00013-2
Spencer-Oatey, H. (2000). Rapport management: A framework for analysis. In Spencer-Oatey, Helen (Ed.), Culturally speaking: managing rapport through talk across cultures (pp. 11-46). London: Continuum.
Spencer-Oatey, H. (2005). (Im)politeness, face and perceptions of rapport: Unpackaging their bases and interrelationships. Journal of Politeness Research, 1(1), 95–119. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/jplr.2005.1.1.95
Stewart, M. (2001). Pronouns of power and solidarity: The case of Spanish first person plural nosotros. Multilingua, 20(2), 155–169. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/MULTI.2001.007
Stirling, L., & Manderson, L. (2011). About you: Empathy, objectivity and authority. Journal of Pragmatics, 43, 1581–1602. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2010.12.002
Wang, L. (1954). Zhongguo yufa lilun. (A Theory of Chinese Grammar) Beijing: Zhonghua Shudian.
Zhu, Z. (1934 [1963]). Ni Wo. (You I). Hong Kong: Taiping Shuju.
Published
2016-11-11
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Lee, C. L. (2016). Switching number in pronouns as social indices in Dream of the Red Chamber. East Asian Pragmatics, 1(2), 209-230. https://doi.org/10.1558/eap.v1i2.30052
