|
Reserve Text: Roger Brown and Albert Gilman, The Pronouns of Power and Solidarity THE PRONOUNS OF
POWER AND SOLIDARITY This paper is divided into five major sections.1 The first three of these are concerned with the semantics of the pronouns of address. ~y seman~ tics we mean covariation between the pronoun used and the objective relationship existing between speaker and addressee. The first section offers a general description of the_semant:!.c evolution of the pronouns of address in certain European languages. The second section describes I semantic differences existing today among the pronouns of French, German, and Italian. The third section proposes a connection between social structure, group ideology, and the semantics of the pronoun. !l!~_~final. two sections of the paper are concerned with expressive style by which we meaii-covariation between the "pronoun used and characteristics of _______________________________ |
|
|
[253]
In each section
the evidence most important to the thesis of that section is described
in detail. However, the various generalizations we shall offer have
developed as an interdependent set from continuing study of our whole
assemblage of facts, and so it may be well to indicate here the sort
of motley assemblage this is. Among secondary sources the general language
histories (16, 48, 90, 142, 213, 275) have been of little use because
their central concernjs always phonetic rather than semantic change.
However, there are a small number of monographs and doctoral dissertations
describing the detailed pronoun semantics for one or another language
-sometimes throughout its history (133, 139, 216, 353), sometimes for
only a century or so (229, 401), and sometimes for the, works of a particular
author (55,119). As primary evidence for the usage of the past we have
drawn on plays, on legal proceedings (208), and on letters (89, 151).
We have also learned about contemporary usage from literature but, more
importantly, from long conversations with native speakers of French,
Italian, German, and Spanish both here and in Europe. Our best information
about the pronouns of today comes from a questionnaire concerning usage
which is described in the second section of this paper. The questionnaire
has thus far been answered by the following numbers of students from
abroad who were visiting in Boston in 1957-1958: 50 Frenchmen, 20 Germans,
11 Italians, and two informants, each, from Spain, Argentina, Chile,
Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Israel, South Africa, India, Switzerland, Holland,
Austria, and Yugoslavia. We have far more
information concerning English, French, Italian, Spanish, and German
than for any other languages. Informants and documents concerning the
other Indo-European languages are not easily accessible to us. What
we have to say is then largely founded on information about these five
closely related languages. These first conclusions will eventually be
tested by us against other Indo-European languages and, in a more generalized
form, against unrelated languages. The European development
of two singular pronouns of address begins with the Latin tu and vos.
In Italian they became tu and voi (with Lei eventually largely displacing
VOL); in French tu and vous; in Spanish tu and vos (later usted). In
German the distinction began with du and Ihr but Ihr gave way to er
and later to Sie. English speakers first used "thou" and "ye"
and later replaced "ye" with "you". As a convenience we propose to use
the symbols T and V (from the Latin tu and vos) as generic designators
for a familiar and a polite pronoun in any language. THE GENERAL
SEMANTIC EVOLUTION OF T AND V The usage need
not have been mediated by a prosaic association with actual plurality,
for plurality is a very old and ubiquitous metaphor for power. Consider
only the several senses of such English words as "great" and
"grand". The reverential vos could have been directly inspired
by the power of an emperor. Eventually the
Latin plural was extended from the emperor to other power figures. However,
this semantic pattern was not unequivocally established for many centuries.
There was much inexplicable fluctuation between T and V in Old French,
Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese (353), and in Middle English (229,
401). In verse, at least, the choice seems often to have depended on
assonance, rhyme, or syllable count. However, some time between the
twelfth and fourteenth centuries (133, 139, 229, 353), varying with
the language, a set of norms crystallized which we call the nonreciprocal
power semantic. The Power Semantic There are many
bases of power -physical strength, wealth, age, sex, institutionalized
role in the church, the state, the army, or within the family. The character
of the power semantic can be made clear with a set of examples from
various languages. In his letters, Pope Gregory I (590604) used T to
his subordinates in the ecclesiastical hierarchy and they invariably
said V to him (291). In medieval Europe, generally, the nobility said
T to the common people and received V,' the master of a household said
T to his slave, his servant, his squire, and received V. Within the
family, of whatever social level, parents gave T to children and were
given V. In Italy in the fifteenth century penitents said V to the priest
and were told T (139). In Froissart (late fourteenth century) God says
T to His angels and they say V; all celestial beings say T to man and
receive V. In French of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries man says
T to the animals (353). In fifteenth-century Italian literature Christians
say T to Turks and Jews and receive V (139). In the plays of Corneille
and Racine (353) and Shakespeare (55), the noble principals say T to
their subordinates and are given V in return. The V of reverence
entered European speech as a form of address to the principal power
in the state and eventually generalized to the powers within that microcosm
of the state -the nuclear family. In the history of language, then,
parents are emperor figures. It is interesting to note in passing that
Freud reversed this terminology and spoke of kings, as well as generals,
employers, and priests, as father figures. The propriety of Freud's
designation for his psychological purposes derives from the fact that
an individual learning a European language reverses the historical order
of semantic generalization. The individual's first experience of subordination
to power and of the reverential V comes in his relation to his parents.
In later years similar asymmetrical power relations and similar norms
of address develop between employer and employee, soldier and officer,
subject and monarch. We can see how it might happen, as Freud believed,
that the later social relationships would remind the individual of the
familial prototype and would revive emotions and responses from childhood.
In a man's personal. history recipients of the nonreciprocal V are parent
figures. Since the nonreciprocal power semantic only prescribes usage between superior and inferior, it calls for a social structure in which there are unique power ranks for every individual. Medieval European societies were not so finely structured as that, and so the power semantic was never the only rule for the use of T and V. There were also norms of address for persons of roughly equivalent power, that is, for members of a common class. Between equals, pronominal address was reciprocal; an individual gave and received the same form. During the medieval period, and for varying times beyond, equals of the upper classes exchanged the mutual V and equals of the lower classes exchanged T.
|
|
|
[256] The difference
in class practice derives from the fact that the reverential V was always
introduced into a society at the top. In the Roman Empire only the highest
ranking persons had any occasion to address the emperor, and so at first
only they made use of V in the singular. In its later history in other
parts of Europe the reverential V was usually adopted by one court in
imitation of another. The practice slowly disseminated downward in a
society. In this way the use of V in the singular incidentally came
to connote a speaker of high status. In later centuries Europeans became
very conscious of the extensive use of V as a mark of elegance. In the
drama of seventeenth-century France the nobility and bourgeoisie almost
always address one another as V. This is true even of husband and wife,
of lovers, and of parent and child if the child is adult. Mme. de Sevigne
in her correspondence never uses T, not even to her daughter the Comtesse
de Grignan (353). Servants and peasantry, however, regularly used T
among themselves. For many centuries
French, English, Italian, Spanish, and German pronoun usage followed
the rule of nonreciprocal T -V between persons of unequal power and
the rule of mutual V or T (according to social class membership) between
persons of roughly equivalent power. There was at first no rule differentiating
address among equals but, very gradually, a distinction developed which
is sometinies called the T of intimacy and the V of formality. We name
this second dimension solidarity, and here is our guess as to how it
developed. The Solidarity
Semantic As two people move apart on these power-laden dimensions, one of them begins to say V. In general terms, the V form is linked with differences between persons. Not all differences between persons imply a difference of power. Men are born in different cities, belong to different families of the same status, may attend different but equally prominent schools, may practice different but equally respected professions. A rule for making distinctive use of T and V among equals can be formulated by generalizing the power semantic. Differences of power cause V to emerge both directions. The relations called
older than, parent of, employer of, richer than,
stronger than, and nobler than are all asymmetrical. If
A is older than B, B is not older
than A. The relation called "more powerful than", which is
abstracted from these more specific relations, is also conceived to
be asymmetrical. The pronoun usage expressing this power relation is
also asymmetrical or nonreciprocal, with the greater receiving V and
the lesser T. Now we are concerned with a new set of relations which
are symmetrical; for example, attended the same school or have the same
parents or practice the same profession. If A has the same parents as
B, B has the same parents as A. Solidarity is the name we give to the
general relationship and solidarity is symmetrical. The corresponding
norms of address are symmetrical or reciprocal with V becoming more
probable as solidarity declines. The solidary T reaches a peak of probability
in address between twin brothers or in a man's soliloquizing address
to himself. Not every personal attribute counts in determining whether two people are solidary enough to use the mutual T. Eye color does not ordinarily matter nor does shoe size. The similarities that matter seem to be those that make for like-mindedness or similar behavior dispositions. .These will ordinarily be such things as political membership, family, religion, profession, sex, and birthplace. However, extreme
distinctive values on almost any dimension may become significant. Height
ought to make for solidarity among giants and midgets. The T of solidarity
can be produced by frequency of contact as well as by objective similarities.
However, frequent contact does not necessarily lead to the mutual T.
It depends on whether contact results in the discovery or creation of
the like-mindedness that seems to be the core of the solidarity semantic.
The dimension of
solidarity is potentially applicable to all persons addressed. Power
superiors may be solidary (parents, elder siblings) or not solidary
(officials whom one seldom sees). Power inferiors, similarly, may be
as solidary as the old family retainer and as remote as the waiter in
a strange restaurant. Extension of the solidarity dimension along the
dotted lines of Figure 1 b creates six categories of persons defined
by their relations to a speaker. Rules of address are in conflict for
persons in the upper left and lower right categories. For the upper
left, power in The asbtract conflict described in Figure 1 b is particularized in Figure 2a with a sample of the social dyads in which the conflict would be felt. In each case usage in one direction is unequivocal but, in the other direction, the two semantic forces are opposed. The first three dyads in Figure 2a involve conflict in address to inferiors who are not solidary (the lower right category of Figure 1 b), and the second three dyads involve conflict in address to superiors who are solidary (the upper left category in Figure Ib).
It is the present
practice to reinterpret power-laden attributes so as to turn to them
into symmetrical solidarity attributes. Relationships like older than,
father of, nobler than, and richer than are now reinterpreted for purposes of
T and Vas relations of the same age as, the same family as, the same
kind of ancestry as, and the same income as. In the degree that these
relationships hold, the probability of a mutual T increases and, There is an interesting
residual of the power relation in the contemporary notion that the right
to initiate the reciprocal T belongs to the member of the dyad having
the better power-based claim to say T without reciprocation. The suggestion
that solidarity be recognized comes more grace fully from the elder
than from the younger, from the richer than from the poorer, from the
employer than from the employee, from the noble In support of our
claim that solidarity has largely won out over power we can offer a
few quotations from language scholars. Littre, writing of French usage,
says (251): "Notre courtoisie est meme si grande, que The best evidence that the change has occurred is in our interviews and notes on contemporary literature and films and, most importantly, the questionnaire results. The six social dyads of Figure 2 were all repre- [260] Finally, it is
our opinion that a still newer direction of semantic shift can be discerned
in the whole collection of languages studied. Once solidarity has been
established as the single dimension distinguishing T from V the province
of T proceeds to expand. The direction of change is increase in the
number of relations defined as solidary enough to merit a mutual T and,
in particular, to regard any sort of camaraderie resulting from a common
task or a common fate as grounds for T. We have a favorite example of
this new trend given us independently by several French informants.
It seems that mountaineers above a certain critical altitude shift to
the mutual T. We like to think that this is the point where their lives
hang by a single thread. In general, the mutual T is advancing among
fellow students, fellow workers, members of the same political group,
persons who share a hobby or take a trip together. We believe this is
the direction of current change because it summarizes what our, informants
tell us about the pronoun usage of the "young people" as opposed
to that of older people. CONTEMPORARY
DIFFERENCES AMONG FRENCH, ITALIAN, AND GERMAN The questionnaire
is in English. It opens with a paragraph informing the subject that
the items below all have reference to the use of the singular pronouns
of address in his native language. There are 28 items in the full questionnaire,
and they all have the form of the following example from the questionnaire
for French students: [261]
The questionnaire
asks about usage between the subject and his mother, his father, his
grandfather, his wife, a younger brother who is a child, a married elder
brother, that brother's wife, a remote male cousin, and an elderly female
servant whom he has known from childhood. It asks about usage between
the subject and fellow students at the university at home, usage to
a student from home visiting in America, and usage to someone with whom
the subject had been at school some years previously. It asks about
usage to a waiter in a restaurant, between clerks in an office, fellow
soldiers in the army, between boss and employee, army private and general.
In addition, there are some rather elaborate items' which ask the subject
to imagine himself in some carefully detailed social situation and then
to say what pronoun he would use. A copy of the full questionnaire may
be had on application to the authors. The most accessible informants were students from abroad resident in Boston in the fall of 1957. Listings of such students were obtained from Harvard, Boston University, M.I.T., and the Office of the French Consul in New England. Although we have data from a small sample of female respondents, the present analysis is limited to the males. All the men in the sample have been in the United States for one year or less; they come from cities of over 300,000 inhabitants, and these cities are well scattered across the country in qucstion. In addition, all members of the sample are from upper-middle-class, professional families. This homogeneity of class membership was enforced by the factors determining selection of students who go abroad. The occasional informant from a working-class family is deliberately excluded from these comparisons. The class from which we draw shows less regional variation in speech than does the working class and, especially, farmers. At the present time we have complete responses from 50 Frenchmen, 20 Germans, and 11 Italians; many of these men also sent us letters describing their understanding of the pronouns and offering numerous valuable anecdotes of usage. The varying numbers of subjects belonging to the three nationalities result from the unequal representation of these nationalities among Boston students rather than from national characterological differences in willingness to answer a questionnaire. Almost every person 'on our lists agreed to serve as an informant.. In analyzing the
results we assigned the numbers 0-4 to the five response alternatives
to each question, beginning with "Definitely V" as O. A rough
test was made of the significance of the differences among the three
languages on each question. We dichotomized the replies to each question
into: (a) all replies of either "Definitely T' or "Probably
T'; (b) all replies of "Definitely V" or "Probably V"
or "Possibly V, possibly T". Using the chi-squared test with
Yates's correction for small frequencies we determined, for each comparison,
the probability of obtaining by chance a difference as large or larger
than that actually obtained. Even with such small samples, there were
quite a few differences significantly unlikely to occur by chance (P
= .05 or less). Germans were more prone than the French to say T to
their grandfathers, to an elder brother's wife, and to an old family
servant. The French were more prone than the Germans to say T to a male
fellow student, to a student from home visiting in America, to a fellow
clerk in an office, and to someone known previously as a fellow student.
Italians were more prone than the French to say T to a female fellow
student and also to an attractive girl to whom they had recently been
introduced. Italians were more prone than the Germans to say T to the
persons just described and, in addition, to a male fellow student and
to a student from home visiting in America. On no question did either
the French or the Germans show a significantly greater tendency to say
T than did the Italians. The many particular
differences among the three languages are susceptible of a general characterization.
Let us first contrast German and French. The German T is more reliably
applied within the family than is the French T; in addition to the significantly
higher T scores for grandfather and elder brother's wife there are smaller
differences showing a higher score for the German T on father, mother,
wife, married elder bother, and remote male cousin. The French T is
not automatically applied to remote relatives, but it is more likely
than the German pronoun to be used to express the camaraderie of fellow
students, fellow clerks, fellow countrymen abroad, and fellow soldiers.
In general it may be said that the solidarity coded by the German T
is an ascribed solidarity of family relationships. The French T, in
greater degree, codes an acquired solidarity not founded on family relationship
but developing out of some sort of shared fate. As for the Italian T,
it very nearly equals the German in family solidarity and it surpasses
the French in camaraderie. The camaraderie of the Italian male, incidentally,
is extended to the Italian female; unlike the French or German student
the Italian says T to the co-ed almost as readily as to the male fellow
student. There is a very
abstract semantic rule governing T and V which is the same for French,
German, and Italian and for many other languages we have studied: The
rule is that usage is reciprocal, T becoming increasing- Iy probable and
V less probable as the number of solidarity-producing attributes shared
by two people increases. The respect in which French, German, and Italian
differ from one another is in the relative weight given to various attributes
of persons which can serve to generate solidarity. For German, ascribed
family membership is the important attribute; French and Italian give
more weight to acquired characteristics. SEMANTICS, SOCIAL
STRUCTURE AND IDEOLOGY In France the nonreciprocal
power semantic was dominant until the Revolution when the Committee
for the Public Safety condemned the use of V as a feudal remnant and
ordered a universal reciprocal T. On October 31, 1793, Malbec made a
Parliamentary speech against V: "Nous distinguons trois personnes
pour Ie singulier et trois pour Ie pluriel, et, au mepris de cette regIe,
l'esprit de fa1:Iatisme, d'orgueil et de feodalite, nous a fait contracter
l'habitude de nous servir de la seconde personne du pluriellorsque nous
parlons a un seul" (quoted in 49). For a time revolutionary "fraternite"
transformed all address into the mutual Citoyen and the mutual tu. Robespierre
even addressed the president of the Assembly as tu. In later years solidarity
declined and the differences of power which always exist everywhere
were expressed once more. It must be asked
why the equalitarian ideal was expressed in a universal T rather than
a universal V or, as a third alternative, why there was not a shift
of semantic from power to solidarity with both pronouns being retained.
The answer lies with the ancient upper-class preference for the use
of V. There was animus against the pronoun itself. The pro- Although the power
semantic has largely gone out of pronoun use in France today native
speakers are nevertheless aware of it. In part they are aware of it
because it prevails in so much of the greatest French literature. Awareness
of power as a potential factor in pronoun usage was revealed by our
respondents' special attitude toward the saying of T to a waiter. Most
of them felt that this would be shockingly bad taste in a way that other
norm violations would not be, apparently because there is a kind of
seignorial right to say T to a waiter, an actual power assymmetry, which
the modern man's ideology requires him to deny. In French Africa, on
the other hand, it is considered proper to recognize a caste difference
between the Mrican and the European, and the nonreciprocal address is
used to express it. The European says T and requires V from the African.
This is a galling custom to the African, and in 1957 Robert Lacoste,
the French Minister residing in Algeria, urged his countrymen to eschew
the practice. In England, before
the Norman Conquest, "ye" was the second person plural and
"thou" the singular. "You" was originally the accusative
of "ye", but in time it also became the nominative plural
and ultimately ousted "thou" as the usual singular. The first
uses of "ye" as a reverential singular occur in the thirteenth
century (229), and seem to have been copied from the French nobility.
The semantic progression corresponds roughly to the general stages described
in the first section of this paper, except that the English seem always
to have moved more freely from one form to another than did the continental
Europeans (213). In the seventeenth century "thou" and "you" became explicitly involved in social controversy. The Religious Society of Friends (or Quakers) was founded in the middle of this century by George Fox. One of the practices setting off this rebellious group from the larger society was the use of Plain Speech, and this entailed saying "thou" to everyone. , George Fox explained the practice in these words:
[265] (118), in which
he argued that the Scriptures show that God and Adam and God and Moses
were not too proud to say and receive the singular T. For the new convert
to the Society of Friends the universal T was an especially difficult
commandment. Thomas Ellwood has described (112) the trouble that developed
between himself and his father: But whenever I
had occasion to speak to my Father, though I had no Hat now to offend
him; yet my language did as much: for I durst not say YOU to him, but
THOU or THEE, as the Occasion required, and then would he be sure to
fall on me with his Fists. The Friends' reasons
for using the mutual T were much the same as those of the French revolutionaries,
but the Friends were always a minority and the larger society was antagonized
by their violations of decorum. Some Friends use
"thee" today; the nominative "thou" has been dropped
and "thee" is used as both the nominative and (as formerly)
the accusative. Interestingly, many Friends also use "you".
"Thee" is likely to be reserved for Friends among themselves
and "you" said to outsiders. This seems to be a survival of
the solidarity semantic. In English at large, of course, "thou"
is no longer used. The explanation of its disappearance is by no means
certain; however, the forces at work seem to have included a popular
reaction against the radicalism of Quakers and Levelers and also a general
trend in English toward simplified verbal inflection. In the world today
there are numerous examples of the association proposed between ideology
and pronoun semantics. In Yugoslavia, our informants tell us, there
was, for a short time following the establishment of Communism, a universal
mutual T of solidarity. Today revolutionary esprit has declined and
V has returned for much the same set of circumstances as in Italy, France,
or Spain. There is also some power asymmetry in Yugoslavia's "Socialist
manners". A soldier says V and Comrade General, but the general
addresses the soldier with T and surname. It is interesting in our materials to contrast usage in the Afrikaans language of South Africa and in the Gujerati and Hindi languages of India \lith the rest of the collection. On the questionnaire, Afrikaans speakers made eight nonreciprocal power distinctions; especially notable are distinctions within the family and the distinctions between customer and waiter and between boss and clerk, since these are almost never powercoded in French, Italian, German, etc., although they once were. The Afrikaans pattern generally preserves the asymmetry of the dyads described in Figure 2, and that suggests a more static society and a less developed equalitarian ethic. The forms of address used between [266] Afrikaans-speaking
whites and the groups of "coloreds" and "blacks"
are especially interesting. The Afrikaaner uses T, but the two lower
castes use neither T nor V. The intermediate caste of "coloreds"
says Meneer to the white and the "blacks" say Baas. It is
as if these social distances transcend anything that can be found within
the white group and so require their peculiar linguistic expressions. The Gujerati and
Hindi languages of India have about the same pronoun semantic, and it
is heavily loaded with power. These languages have all the asymmetrical
usage of Afrikaans and, in addition, use the nonreciprocal T and V between
elder brother and younger brother and between husband and wife. This
truly feudal pronominal pattern is consistent with the static Indian
society. However, that society is now changing rapidly and, consistent
with that change, the norms of pronoun usage are also changing. The
progressive young Indian exchanges the mutual T with his wife. In our account
of the general semantic evolution of the pronouns, we have identified
a stage in which the solidarity rule was limited to address between
persons of equal power. This seemed to yield a two-dimensional system
in equilibrium (see Figure la), and we have wondered why address did
not permanently stabilize there. It is possible, of course, that human
cognition favors the binary choice without contingencies and so found
its way to the suppression of one dimension. However, this theory does
not account for the fact that it was the rule of solidarity that triumphed.
We believe, therefore, that the development of open societies with an
equalitarian ideology acted against the nonreciprocal power semantic
and in favor of solidarity. It is our suggestion that the larger social
changes created a distaste for the face-to-face expression of differential
power. What of the many
actions other than nonreciprocal T and V which express power asymmetry?
A vassal not only says V but also bows, lifts his cap, touches his forelock,
keeps silent, leaps to obey. There are a large number of expressions
of subordination which are patterned isomorphically with T and V. Nor
are the pronouns the only forms of nonreciprocal address. There are,
in addition, proper names and titles, and many of these operate today
on a nonreciprocal power pattern in America and in Europe, in open and
equalitarian societies. In the American family there are no discriminating pronouns, but there are nonreciprocal norms of address. A father says "Jim" to his son but, unless he is extraordinarily "advanced", he does not anticipate being called "Jack" in reply. In the American South there are no pronouns to mark the caste separation of Negro and white, but there are nonreciprocal norms of address. The white man is accustomed to call the Negro by his first name, but he expects to be called "Mr. Legree". In America and Differences of
power exist in a democracy as in all societies. What is the difference
between expressing power asymmetry in pronouns and expressing it by
choice of title and proper name? It seems to be primarily a question
of the degree of linguistic compulsion. In face-to-face address we can
usually avoid the use of any name or title but not so easily the use
of a pronoun. Even if the pronoun can be avoided, it will be implicit
in the inflection of the verb. "Dites quelque chose" clearly
says vous to the Frenchman. A norm for the pronominal and verbal expression
of power compels a continuing coding of power, whereas a norm for titles
and names permits power to go uncoded in most discourse. Is there any
reason why the pronominal coding should be more congenial to a static
society than to an open society? We have noticed
that mode of address intrudes into consciousness as a problem at times
of status change. Award of the doctoral degree, for instance, transforms
a student into a colleague and, among American academics, the familiar
first name is normal. The fledgling academic may find it difficult to
call his former teachers by their first names. Although these teachers
may be young and affable, they have had a very real power over him for
several years and it will feel presumptuous to deny this all at once
with a new mode of addres£. However, the "tyranny of democratic
manners" (77) does not allow him to continue comfortable with the
polite "Professor X". He would not like to be thought unduly
conscious of status, unprepared for faculty rank, a born lickspittle.
Happily, English allows him a respite. He can avoid any term of address,
staying with the uncommitted "you", until he and his addressees
have got used to the new state of things. This linguistic rite de paS'sage
has, for English speakers, a waiting room in which to screw up courage. In a fluid society
crises of address will occur more frequently than in a static society,
and so the pronominal coding of power differences is more likely to
be felt as onerous. Coding by title and name would be more tolerable
because less compulsory. Where status is fixed by birth and does not
change each man has enduring rights and obligations of address. A strong equalitarian
ideology of the sort dominant in America works to suppress every conventional
expression of power asymmetry. If the worker becomes conscious of his
unreciprocated polite address to the boss, he may feel that his human
dignity requires him to change. However, we do not feel the full power
of the ideology until we are in a situation that gives us some claim
to receive deferential address. The American professor often feels foolish
being given his title, he almost certainly [268] GROUP STYLE
WITH THE PRONOUNS OF ADDRESS Linguistic science
finds enough that is constant in English and French ,and Latin to put
all these and many more into one family -the IndoEuropean. It is possible
with reference to this constancy to think of Italian and Spanish and
English and the others as so many styles of .Indo-European. They all
have, for instance, two singular pronouns of :address, but each language
has an individual phonetic and semantic style in pronoun usage. We are
ignoring phonetic style (through the use of the generic T and V), but
in the second section of the paper we have described differences in
the semantic styles of French, German, and Italian. Linguistic styles
are potentially expressive when there is covariation between characteristics
of language performance and characteristics of the performers. When
styles are "interpreted", language behavior is functionally
expressive. On that abstract level where the constancy is Indo-European
and the styles are French, German, English, and Italian, interpretations
of style must be statements about communities of speakers, statements
of national character, social structure, or group ideology. .In the
last section we have hazarded a few propositions on this level. It is usual, in
discussion of linguistic style, to set constancy at the level of a language
like French or English rather than at the level of a language family.
In the languages we have studied there are variations in pronoun style
that are associated with the social status of the speaker. We have seen
that the use of V because of its entry at the top of a society and its
diffusion downward was always interpreted as a mark of good [269] In literature,
pronoun style has often been used to expose the pretensions of social
climbers and the would-be elegant. Persons aping the manners of the
class above them usually do not get the imitation exactly right. They
are likely to notice some point of difference between their own class
and the next higher and then extend the difference too widely, as in
the use of the "elegant" broad [a] in "can" and
"bad". Moliere gives us his "precieuses ridicules"
saying V to servants whom a refined person would call T. In Ben Jonson's
Everyman in his Humour and Epicoene such true gallants as Wellbred and
Knowell usually say "you" to one another but they make frequent
expressive shifts between this form and "thou", whereas such
fops as John Daw and Amorous-La-Foole make unvarying use of "you". Our sample of visiting
French students was roughly homogeneous in social status as judged by
the single criterion of paternal occupation. Therefore, we could not
make any systematic study of differences in class style, but we thought
it possible that, even within this select group, there might be interpretable
differences of style. It was our guess that the tendency to make wide
or narrow use of the solidary T would be related to general radicalism
or conservatism of ideology. As a measure of this latter dimension we
used Eysenck's Social Attitude Inventory (117). This is a collection
of statements to be accepted or rejected concerning a variety of matters
-religion, economics, racial relations, sexual behavior, etc. Eysenck
has validated the scale in England and in France on members of Socialist,
Communist, Fascist, Conservative, and Liberal party members. In general,
to be radical on this scale is to favor change and to be conservative
is to wish to maintain the status quo or turn back to some earlier condition.
We undertook to relate scores on this inventory to an index of pronoun
style. As yet we have
reported no evidence demonstrating that there exists such a thing as
a personal style in pronoun usage in the sense of a tendency to make
wide or narrow use of T. It may be that each item in the ques- . tionnaire,
each sort of person addressed, is an independent personal
|
|
|
norm not predicatble
from any other. A child learns what to say to each kind of person. What
he learns in each case depends on the groups in which he has membership.
Perhaps his usage is a bundle of unrelated habits. Guttman (402) has
developed the technique of Scalogram Analysis for determining whether
or not a collection of statements taps a common dimension. A perfect
Guttman scale can be made of the statements: (a) I am at least 5' tall;
(b) I am at least 5' 4" tall; (c) I am at least 5' 7" tall;
(d) I am at least 6' 1" tall; (e) I am at least 6' 2" tall.
Endorsement of a more extreme statement will always be associated with
endorsement of all less extreme statements. A person can be assigned
a single score -a, b, c, d, or e -which represents the most extreme
statement he has endorsed and, from this single score, all his individual
answers can be reproduced. If he scores c he has also endorsed a and
b but not d or e. The general criterion for scalability is the reproducibility
of individual responses from a single score, and this depends on the
items being interrelated so that endorsement of one is reliably associated
with endorsement or rejection of the others. The Guttman method
was developed during World War II for the measurement of social attitudes,
and it has been widely used. Perfect reproducibility is not likely to
be found for all the statements which an investigator guesses to be
concerned with some single attitude. The usual thing is to accept a
set of statements as scalable when they are 90 per The responses to
the pronoun questionnaire are not varying degrees of agreement (as in
an attitude questionnaire) but are rather varying probabilities of saying
T or V. There seems to be no reason why these bipolar responses cannot
be treated like yes or no responses on an attitude scale. The difference
is that the scale, if there is one, will be the semantic dimension governing
the pronouns, and the scale score of each respondent will represent
his personal semantic style. It is customary to have 100 subjects for a Scalogram Analysis, but we could find only 50 French students. We tested all 28 items for scalability and found that a subset of them made a fairly good scale. It was necessary to combine response categories so as to dichotomize them in order to obtain an average reproducibility of 85 per cent. This coefficient was computed for the five intermediate items having the more-balanced marginal frequencies. A large number of items fell at or very near the two extremes. The solidarity or T -most end of the scale could be defined by father, mother, elder brother, young boys, wife, or lover quite as well as by younger brother. The remote or V-most end could be defined by [271] For each item on
the scale a T answer scores one point and a V answer no points. The
individual total scores range from 1 to 7, which means the scale can
differentiate only seven semantic styles. We divided the subjects into
the resultant seven stylistically homogeneous groups and, for each group,
determined the average scores on radicalism-conservatism. There was
a set of almost perfectly consistent differences.
There is enough
consistency of address to justify speaking of a personal-pronoun style
which involves a more or less Wide use of the solidary T. Even among
students of the same, socio-economic level there are differences of
style, and these are potentially expressive of radicalism and conservatism
in ideology. A Frenchman could, with some confidence, infer that a male
university student who regularly said T to female fellow students would
favor the nationalization of industry, free love, trial marriage, the
abolition of capital punishment, and the weakening of nationalistic
and religious loyalties. What shall we make of the association between a wide use of T and a cluster of radical sentiments? There may be no "sense" to it at all, that is, no logical connection between the linguistic practice and the attitudes, but simply a general tendency to go along with the newest thing. We know that left-wing attitudes are more likely to be found in the On the other hand perhaps there is something appropriate in the association. The ideology is consistent in its disapproval of barriers between people: race, religion, nationality, property, marriage, even criminality. All these barriers have the effect of separating the solidary, the "ingroup", from the nonsolidary, the "out-group". The radical says the criminal is not far enough "out" to be killed; he should be re-educated. He says that a nationality ought not to be so solidary that it prevents world organization from succeeding. Private property ought to be abolished, industry should be nationalized. There are to be no more outgroups and in-groups but rather one group, undifferentiated by nationality, religion, or pronoun of address. The fact that the pronoun which is being extended to all men alike is T, the mark of solidarity, the pronoun of the nuclear family, expresses the radical's intention to extend his sense of brotherhood. But we notice that the universal application of the pronoun eliminates the discrimination that gave it a meaning and that gives particular point to an old problem. Can the solidarity of the family be extended so widely? Is there enough libido to stretch so far? Will there perhaps be a thin solidarity the same everywhere but nowhere so strong as in the past? ..
Sometimes the choice of a pronoun clearly violates a group norm and perhaps also the customary practice of the speaker. Then the meaning of the act will be sought in some attitude or emotion of the speaker. It is as if the interpreter reasoned that variations of address between the same two persons must be caused by variations in their attitudes toward one another. If two men of seventeenth-century France properly exchange As there have been
two great semantic dimensions governing T and V, so there have also
been two principal kinds of expressive meaning. Breaking the norms of
power generally has the meaning that a speaker regards an addressee
as his inferior, superior, or equal, although by usual criteria, and
according to the speaker's own customary usage, the addressee is not
what the pronoun implies. Breaking the norms of solidarity generally
means that the speaker temporarily thinks of the other as an outsider
or as an intimate; it means that sympathy is extended or withdrawn. Racine, in his
dramas, used the pronouns with perfect semantic consistency. His major
figures exchange the V of upper-class equals. Lovers, brother and sister,
husband and wife -none of them says T if he is of high rank, but each
person of high rank has a subordinate confidante to whom he says T and
from whom he receives V. It is a perfect nonreciprocal power semantic.
This courtly pattern is broken only for the greatest scenes in each
play. Racine reserved the expressive pronoun as some composers save
the cymbals. In both Andromaque and Phedre there are only two expressive
departures from the norm, and they mark climaxes of feeling. Jespersen (213)
believed that English "thou" and "ye" (or "you")
were more often shifted to express mood and tone than were the pronouns
of the continental languages, and our comparisons strongly support this
opinion. The "thou" of contempt was so very familiar that
a verbal form was created to name this expressive use. Shakespeare gives The T of contempt
and anger is usually introduced between persons who normally exchange
V but it can, of course, also be used by a subordinate to a superior.
As the social distance is greater, the overthrow of the norm is more
shocking and generally represents a greater extremity of passion. Sejanus,
in Ben Jonson's play of that name, feels extreme contempt for the emperor
Tiberius but wisely gives him the reverential V to his face. However,
soliloquizing after the emperor has exited. Sejanus begins: "Dull,
heavy Caesar! Wouldst thou tell me. .." In Jonson's Volpone
Mosca invariably says "you" to his master until the final
scene when, as the two villains are about to be carted away, Mosca turns
on Volpone with "Bane to thy wolfish nature." Expressive effects
of much greater subtlety than those we have described are common in
Elizabethan and Jacobean drama. The exact interpretation of the speaker's
attitude depends not only on the pronoun norm he upsets but also on
his attendant words and actions and the total setting. Still simple
enough to be unequivocal is the ironic or mocking "you" said
by Tamburlaine to the captive Turkish emperor Bajazeth. This exchange
occurs in Act IV of Marlowe's play:
The momentary shift
of pronoun directly expresses a momentary shift of mood, but that interpretation
does not exhaust its meaning. The fact that a man has a particular momentary
attitude or emotion may imply a great deal about his characteristic
disposition, his readiness for one kjDd of feeling rather than another.
Not every attorney general, for instance, would have used the abusive
"thou" to Raleigh. The fact that Edward Coke did so suggests
an arrogant and choleric temperament and, in fact, many made this assessment
of him (208). When Volpone spoke to Celia a lady of Venice, he ought
to have said "you" but he began at once witb [275]
With the establishment
of the solidarity semantic a new set of expressive meanings became possible-
feelings of sympathy and estrangement. In Shakespeare's plays there
are expressive meanings that derive from the solidarity semantic as
well as many dependent on power usage and many that rely on both connotations.
The play Two Gentlemen of Verona is concerned with the Renaissance
ideal of friendship and provides especially clear expressions of solidarity.
Proteus and Valentine, the two Gentlemen, initially exchange "thou",
but when they touch on the sub
We have suggested
that the modern direction of change in pronoun i ~5age expresses a will
to extend the solidary ethic to everyone. The apparent decline of expressive
shifts between T and V is more difficult to interpret. Perhaps it is
because Europeans have seen that excluded persons or races or groups
can become the target of extreme aggression _____________________________________ |
