Chapter published in:
The Social Dynamics of Pronominal Systems: A comparative approach
Edited by Paul Bouissac
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 304] 2019
► pp. 289–317

Pronouns in affinal avoidance registers

Evidence from the Aslian languages (Austroasiatic, Malay Peninsula)

| Lund University
| Lund University
Affinal avoidance registers are strategies of restrained linguistic conduct in relation to one’s in-laws. Current theories are primarily concerned with two types of strategies: (1) taboos on uttering the proper names of affines, and (2) substitution of everyday words with dedicated parallel lexicon in the presence of affines (so-called “mother-in-law languages”). However, the role of pronouns has received limited attention. Here we explore little-known registers in the Aslian languages (Austroasiatic, Malay Peninsula), where dedicated pronoun paradigms take centre stage in communication with and about in-laws. We characterise and compare these closely related but internally diverse systems, situate them in their cultural contexts, and discuss their status in relation to current theories and typologies of avoidance and honorific registers.
Keywords: pronouns, affinal avoidance, Aslian languages, Austroasiatic, honorific and respect registers, “mother-in-law language”, dual
Published online: 23 July 2019
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.304.12kro
References

References

Agha, Asif
1994 “Honorification.” Annual Review of Anthropology 23: 277–302. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Benjamin, Geoffrey
1967 “Temiar kinship.” Federation Museums Journal, Vol. XII, New series. Kuala Lumpur: Museums Department, States of Malaya.Google Scholar
1985 “In the long term: three themes in Malayan cultural ecology.” In Cultural values and human ecology in Southeast Asia, ed. by Karl L. Hutterer, A. Terry Rambo, and George Lovelace, 219–78. Ann Arbor: Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies.Google Scholar
1999 Temiar kinship terminology: a linguistic and formal analysis. Penang: Academy of Social Sciences (AKASS), Universiti Sains Malaysia.Google Scholar
2001 “Process and structure in Temiar social organisation.” In Minority cultures of Peninsular Malaysia: survivals of indigenous heritage, ed. by Razha Rashid and Wazir Jahan Karim, 125–49. Penang: Malaysian Academy of Social Sciences (AKASS).Google Scholar
Besnier, Niko
2000 Tuvaluan: a Polynesian language of the Central Pacific. Oxford/New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Bishop, Nancy
1996 “Who’s who in Kensiw? Terms of reference and address in Kensiw.” Mon-Khmer Studies 26: 245–53.Google Scholar
Bowern, Claire
2010 “Correlates of language change in hunter-gatherer and other ‘small’ languages.” Language and Linguistics Compass 4 (8): 665–79. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Brown, Penelope, and Stephen C. Levinson
1987 Politeness: some universals in language use. Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Burenhult, Niclas
2005 A Grammar of Jahai. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.Google Scholar
Burenhult, Niclas, Nicole Kruspe, and Michael Dunn
2011 “Language history and culture groups among Austroasiatic-speaking foragers of the Malay Peninsula.” In Dynamics of human diversity: the case of Mainland Southeast Asia, ed. by Nick J. Enfield, 257–75. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.Google Scholar
Burenhult, Niclas, and Asifa Majid
2011 “Olfaction in Aslian ideology and language.” The Senses and Society 6: 19–29. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Burenhult, Niclas, and Nicole Kruspe
2016 “The language of eating and drinking: a window on Orang Asli meaning-making.” In Malaysia’s original people: past, present and future of the Orang Asli, ed. by Kirk Endicott, 175–99. Singapore: National University of Singapore Press.Google Scholar
Comrie, Bernard
1976 “Linguistic politeness axes: speaker-addressee, speaker-referent, speaker-bystander.” Pragmatics Microfiche 1.7, A3. Cambridge: University of Cambridge.Google Scholar
Dixon, R. M. W.
2010 The languages of Australia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Epps, Patience, Claire Bowern, Cynthia Hansen, Jane Hill, and Jason Zentz
2012 “On numeral complexity in hunter-gatherer languages.” Linguistic Typology 16 (1): 41–109. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Errington, Joseph
1988 Structure and style in Javanese: a semiotic view of linguistic etiquette. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Fleming, Luke
2011 “Name taboos and rigid performativity.” Anthropological Quarterly 84 (1): 141–64. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2014 “Australian exceptionalism in the typology of affinal avoidance registers.” Anthropological Linguistics 56 (2): 115–58. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Garde, Murray
2013 Culture, interaction and person reference in an Australian language: an ethnography of Bininj Gunwok communication. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Ghosh, Arun
2008 “Santali.” In The Munda languages, ed. by Gregory D. S. Anderson, 11–98. Oxford/New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Hafford, James
2014 Wuvulu grammar and vocabulary. PhD diss., University of Hawai’i at Manoa.Google Scholar
Haviland, John B.
1979 “Guugu Yimidhirr brother-in-law language.” Language in Society 8 (3): 365–93. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Head, Brian F.
1978 “Respect degrees in pronominal reference.” In Universals of human language Vol. 3: Word structure, ed. by Joseph H. Greenberg, 151–211. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Helmbrecht, Johannes
2003 “Politeness distinctions in second person pronouns.” In Deictic conceptualization of space, time and person, ed. by Friedrich Lenz, 185–202. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2013 “Politeness distinctions in pronouns.” The World Atlas of Language Structures Online. http://​wals​.info​/chapter​/45Google Scholar
Howell, Signe
1989 Society and cosmos: Chewong of Peninsular Malaysia. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
King, John T.
2001 “The affinal kin register in Dhimal.” Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area 24 (1): 163–82.Google Scholar
Kruspe, Nicole
2004 A grammar of Semelai. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2010 A dictionary of Mah Meri, as spoken at Bukit Bangkong. Oceanic Linguistics Special Publication 36. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.Google Scholar
2015 “Semaq Beri.” In The handbook of Austroasiatic languages, ed. by Mathias Jenny and Paul Sidwell, 475–516. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Kruspe, Nicole, Niclas Burenhult, and Ewelina Wnuk
2015 “Northern Aslian.” In The handbook of Austroasiatic languages, edited by Mathias Jenny and Paul Sidwell, 419–74. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Kuchikura, Yukio
1987 “Subsistence ecology among Semaq Beri hunter-gatherers of Peninsular Malaysia.” Hokkaido Behavioral Science Report Series E 1. Sapporo: Hokkaido University.Google Scholar
Kummer, Manfred
1992 “Politeness in Thai.” In Politeness in Language: Studies in its History, Theory, and Practice, ed. by Richard J. Watts, Ide Sachiko, and Konrad Ehlich, 325–36. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Majid, Asifa, and Nicole Kruspe
2018 “Hunter-gatherer olfaction is special.” Current Biology 28 (3): 409–13. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Matisoff, James A.
2003 “Aslian: Mon-Khmer of the Malay Peninsula.” Mon-Khmer Studies 33: 1–58.Google Scholar
McGinn, Richard
1991 “Pronouns, politeness and hierarchy in Malay.” In Currents in Pacific Linguistics: papers on Austronesian languages and ethnolinguistics in honour of George W. Grace, ed. by Robert A. Blust, 197–221. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.Google Scholar
McGregor, William
1989 “Gooniyandi mother-in-law “language”: dialect, register, and/or code?.” In Status and function of languages and language varieties, ed. by Ulrich Ammon, 630–56. Berlin: De Gruyter. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
McPhail, R. M.
1953 Introduction to Santali. Calcutta: Firma KLM Private Ltd.Google Scholar
Murdock, George P.
1971 “Cross-sex patterns of kin behavior.” Ethnology 10 (3): 359–68. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Nagata, Shuichi
2010 “Cәmam or sexual prohibition among the Kensiw of Kedah, Malaysia.” Moussons: Recherches en sciences humaine sur l’Asie du Sud-Est 16: 133–55. https://​journals​.openedition​.org​/moussons​/108Google Scholar
Needham, Rodney
1956 “Ethnographic notes on the Siwang of central Malaya.” Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 29: 49–69.Google Scholar
Peterson, John
2014 “Figuratively speaking – number in Kharia.” In Number – constructions and semantics: case studies from Africa, Amazonia, India and Oceania, ed. by Anne Storch and Gerrit J. Dimmendaal, 77–110. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Rushforth, Scott
1981 “Speaking to “relatives-through-marriage”: aspects of communication among the Bear Lake Athapaskans.” Journal of Anthropological Research 37 (1): 28–45. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Schebesta, Paul
1957 Die Negrito Asiens: Wirtschaft und Soziologie. Mödling, Austria: St. Gabriel-Verlag.Google Scholar
Stasch, Rupert
2009 Society of Others: Kinship and Mourning in a West Papuan Place. Berkeley: University of California Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Wilkinson, Richard James
1932 A Malay-English Dictionary. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar