Pronoun avoidance is the use of
kinship terms, titles and other complex
nominal expressions instead of
personal pronoun
Personal pronouns are pronouns that are associated primarily with a particular grammatical person – first person (as ''I''), second person (as ''you''), or third person (as ''he'', ''she'', ''it'', ''they''). Personal pronouns may also take dif ...
s in speech.
[Johannes Helmbrecht. 2013. Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns.
In: Dryer, Matthew S. & Haspelmath, Martin (eds.)
The World Atlas of Language Structures Online.
Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
(Available online at http://wals.info/chapter/45, Accessed on 2021-08-03.)]
Linguistics
Many languages feature the
T–V distinction
The T–V distinction is the contextual use of different pronouns that exists in some languages and serves to convey formality or familiarity. Its name comes from the Latin pronouns '' tu'' and '' vos''. The distinction takes a number of forms ...
, where two or more different pronouns are used contextually to convey formality or familiarity. In contrast, languages with pronoun avoidance tend to feature complex systems of
honorific
An honorific is a title that conveys esteem, courtesy, or respect for position or rank when used in addressing or referring to a person. Sometimes, the term "honorific" is used in a more specific sense to refer to an honorary academic title. It ...
s and use pronoun avoidance as a form of negative
politeness
Politeness is the practical application of good manners or etiquette so as not to offend others. It is a culturally defined phenomenon, and therefore what is considered polite in one culture can sometimes be quite rude or simply eccentric in an ...
, instead employing expressions referring to status, relationship or title.
In these languages,
second person pronoun
Personal pronouns are pronouns that are associated primarily with a particular grammatical person – first person (as ''I''), second person (as ''you''), or third person (as ''he'', ''she'', ''it'', ''they''). Personal pronouns may also take dif ...
s still exist, but are used primarily to address social equals and inferiors.
Languages with pronoun avoidance cluster in
South-East Asia
Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical south-eastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of mainland ...
.
For example, in
Indonesian
Indonesian is anything of, from, or related to Indonesia, an archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. It may refer to:
* Indonesians, citizens of Indonesia
** Native Indonesians, diverse groups of local inhabitants of the archipelago
** Indonesian ...
, the standard terms of respectful forms of address are ''Bapak'' (literally "father") and ''Ibu'' ("mother") for men and women respectively, and the neologism ''Anda'' was invented in the 1950s to function as a polite second-person pronoun.
Japanese
Japanese may refer to:
* Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia
* Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan
* Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture
** Japanese diaspor ...
, well known for its
elaborate system of honorific speech, also exhibits pronoun avoidance, to such an extent that Maynard suggests that Japanese “lacks a pronominal system”.
Pronoun avoidance may extend to first and third person pronouns as well. In
Vietnamese
Vietnamese may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Vietnam, a country in Southeast Asia
** A citizen of Vietnam. See Demographics of Vietnam.
* Vietnamese people, or Kinh people, a Southeast Asian ethnic group native to Vietnam
** Overse ...
, a set of finely graded
kinship terms largely replace all pronouns, but it is also common particularly for women to refer to themselves by name, and titles are often used for third parties.
Languages featuring pronoun avoidance
The
World Atlas of Language Structures
The World Atlas of Language Structures (WALS) is a database of structural (phonological, grammatical, lexical) properties of languages gathered from descriptive materials. It was first published by Oxford University Press as a book with CD-RO ...
characterizes the following languages as exhibiting pronoun avoidance:
*
Burmese
*
Indonesian
Indonesian is anything of, from, or related to Indonesia, an archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. It may refer to:
* Indonesians, citizens of Indonesia
** Native Indonesians, diverse groups of local inhabitants of the archipelago
** Indonesian ...
*
Japanese
Japanese may refer to:
* Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia
* Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan
* Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture
** Japanese diaspor ...
*
Khmer
*
Korean
Korean may refer to:
People and culture
* Koreans, ethnic group originating in the Korean Peninsula
* Korean cuisine
* Korean culture
* Korean language
**Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Chosŏn'gŭl
**Korean dialects and the Jeju language
** ...
*
Thai
*
Vietnamese
Vietnamese may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Vietnam, a country in Southeast Asia
** A citizen of Vietnam. See Demographics of Vietnam.
* Vietnamese people, or Kinh people, a Southeast Asian ethnic group native to Vietnam
** Overse ...
Autism
Children with
autism-spectrum disorder
The autism spectrum, often referred to as just autism or in the context of a professional diagnosis autism spectrum disorder (ASD) or autism spectrum condition (ASC), is a neurodevelopmental condition (or conditions) characterized by difficulti ...
(ASD) frequently exhibit
pronoun reversal or pronoun avoidance, using proper names instead.
[Jordan, R.R. (1989), An experimental comparison of the understanding and use of speaker-addressee personal pronouns in autistic children. International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders, 24: 169–179. https://doi.org/10.3109/13682828909011954] Since autistic children often have difficulty with pronouns, this phenomenon has been attributed variously to input from adults avoiding pronouns, or abnormalities in how children with ASD experience the
self
The self is an individual as the object of that individual’s own reflective consciousness. Since the ''self'' is a reference by a subject to the same subject, this reference is necessarily subjective. The sense of having a self—or ''selfhoo ...
.
[https://www.bu.edu/autism/files/2010/03/Shield___Meier_BUCLD_38_Proceedings.pdf ]
See also
*
Pro-drop language
A pro-drop language (from "pronoun-dropping") is a language where certain classes of pronouns may be omitted when they can be pragmatically or grammatically inferable. The precise conditions vary from language to language, and can be quite int ...
, where pronouns may be omitted when they can be inferred from context
*
T–V distinction
The T–V distinction is the contextual use of different pronouns that exists in some languages and serves to convey formality or familiarity. Its name comes from the Latin pronouns '' tu'' and '' vos''. The distinction takes a number of forms ...
*
Pronoun game
"Playing the pronoun game" is the act of concealing sexual orientation in conversation by not using a gender-specific pronoun for a partner or a lover, which would reveal the sexual orientation of the person speaking. Someone may employ the prono ...
References
{{reflist
Linguistics
Pronouns