A Socio-Pragmatic Study of Honorific Expressions in ''Pride and Prejudice''

Abstract

Honorific expressions are mostly common used in literature, specifically in novels. They have occupied an important role within the domain of socio-pragmatic studies of language. They refer to one form of speech that signal social deference, through conventionalized understandings of some aspects of the form-meaning relationship. Honorific expressions have not been studied sufficiently from a socio-pragmatic perspective, particularly in literature. The problem is, therefore, honorifics have not received an adequate analysis and significant attention from a socio-pragmatic perspective, specifically in literary text. Hence, this study attempts to answer the following questions: what is the relationship between honorification and politeness? That is, are honorifics necessarily utilized to indicate politeness or not"? Is there a relationship between the honorific expressions and the sociolinguistic variables like, age, social distance, educational degree and social status in the movie ''Pride and Prejudice''? This paper aims at identifying these honorific forms that are manifested socially and pragmatically with reference to theory of intimacy/status and the theory of politeness. Besides, it attempts to investigate the relationship between the positive and negative politeness strategies and the functions of different categories of honorifics that are used by some public characters in movie 'Pride and Prejudice'. It also sheds light on the effect of different sociolinguistic variables in interpreting and identifying the honorific expressions. The finding of this study reveals that context and other sociolinguistic factors are an effective factors and have an important role in providing a full understanding of the intended meaning of honorific forms. Substantially, this paper shows that how the choice of honorific expressions is utilized differently depending on particular socio-pragmatic aspects.