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Journal of Historical Pragmatics: Online-First Articles

(Im)Politeness in Vedic Sanskrit

Indirectness and terms of address in Vedic recorded direct speech

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This paper focusses on verbal politeness in the direct speech found in Vedic. Certain impersonalisation strategies typical of classical Sanskrit are already attested here, as third-person polite directives or as the expression of the speaker’s wishes, rather than as direct commands, and represent the maximum degree of illocutionary opacity. Passive syntax, which is a prominent device of indirectness in classical Sanskrit, is still marginal in Vedic. In the analysis of terms of address, a hierarchical but highly flexible politeness-orientated allomorphy can be observed. Moreover, the speaker can, in the same interaction, shift from one level of politeness to another to convey changes in his or her self-perception regarding the level of wisdom that he or she has with respect to an interlocutor (factor [±knowing]); rules marked by social stratification are not found to be decisive, contrary to what has been shown to be the case in post-Vedic normative texts.
Keywords: honorifics, indirectness, impersonalisation, pragmatics, Sanskrit terms of address
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theoretical framework and its application to Vedic
  • 3.The use of tas according the sanskrit normative literature
  • 4. Bhágavat, bhávat, bhoḥ in Vedic prose
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 13 September 2024
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jhp.23013.rub
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