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Tongan Chiefly Language: The Formation of an Honorific Speech Register

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 November 2010

Jason D. Haugen  and
Susan U. Philips
Jason D. Haugen
Affiliation:
Anthropology Department, 10 N. Professor St., Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH 44074-1019Jason.Haugen@oberlin.edu
Susan U. Philips
Affiliation:
Anthropology Department, University of Arizona, Mailing Address: 6650 N. Los, Arboles Tucson, AZ 85704, sphilips@email.arizona.edu
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Abstract

In this paper we examine the formation over time of a lexical honorific speech register, Tongan lea faka'eiki, or ‘chiefly language’. Use of the comparative historical method enables us to consider honorific register formation within a framework of greater temporal and spatial scope that has been typical for studies of register formation, and to identify some properties of such formation that have not been documented before. Our evidence shows that the higher and lower levels of honorification in this speech register have been formed at different times and through predominantly different etymological processes, even as they draw on the same broader set of word formation processes. In recorded speech, the differences between the sources of the two sub-registers are even more pronounced, preserving and reproducing the historical differences in their formation.*

Type
Articles
Information
Language in Society , Volume 39 , Issue 5 , November 2010 , pp. 589 - 616
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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