Politeness devices in the Tuvan language

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This work investigates the linguistic expression of politeness in Tuvan, a Turkic language spoken by about a quarter of a million people in South Siberia. It combines insights from Brown and Levinson’s model of politeness with recent discursive theories, examining the morphological, syntactic, pragmatic, and sociolinguistic aspects of how Tuvans express politeness in conversation. The analysis draws on an electronic corpus of Tuvan literature, fieldwork questionnaires, and the author’s interactions with Tuvan speakers. The book first explores the culturally internal perceptions native Tuvan speakers have regarding politeness: how they characterize and categorize polite behavior, the social norms they prioritize, and their evaluations of politeness levels in Tuva. It then applies a culturally external framework to examine politeness devices used by Tuvans to manage potential face threats in conversation, focusing on social indexing and the desire to avoid imposing on others. Key verbal devices investigated include respectful pronouns, deferential terms of address, indirect speech acts, polite auxiliary verbs, and politeness particles. While the primary focus is on genuine politeness, the discussion also addresses related issues such as rudeness, overpoliteness, and mock politeness.