Politeness in Arabic and Yoruba: Personal Pronouns as a Case Study

Abstract

Politeness as social rule which consolidates interpersonal communication and effective interactions in human society exists in all cultures and languages, however, the specific language and communication strategies that are employed to speak in a language may not work as well in other languages. One can use a wide range of grammatical structures, have a large vocabulary, and have a clear, understandable pronunciation. However, when speaking in a second or foreign language, one may not appear to achieve the desired outcomes. Perhaps the speaker lacks the cultural knowledge of the target language to demonstrate linguistic etiquette, resulting in overly direct discourse. Using descriptive and contrastive methods, this paper addresses linguistic politeness in using personal pronouns in both Arabic and Yoruba languages; it gives an insight into the similarities and differences that exist in the politeness culture of the Yoruba and Arabic languages. The study reveals that while both languages have some similarities in subcategories of personal pronouns, the areas of dissimilarity are obvious. A special focus is given to the use of honorific pronoun.