SPRACHE LVND AUFFASSUNG 663

7-8 ans), il parviendra ~ anticiper non pas seulement des crit~tes juxta- poses, trials ]cur changement m~me. L'enfant demandera spontandment:

Faut-il Ins classcr d'abord d'apr,Ss la coulcur et ensuite d'apr6s la forme, d'apr~s la grandeur ou d'aprbs Ic volume? �9 Le processus d'anticipation entrMne un processus de rdtroaction. L'enfant peut dorgnavant revenir en arrit?re pour choisir un crit~re qu'il avait provisoirement dcart6. Ce jeu d'anticipations ct de rt~troactions, qui plonge ses racines darts ractivitd scnsori-motricc, est l'exprcssion marne de cette activitd mobile qui conduit it la r6versibilitd, c'est-il-dire ~, I'opdration, et marque ainsi l'achgvement des structures de classification.

En conclusion, dans chaeun dcs groupes de fairs cit6s, e'est cette mobilit6 opdraloire par laquelle toute transformation peut 6tre compensde ou annulde par sa transformation inverse qui - - plus encore que le syst/~me conceptuel pr6figur6 dans le kmgage - - nous semble ~tre responsable de la gen~se des m(:canismes de classification. Cette gen~se est ald6e par le langage qui [avorise la mobilit~ opdratoire, mats qui se construe qu'une aide indirecte, prolongcant Ins amicipations non-verbales tout en ins utilisant.

J'esp~re vous avoir sugg6r~ une hypoth~se de travail selon laquelle la formation de la peas6e conceptuelle, sans fitre ind6pendante de celle du langagc, n'est eepcndant pas ddtcrmin6e enti~rement par lui. Je vous ai propos6 quelques techniques d'investigation compldtant les procddds classi- ques de Goldstein et de Vigotsky. Elles nous permettront peut-6tre un jour - - eomme les recherehes sur les troubles du langage chez renfant entre- prises rdcemmcnt en collaboration avec lc Professeur de Ajuriaguerra nous lc laissent esp6rer - - de mieux comprcndre Ins relations de causalit6 si complexes qui relient te langage et la compr6hension.

BIBLIOGRAPHIE

l. PIAGET, l., Essai sur quelques aspects du d6veloppement de la not!on de partie chez I'enfant, lournal de Psychologic, i921, XVII, p. 449-480.

2, 1NHELI)ER, B. et PIAGE'r. l,, La gen,3se des structures logiques ~l~mentaires, classificalions et s6riations 1959, Delachau et Niestld, NeuchfUel et Paris.

THE L A N G U A G E OF SOCIAL RELATIONSHIP

ROGER W. BROWN Cambridge, Mass. (USA)

When one person speaks to another he has, in any language, a choice of forms. In modern English the principal option lies with the decision

664 T H E M A !8

bet~wcn tile personal name and the family name plus titlc: Jo h n or Mr,

Jones . Our English pronoan of addr,Sss..whoever the addressee may be, is you , In the past, of course, English had both t h o u and ye as singular pronouns of address with thot~ behlg roughly churacterizab]c as familiar or condescending while ye was formal or deferential. At a still earlier time ye ;',,as restricted to the plural and ~'hotl was the only singular. The use of ye

as a polite singular was copied frnm the French after the Norman Conquest. The French v o u s of course is used both as a plural and as a formal singular and there is a cognate distinction in almost air of the Indo-European languages; d,, and Sic in Germam tu and Le i in Italian, rig and ~'0s in Latin. Let us agree at this point on a convenience; permit me from uow on to use 2' as a generic symbol for pronoun'~ of the type of tu and die aud v' as a synthol for pronouns of the type of vons oJ~d Sin. In the languages of India there is a similar pronominal distinction not only in the Sanskritic tongucs but also in the Dravidian languages of the South. Fur thcmm~e, some o[ the Indian languages offer three prononns of address. However. a choice of three forms is still yew modest by comparison with the resources of Japanese which does for social relationship what the Eskimo language does for snow and American English for the automobile.

Forms of address are relational forms--the selection is no: governed by properties of the speaker alone or of the addressee ulone bm by properties of the dyad. Kinship terms of address such as .father and son are also relational forms but kinship terminology is a restricted language of relation- ship; most of tile dyads that might be constituted in a society would not call for any sort of kinship term. The forms with which we are concerned-- titles, proper names, pro~-ouns of address----constitute a general language of social relationship which serves to connect each member of a society with each other.

tn studying the detailed usage of the forms of address we have consulted gener~ language histories as well as monographs describing usage for one or another language--sometimes throughout its history, sometimes fnr a century or so, sometimes only for the works of a partianlar author. We have learned about contemporary usage from long conversations with native speakers of the languages in question and from answers to a questionnaire which has been responded to by 300 informants representing 30 languages. There is not the time to cite data and so i will just briefly say what seems to be universally true of address forms and what seem to be tire major dimensions of variation from one language to another.

Since the address form arises in the dyad only two types of pattern are possible; a reciprocal or symmetrical pattern in which both parties use the

SPRACtlE UND AUFFASSUNG 665

same form or a non-reciprncal, asymmetrical pattern in which the members use ditlerent forms.

Consider first the rcciprocal patterns. Very often there are just two of them. In English the reciprocal use of tile personal name is one and tile reciprocal use of thc title with family name is another. For the European pronouns there is the mutual T and the mutual V. We all know that the difference belween reciprocal patterns of this kind is one of the degree of intimacy or friendship or, as l prefer, solidarity. Solidarity is based on shared interests and values and gives, rise to such behavior as seeking one another's company, relatively honest and complete disclosure of the self in conversation and expressive actions, cooperation, trust, and self sacrifice.

Consider now the non-reciprocal pattern as when one man says Jfm and ~he other Mr. Jackson or when one says T and the other V. Controlling this pattern is the vertical of social relationship---differential status. In medieval Europe (though not in Europe today~ a commoner said V to a knight and was told T: children said k' to parents and were told "1"; man in fables said T tt~ the Angels and they said V to God. In America today a supervisor may use the personal name to a worker and receive from him the family name plus title. In Japan a student is likely to address his teacher by the title Sensei and be called by his family name with the suffix -klan. Differential !.talus is based on unequal possession of attributes valued by the society and is chiefly manifest in differential socird power. So far as we now know, il is a linguistic universal for forms of address to code the dimensions of solidarity and status, and these dimensions have always the same abstract delinitions--solidarity is based on similarities, status on inequalities with regard to valued characteristics. Within these general definitions there is scope for linguistic variation in the kinds of personal attributes which, if shared, make for solidarity and, if not shared, for differential status. The best way of organizing this variation is in terms of a fanliliar sociological contrast--solidarity and status can derive from either ascribed charac- teristics such as age, sex, religion, ethaicity and lineage or from achieved characteristics such as occupation, avocation, education, and ideology.

In addition to the universal utilization of status and solidarity there is an abstract inwtriance of pattern that has interested us very much. The form used reciprocally between intimates (e.g., 73 is, in the non-reciprocal pattern, used downward from the higher to the lower status and the form used reciprocally between distant acquaintances (e.g., l/') is, in the non- reciprocal pattern, used upwards. In sho~t, the intimate address form is always also the condescending form whereas the remote form is always also the deferencial form. There is a fortnal, or logically possible, alternative

666 TUEMA 18

arrangement. The intimate form (T or personal name) could be used upward and the distant form downwards. We have not yet found a case in which this latter pattern is the norm. Why should that be so?

A curious fact about the contemporary use of T and 1/" providcs a cluc. The non-reciprocal pattern for pronouns has generally been abandoned in Europe--probably because of a conscious, cqualitarianism. However, inequality o[ status continues to affect one aspect of pronoun usage. Dyads begin at the mutual V and, with time, may advance to the intimacy of mutual T. The shift from V to T is sometimes an important rite of passage as in the German Bruderscha[t. The new usage is, of course, to be recipro- cal. However, there is one necessarily non-reciprocal aspect of tile busiuess --someone must make the suggestion. When there is a clear difference of status between the two the right to initiate the change unequivocally belongs to the person of higher status--the superior, tile cider, the richer, the more distinguished of the two. The gate to linguistic intimacy is kept by tile person of higher status. And this is true of all forms of address. The three basic kinds of pattern are ordered in time. In its life-course a dyad may advance in solidarity and so progress from the reciprocal use of more distant forms to the reciprocal use of more intimate forms. If there is clear inequality between the members of tile dyad each advance in intinracy is initiated from above and so the non-reciprocal pattern takes its place in time after the reciprocal formal and before the reciprocal intimate. When more than two forms of address are involved, when there are three, four, or five pronouns several kinds of title, nicknames and diminutives all of these assume positions on tile same basic dimensions and with the same invariant pattern. Indeed the linguistic norms are isomorphic with every sort of non-linguistic behavior that marks a progression toward solidarity-- invitations to dinner, suggestions to travel together, even the ,equest to borrow a comb all come more easily from the member having higher status. He is more than a gatekeeper, he is the general pacesetter in the progression to solidarity.

The pattern of address we do not find is that in which a subordinate would initiate the intimate form. Oddly enough, this is just the pattern that might be predicted from an analysis of the motives likely to operate in a dyad where the members are of unequal status. If we think of persons of unequal status as quantities of unequal value, then we may suggest that acts of association will generally cause these quantities to move toward one another. This is a simple application of the principle of congruity as Osgood and Tannenbaum have developed it for attitude change. It means that intimacy with a superior enhances the status of a subordinate but leaves

SPRACItE UND AUFFASSUNG (307

unchanged or lowers the status of the superior. Consequently, it is the person of lower status who has the stronger motive to move toward solidarity and so it is he who might be expected to initiate such moves but that is the very thing that does not happen.

The social norm seems everywhere to deny the facts of social motivation. Perhaps this is because if the subordinate were to initiate acts of solidarity, as he feels inclined to do, he would go in danger of a painful rebuff because the superior wi}l generally be less disposed to solidarity. The subordinate may be assumed to be ever ready for solidarity and if the superior will make the first moves he will not be rebuffed.

The non-reciprocal pattern while it lasts serves admirably to express differential status. It is not as disagreeable a distinction as it might be since the superior appears to offer the hand of friendship and tile subordinate 10 demur. Sometimes he must demur for years as in the case of an American graduate student who does not usually reciprocate the personal name he hears from his professor until he takes his degree and becomes a colleague. There are non-reciprocal patterns that are not expected ever to advance to reciprocal mtimacy---o~cer and enlisted man in the American army and navy, in the American South the white man and Negro, in France a lady may say Yvo,me to her maid but be told Madame. A principal dimension of variation among linguistic communities is the number of dyads that remaJ.n permanently non-reciprocal and the nature of these dyads.

Our forms of address are not words that we expect to be asked to define and most of us would not have good explicit definitions ready. But we understand them very well indeed, and the evidence of that understanding is our delicate sense of how to use them. in acquiring that sense we must necessarily have acquired a sense of some of the universal features of social ~tructure as well as a sense of how our own society works in distinction from others.

DIE P, OLLE DES GRAMMATISCHEN BEIM VERSTEHEN

DES SATZSINNES 1

H. WlSSEMANN Tiibingett (Deulschland)

Wir sind yon Jugend auf gewohnt, an der Sprache zweierlei zu unter- scheiden, das Lexikalische und das Grammatische, wird sind gewohnt,

i Der vollst~ndige Wortlaut dieses Referats ist verbffentlicht in der Zeitschrift Indogcrmanische Forschungen 66,1.