item or clause. A cline, however, is not restricted to a single pathway. As described in Section 3.1, a single source may develop into more than one grammaticalised item, and multiple sources may converge toward the development of a single grammaticalised item (Hopper & Traugott, 2003; Fischer, 2013). A simplified diagram of a multi-source cline is illustrated in Error! Reference source not found..
Figure 5.1: Diagram of multi-source cline of grammaticality (adapted from Fischer (2013: 517))
Based on definitions, etymological information and examples taken from the SAfE data that suggest PM shame is linked to the traditional English sense as well as the Afrikaans items foeitog and siestog, the possibility of contact-induced grammaticalisation is explored below. Since no language influences other than English and Afrikaans were found in the consulted sources to have contributed toward its development, the diachronic analysis of PM shame is limited to these two languages, and a multi-source cline is assumed. Additionally, since changes to shame occurred in South Africa, the analysis also takes into account influences resulting from this multilingual, multicultural environment.
Although most grammaticalised items seem to originate from items with broad meanings such as go and be (Traugott, 2010b: 279), this does not discount the possibility that grammaticalisation may affect conceptual items with narrower or more distinctive meanings. As described in Section 3.1, grammaticalisation is a kind of language change that occurs when lexical items are used in certain contexts to express non-conventional grammatical functions. It is argued here that this type of linguistic development occurred in the case of shame.
The previous sections noted syntactic and semantic-pragmatic similarities between the contemporary sense of SAfE shame and the two Afrikaans items, foeitog and siestog, and identifiable similarities in intonation and functions of politeness have been observed. Based on these similarities alone, it is possible that contact-induced grammaticalisation occurred as the result of pragmatic associations made between the items. As Andersen (2014: 18) explains, external influences such as contact with other languages may result in pragmatic borrowings that involve the incorporation of new discourse functions such as represented with the SAfE use of shame. No other similarities, such as phonetic and syllabic, exist between shame (/ʃeɪːm/, /ʃǝaɪːm/) and foeitog
(/ˈfuitɔx/, /ˈfʊɪtɔx/) and siestog (/ˈsɪstɔx/, /ˈsistɔx/).131 For this reason, these Afrikaans items alone may not completely account for how the original sense of shame developed its current usage in SAfE. This section offers a possible explanation, starting with a look at its traditional use and the conventional English phrases in which shame appears.
Traditionally shame is used as a noun and verb, and in many English varieties shame is included in conventional or formulaic expressions of sympathy, regret or sorrow (e.g., that’s/what a shame) and disapproval, blame or reproach (e.g., for shame!, shame on you!) (“shame”, 2009). Some functions attributed to the SAfE use of shame may be linked to these two phrasal meanings. Section 5.1.2.1 described two basic functions for PM shame: affective (such as to express an endearment) and hortatory (such as to euphemistically soften a topic or remark). The first of these can be linked with the conventional phrases typically associated with expressing sympathy or regret; while the second may be related to phrases associated with expressing disapproval. In both cases, however, PM shame is a distinctly mitigated/ameliorated version of its associated conventional phrase(s), and its use further demonstrates a broadly developed pragmatic allowance. That is, as an expression of endearment it is not limited to sympathy but includes the gamut of affection, compassion, amusement, pleasure, admiration and dismay; and as an expression to euphemistically soften a topic or remark, assuming that it stems from a dishonouring rebuke, its gentler tone represents a recognisable departure from this traditional meaning. This latter function is useful when (inter)subjectively trying to avoid offending another communicator or distance oneself from a potential offence during intercultural communication, all while not causing further offence with overt criticism. In this way, PM shame may be seen as managing the pragmatic success of cross- linguistic communication in which understanding attitudinal aspects of both the speaker’s intentions and the hearer’s comprehension are important. Although PM shame retains its
131 As will be discussed in later sections, there are noted phonetic and syllabic similarities between tag hey
and the Afrikaans hoor (Section 5.2), as well as the invariant follow-up is it and the Afrikaans is dit (Section
morphological appearance or form, pragmatically it has developed a distinctly gentler emotive and evaluative quality. That is, its form has not changed, but its associated pejorative meaning has shifted toward one that is more positive in certain contexts to project the speaker’s attitude. Further comparison with the traditional use of shame as a noun, verb, or in conventionalised phrases common to other English varieties reveals that PM shame has greater freedom in terms of utterance position. Where it occurs in an utterance, however, determines its pragmatic focus (as demonstrated in examples (20) and (21)), and it remains grammatically rule governed. While the data indicate that PM shame cannot occur clause-internally, it may be used like an exclamative (e.g., damn) as a stand-alone response, or clause-peripherally (i.e., outside of but proximate to a clause) similar to a sentential adverbial (e.g., unfortunately), parenthetical (e.g., needless to say), apposition marker or exclamative.132 This use differs from its traditional function as a noun or verb but is similar to its use within some conventionalised phrases.
The question of why, and to some extent how, these meaningful changes occurred to shame brings this analysis to proposing an intermissive stage in its grammatical development. That is, there is evidence that the contemporary SAfE use of shame is a direct result of a sociolinguistic trend to use shame as a hyperbole and to do so with frequency in casual discourse. By definition, a hyperbole is an overt and explicit, exaggerated description of an actual state of affairs, and like other tropes, it is not intended to be interpreted literally (OED, 2009; Nichols & Pickett, 2012: 416). It is noted in the data by one account (in interviews) that shame was used widely to convey a broad range of emotions, from happy to sad. This brief, extemporaneous description suggests contextually broad hyperbolic use that was both socially frequent and accepted. Assuming this to be the case, over time (inter)subjectivity led to shame becoming eased to fit the context. In this way, interpretive limitations were weakened, allowing this item to function more broadly.
As pointed out in Section 3.2.2, since lexical expressions are used to represent concepts (i.e., they are not actual concepts), the link to any specific concept is susceptible to change through use. Noting that a developmental stage may have been the extensive hyperbolic use as a sociolinguistic trend helps explain how and why shame changed in SAfE, and it may clarify the relationships between shame and the conventionalised English phrases as well as shame and the two Afrikaans
132 Blakemore (2008: 55 n1) defines an apposition marker as “the juxtaposition of co-referential noun
phrases”. In essence, these are reformulations of a proposition or noun phrase that procedurally serve a variety of attitudinal functions. Blakemore (2008: 48) provides the following example: “I’m leaving. You’ve spoilt the whole evening, ruined it”. Italics are not in the original but have been added to indicate the
apposition marker and the way it functions to guide the hearer toward a more fine-tuned interpretation in keeping with the speaker’s intention.
expressions. Widespread hyperbolic use also could explain how shame came to be ameliorated and softened. If hyperbole is an exaggeration of an actual state of affairs, then its use can be regarded as a falsehood that is uttered in order to highlight some aspect of the actual state of affairs by disrupting the expected progression of discourse. Here its function is thus regarded as epistemic, as hyperbole disrupts the literalness of interpretation by replacing an actual state of affairs with one that is unrealistically heightened, which upon its interpretation reveals something about the actual state of affairs that otherwise could not have been perceived (cf. Ritter, 2012). Over time and with frequent use, hyperbole shame appears to have lost its initial ability to disrupt, but it retained its pragmatic function to allude to disruption, thereby contributing toward its amelioration.
If the contemporary SAfE use of shame as a PM even partly originated from a sociolinguistic trend of hyperbolic use, it may have motivated pragmatic transference from the two Afrikaans expressions, foeitog and siestog, during cross-linguistic interactions. This notion of shame used as a hyperbole is discussed further below, but for now, assuming this as one stage of, or contribution toward, its PM development, along with other contributing factors mentioned above, a multi- source cline representing the grammaticalisation of shame with these influences is presented in Figure 5.2.