The Compatibility between Expressive Elements: Kinship Terms, Pronouns, and Racial Slurs in Vietnamese

Abstract

The present study investigates the Compatibility Condition (CC) for multiple expressive elements in Vietnamese. We identify Vietnamese kinship terms, pronouns, and racial slurs as expressives, i.e. conventional implicature (Potts 2005), where different expressive items interact. We find that there are co-occurrences of expressives with different attitudes (e.g. weak/strong negative) and with expressive elements that have honorific and antihonorific properties. Under controlled occurrences, we examine what CC is and how it is measured. We propose the CC model and the CC index for occurrences of Vietnamese emotive-expressives and honorific-expressives. Furthermore, the CC may be intentionally flouted as a repair strategy. Finally, we show that emotion and honorific dimensions operate interdependently or autonomously and provide support for autonomy. The implication found is that interaction exists among various Vietnamese expressives, necessitating the compatibility constraint, while supporting multidimensionality (Potts 2005 et seq.), with at least two expressive dimensions.