Department of Modern Foreign Languages

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Browsing Department of Modern Foreign Languages by browse.metadata.advisor "Du Plessis, J. A."

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    The expressions of gratitude in Tshivenda
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2003-03) Sikhwari, Matodzi Godfrey; Du Plessis, J. A.; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences. Dept. of African Languages.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study investigates how gratitude expressions may be expressed in Tshivenda. Studies on the expressions of gratitude have been conducted in various languages. Politeness is a pragmatic mechanism in which a variety of structures work together according to the speaker's intention of achieving smooth communication. Speech acts on the other hand is the same as an illocutionary act (intention of the sender). The same world can be used to perform different speech acts. The findings in this study is based on situations in which gratitude is expressed in response to receiving a reward, gift, favour, service and compliment (Eisentein and Bodman 1986). Gratitude is expressed when a person benefits from another person. In this study the data shows consistent use of expressions of gratitude within specific contexts. The results of this study are consistently interpretable in that the bigger the imposition on the giver, the more polite expressions are employed. Gratitude expressions have been analysed from gratitude functions. These functions include the following: Thanking, appreciations, liking, surprise, generosity, pleasure, indebtedness, relief, desire, caring, enthusiasm, reciprocate, reason, reassurance and compliment. In Tshivenda thanks, pleasure and appreciation have a high frequency and these gratitude functions show extreme politeness of the Venda people. There are also certain functions in Tshivenda which have a very low frequency, i.e. reason, desire, enthusiasm, reciprocate, generosity and caring. Therefore, they are not considered as possible gratitude functions in Tshivenda and are also unfamiliar in Tshivenda.