“Face” in retrospective: The use of “thanks” and “to thank” In Old Saxon and Old High German

Valentina Concu

doi:10.1515/lpp-2023-0009

Article

“Face” in retrospective: The use of “thanks” and “to thank” In Old Saxon and Old High German

Valentina Concu
Valentina Concu is an Assistant Professor for Linguistics and German at the department of Foreign Languages at the Universidad del Norte, Barranquilla, Colombia. She got her Ph.D. in German Linguistics from Purdue University, Indiana, USA. Her research interests focus on, but are not limited to, historical corpus linguistics, historical pragmatics, complexity theory, complex network science, and second language acquisition. Her current research projects focus on pragmatic variation in Old and Middle High German and the teaching of pronunciation in German as a Foreign Language.

Published/Copyright: July 20, 2023

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From the journal Lodz Papers in Pragmatics Volume 19 Issue 1

Abstract

Despite being often criticized, the notion of face has recently begun to be applied in diachronic pragmatic investigations on directives, requests, apologies, and terms of address. The present study also uses the notion of face to investigate the use of Dank ‘thanks’, Dankbarkeit ‘thankfulness’, and danken ‘to thank’ in expressions of gratitude in Old Saxon and Old High German, laying the foundations to a better understanding of the speech act of thanking in the history of German. The data suggest that, although the manifestation of gratitude was common, the expressions containing Dank, Dankbarkeit, and danken could mostly be found when the addresser was in a lower social position than the addressee. The same situation was observed when these nouns and verbs were used with the meaning of “to reward” and “to praise.” These findings provide evidence to the claim that the effects of a speech act on the speaker’s or hearer’s face are mostly situational rather than being an intrinsic property. They also suggest that, in strictly hierarchical societies such as the Old Saxon and Old High German ones, addressers would threaten their own negative face only if they were in a lower social position than the addressees.

Keywords: politeness; face; Old Saxon; Old High German; thanking

About the author

Valentina Concu

Valentina Concu is an Assistant Professor for Linguistics and German at the department of Foreign Languages at the Universidad del Norte, Barranquilla, Colombia. She got her Ph.D. in German Linguistics from Purdue University, Indiana, USA. Her research interests focus on, but are not limited to, historical corpus linguistics, historical pragmatics, complexity theory, complex network science, and second language acquisition. Her current research projects focus on pragmatic variation in Old and Middle High German and the teaching of pronunciation in German as a Foreign Language.

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Published Online: 2023-07-20

Published in Print: 2023-05-25

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Articles in the same Issue

https://doi.org/10.1515/lpp-2023-0009

Keywords for this article

politeness; face; Old Saxon; Old High German; thanking