Author(s) :

Moussa OUATTARA.

Volume/Issue :

Abstract :

Senar is a minority language of the Gur family located in the western part of Burkina Faso while English is a worldwide Indo-European language. English honorifics have largely been studied but there is not yet a published work on Senar honorifics so that one cannot tell how honorifics functions contrastively in both languages in a context where English is learnt by Senar speakers as a foreign language. This paper tackles the social base on which the speakers of both languages back up their honorific expressions. Following a traditional methodology in Contrastive Analysis, honorifics in both languages are described and compared. The results show that there are similarities and differences in the structures of honorifics in both languages but English mostly refers to the social status whereas Senar refers to age. The outcome of the study may be helpful for language teaching, translation and cross-cultural communication on the one hand, and provide more understanding of the phenomenon of deixis on the other hand.

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