SOME PATTERNS OF LINGUISTIC RETICENCE
SOME PATTERNS OF LINGUISTIC RETICENCE

Summary/Abstract: When expressing reticence, people resort to a wide variety of strategies on a morphological and syntactic level, some of which will be the focus of our article. Firstly, reticence in discourse can be triggered by a certain level of politeness which prevents the speaker from telling everything or from telling it exactly as it is thought. Therefore, mention will be made of such means as indirectness; apologies; self-deprecation; reserve and social awkwardness, with much emphasis laid on conventional and non-conventional indirectness. Secondly, but in close connection to politeness, taboos cause reticence in speech and they can lead to the creation of euphemisms as more colourful versions of the orthophemism.

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