Inclusive Pronoun Meshma in Sistani Dialect of Persian as a Pragmatic Indicator of Politeness
摘要
Clusivity is a common linguistic characteristic among many human languages. Research has shown that inclusive pronouns may be employed by speakers to convey various functions, such as closeness and politeness. The bulk of studies on clusivity abounds; however, no study has been carried out on the Persian language or its dialects to showcase clusivity in this Indo-European language. This study aims to explore the functions of the inclusive pronoun Meshma in Sistani, a dialect of Persian. Samples of Sistani’s dialect were taken from 63 native speakers of this variety. Conversation analysis was used to analyze and identify the inclusive pronoun functions. The findings indicate that the inclusive first-person plural in the Sistani dialect of Persian serves various functions, including the expression of politeness.