What exactly is the meaning of “honorifics” in linguistics?
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Honorifics are words meant to convey respect to other people because of their authority or special standing in life.
Examples are “His Eminence” for the Pope.
Simply put, they are fancy titles people use to talk to fancy people.
Edit: some languages such as Nihongo do have honorifics that change depending on the situation but the same underlying principle is the same. They are there to denote relationships, social standings, etc.
Honorifics in linguistics are not the same thing as honorific titles (like “Your Majesty”.) Those are just noun phrases.
An honorific is a language feature that tells you something about the *social status* of the people in the conversation.
For instance, many European languages have two different pronouns for “you”; you might use one when talking to your boss and a different one when talking to your child, for instance.
Some languages have pretty elaborate systems of honorific speech, like Japanese. (This gets exaggerated sometimes when people translate Japanese to English.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honorifics_(linguistics)
Honorifics are add-ons or special terms that various languages use to be respectful and polite.
Like, in Japanese “-chan”, “-kun”, “-san”, “-sama” ect are examples of honorifics. They don’t really have direct translations. They’re like Mister [name], Miss [name], Sir [name]
Honorifics are titles attached to somebody’s name to show their position, most often a sign of respect.
English honorifics are things like Dr., Miss, Mr., Mrs.
Different languages use different sets of honorifics with different meanings. You’ll most often hear about honorifics when talking about anime, as “correct” translation of the Japanese system into English is a long and messy debate. (As a result of this history, most subtitled anime just doesn’t bother and includes the japanese honorifics untouched).
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