Nicole Baumgarten and Roel Vismans (eds.). 2023. It’s different with you: Contrastive perspectives on address research. [TAR 5]. John Benjamins Publishing Company

Abstract

-

Full Text

In the last decade, linguists have become increasingly intrigued by address research, which is manifested by the introduction of special book series (monographs and collective volumes) by John Benjamins dedicated to this area. The topics of interest encompass the choice of existing forms of address (nominal, pronominal, other), their grammatical markers including their pragmatic effect, the factors governing their use in actual discourse, the way they mirror as well as create social relations in a number of languages (preamble to the volume). The present publication collection of 16 chapters is representative of the endeavor described above.

As its title implies, it is foremost about diversity. The diversity concerns the array of languages explored (over 15, both related and unrelated as well as different languages in contact), situational contexts or domains as well as methods employed in investigating address forms. The languages juxtaposed in research include European languages (Finnish and Hungarian, Danish and Swedish, French and English, English and German), Asian languages (Japanese and Korean, Chinese and Japanese), European and American languages (European Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese), varieties of a language (English and Italian), and a language family (Romance languages).

A brief synopsis of the collective volume

The chapter entitled Comparing address practices in the Finnish and Hungarian “Got Talent” TV programs by Hanna Lappalainen & Ildikó Vecsernyés compares pronominal and nominal address practices in the TV show in question. The authors aim to show how the judges address contestants and how these practices differ in episodes of Finnish and Hungarian. The findings regarding the ranges of informality bear issues on discursive practices in everyday encounters as the address practices on the TV show may mirror up-to-date use of address forms more generally.

The chapter entitled Vós and other pronominal forms of address (tu, você, vocês): Speakers’ perceptions of Brazilian and European Portuguese by Isabel Margarida Duarte & Maria Aldina Marques presents a comparative analysis of pronominal address forms in European and Brazilian Portuguese. The data excerpted from the Internet and FB interactions is explored from the perspective of speakers’ perceptions. The analysis manifests the speakers’ varied metalinguistic and metapragmatic knowledge regarding the uses of the pronominal address forms in both varieties, and indicates that their knowledge of the system is affected by beliefs that appreciate the social prestige associated with a standard variety.

Ildikó Vančo and István Kozmács, in their chapter entitled Differences in the forms of address between standard Hungary Hungarian and Slovakia Hungarian, report on a unique project to compare the address forms used by the respondents of Hungary Hungarians and Hungarian minorities living outside the borders of Hungary. The results suggest significant differences between the language use of the two groups in the employment of some forms, the auxiliary verb tetszik, and in address avoidance.

The use of a person’s name in Japanese and Korean is explored in the chapter The function of names A case study of usage in Japanese original TV dramas and Korean remakes by Duck-Young Lee & Naomi Ogi. The study juxtaposes Japanese and Korean regarding the differences in the distribution of various nominal forms, their social functions and pragmatic effects. The authors conclude that while Japanese can be referred to as a “family name” language, Korean can be tagged as a “full name” language.

Wei Ren & Saeko Fukushima, in their chapter Address terms in social media requests: A contrastive study of Chinese and Japanese university students, present a unique research project, since so far, few studies have compared the use of address terms in the two languages. The authors investigate social media communication, specifically requests between university students. The findings reveal both similarities (both groups prefer using first names and nicknames) and differences (Chinese subjects lean towards kinship terms not used by Japanese subjects). The investigators consider a number of factors (such as social distance, pragmatic constraints, language play, preference for positive politeness, globalization, and new technologies) that are at play here.

In her chapter Practices of person reference in Chinese and German interactions: A contrastive analysis of “third person reference forms” in SMS, WhatsApp and WeChat communication, Susanne Günthner analyzes the pronominal address forms (third person reference) in two languages The findings reveal that subjects engage in these address practices as a “social index” to refer to various social meanings. The results yielded point to parallel and different use of addressing one’s interactants in Chinese and German.

In their chapter Address forms in academic discourse in Indian English, Tatiana Larina & Neelakshi Suryanarayan investigate the use of address forms by Indian bilinguals (speakers of Indian English and Hindi) in a university environment. The researchers adopt an interdisciplinary perspective of the topic employing a contrastive analysis, discourse analysis, politeness theory, translanguaging and cultural studies. The results unveil the convergence of English and Hindi. The research results reveal the influence of speakers’ cultural background on the selection of address forms and emphasize bilingual speakers’ extraordinary linguistic creativity in coining hybrid English-Hindi terms.

Minka Džanko, in the chapter entitled Don’t moan, it won’t make you feel better, granny! – Addressing older patients: A comparative study of German and Bosnian, investigates nominal address practices in doctors and older patients encounters in German and Bosnian. Drawing on Conversation Analysis and Ethnographic Discourse Analysis the researcher concludes that the German encounters manifest the exclusive use of the formal V form and the nominal form “Mrs./Mr. + surname” when addressing male and female patients. The Bosnian interactions manifest an overall high use of the first name and the kinship term “granny” when addressing the elderly female patients, what is more, certain address practices violate politeness and/or friendliness principles. The practices are ascribable to socio-cultural norms observed in Bosnian and German society.

In another investigation of nominal address forms by Christophe Gagne A comparative study of nominal forms of address in metropolitan French and British English service encounters, a politeness theoretic framework and a conversation analytic one, are combined. Nominal address forms as attention-seeking means mark the management of the customer-shopkeeper relationship and denote different phases of the interaction. The investigation reveals similarities in their function in the two linguacultures, but also differences in indexing different positions within the social order.

Nominal address and introductions in three national varieties of German Intralinguistic variation and pragmatic transfer to English by Doris Schüpbach, John Hajek, Heinz L. Kretzenbacher & Catrin Norrby also contributes to the investigation of nominal address forms. Drawing on a large-scale survey, the authors explore nominal address and introduction practices in first encounters at international academic conferences. The scholars are interested in variation in such routines among respondents originating in Germany, Austria and Switzerland in their L1 German and in L2 (English). The results show that in L1 German, introduction by first name and last name appears to be the unmarked choice with some national variation also observable in L2 English along with observable pragmatic transfer from the L1 German. Unlike L1 speakers of the national varieties of English, the German L1 speakers’ emulated address practices deviate from their L1 address practices without inevitably mirroring English L1 address practices.

Tina Thode Hougaard, Eva Skafte Jensen, Marianne Rathje, Jonathan White & Camilla Wide, in Variations in opening and closing forms in email correspondence in Danish and Swedish, illustrate how cultural values, e.g., ideals of equality, are expressed through similar linguistic means and show that there is a much larger variety in closing greetings than in opening greetings in both languages.

Vocative use in telephone service encounters in the British housing market is explored in the paper And the postcode darlin’. Vocative variation in service encounters on the telephone in Northern England by Nicole Baumgarten. The research outcomes indicate that vocative use is nonreciprocal and limited to estate agents. The frequency of use and selection of type (first name, last name, honorific, endearment) is indicative of callers’ socio-economic and socioethnic group affiliation and the agents select the appropriate type in order to imply an asymmetrical role relationship for the purpose of transaction control.

In the chapter entitled Forms of address in courtroom discourse in Englishes of the “Inner Circle”, Vladimir Ozyumenko explores the address forms and terms of reference to judges of different levels in the Englishes of the “inner circle” in a courtroom discourse. Through comparative semantic, pragmatic, discourse and cultural analysis he investigates address forms in varieties of English. The outcomes unveil clear variations in address forms and reference forms to judges and their functioning, hierarchy and formality in British English, and more democratic forms of addressing judges in other varieties. The study employs new data and illustrates lexical and discursive variability observed in the legal domain. It is original in contributing to the discussion on factors involved in the formation of language varieties.

Regional variation in pronominal address forms is explored by Agnese Bresin in Investigating address in regional varieties of Italian: Contrasting methodologies. Great linguistic diversity typifying Italy is also reflected in the use of singular V pronouns. In addition, the chapter suggests the elementary features of a model methodology the application of which may yield an all-inclusive interpretation of address forms in Italian.

Mismatches of number and gender in address forms in the Romance languages are explored by Sascha Gaglia in Hybrid agreement in polite address: A contrastive approach to Romance languages. While some other scholars propose double feature sets for addressing mismatches of this kind, Gaglia puts forward an approach drawing on single feature sets and a syntactic politeness feature in the classical version of Lexical-Functional Grammar and, in support of this approach, she provides ample synchronic and diachronic evidence taking a contrastive perspective on French, Italian, Peninsular Spanish, and Chilean Spanish.

Roel Vismans in Address and politeness, A theoretical exploration, investigates the nature of address and scrutinizes “the address theory”, namely the need for such a theory and its content. It is original in analyzing the theoretical contrasts between address study and politeness theory. It also raises the issues of address theory, the need for such a theory and the sustained use of T and V tags, which is prevalent in both address research and politeness research.

The value of research for the area of address theory and politeness theory

The studies of the volume demonstrate that addressing is an indispensable feature of human communication and contributes to effective and successful interaction. Address terms are indicative of interlocutors’ social status and social relationships; hence they have their social perspective and grammatical manifestations. From a social perspective, address terms may be viewed as features operating on a sliding scale with (very) formal and (very) informal forms denoting the endpoints of a continuum. In different linguacultures, the language users have an inventory of suitable forms to indicate social distance and/or familiarity the usage of which has become conventionalized and associated with particular communication settings. Over the course of their life and through exposure to social stimuli, people acquire and hone a wide set of skills that enable them to recognize, process, interpret, and react to delicate social cues. The development of these many skills enhances a person's social competence and becomes a part of their social cognition (Beaudoin & Beauchamp 2020).

The criteria governing automatic selection of appropriate forms may be viewed from the perspective of speaker meaning (Haugh 2013) to be understood as a cognitive notion. Speaker meaning abides by cultural norms, in other words, it is culture-sensitive. Therefore, members of different linguacultures observe these culture-specific rules or norms when selecting appropriate address terms during verbal interaction. Address terms reflect communicators’ cultural values deeply embedded in their cognition (e.g., Bilá et al. 2015, 2020, Clyne 2009, Khalil & Larina 2022, Wierzbicka 2013, 2020, among many others).

The situational contexts include a display of public and private settings, such as TV drama series; a TV show; academic setting: students’ encounters, international academic conferences; medical care setting: doctor – patient communication; housing market; courtroom setting; telephone conversation; social media communications: text messaging, WeChatand WhatsApp-interactions,  e-mail communication; written documents: legal texts and dictionaries.

The authors employed a variety of research methods: Contrastive and Comparative Analysis (conversational, pragmatic, semantic or cultural), Ethnographic and Discourse Analysis, even outlined an ideal methodology for exploring address terms (for investigating address terms usage in varieties of Italian). Research tools employed by researchers include surveys and questionnaires, focus group discussions and critical literature reviews. The authors also adopted various research perspectives and/or frameworks, such as politeness theory, translanguaging and address study.

The research projects dealt with in the publication adopted an explicit, disciplined and systematic approach in order for the research to yield most valid and appropriate results. The authors explored address forms in a variety of selected contexts, conducted in-depth analyses of ample collections of data occurring in natural settings and gave a detailed account of the findings. The chapters bear the mandatory features in order to qualify for scholarly excellence and they relate to and elaborate on the current knowledge. The literature reviews are concise and analytical and they identify a niche in a particular area of research. The chapters enfold in a logical manner; after outlining the research context, they move through the statement of the research objective, the research methods and tools, to the findings, discussion and conclusion. The research outcomes and assessment of the findings are plausible and may be highly inspirational for further rumination. In addition, there are reasonable and clear links between the chapters of the collection. In summary, the collection manifests intellectual completeness and is a valuable contribution to the discussion on addressing, address study and politeness research.