Forms of address across languages: Formal and informal second person pronoun usage among Estonia's linguistic communities
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Renate Pajusalu
Abstract
This paper examines linguistic politeness in a bilingual society, focusing on forms of address among Estonian speakers and Russian speakers in Estonia. We ask in what ways groups living in different conditions of societal bilingualism acknowledge different norms of politeness and hence exhibit different politeness behavior. Our study focuses especially on the choice of the formal or informal form of the second person pronoun, but we also investigate other aspects of sociolinguistic interaction. The analysis is based on university students' responses to a sociolinguistic questionnaire. Data from both native Estonian speakers in Estonia and native Russian speakers in Russia are compared with data from Russian speakers living in Estonia. We find that where differences are apparent between Estonian and Russian speakers, the Russian diaspora in Estonia falls between both of the majority groups.
© 2010 Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/New York
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- Forms of address across languages: Formal and informal second person pronoun usage among Estonia's linguistic communities
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Artikel in diesem Heft
- Cross-cultural communication and miscommunication: The role of cultural keywords
- The announcements in the Athens Metro stations: An example of glocalization?
- Apologizing to China: Elastic apologies and the meta-discourse of American diplomats
- Forms of address across languages: Formal and informal second person pronoun usage among Estonia's linguistic communities
- Medical communication in L1 and L2 contexts: Comparative modification analysis
- Figures of communication and dialogue: Passion, ventriloquism and incarnation
- Addressing non-acquaintances in Tunisian Arabic: A cognitive-pragmatic account
- Book reviews
- Contributors to this issue
