ERIC Number: EJ836503
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2006-Dec
Pages: 17
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0155-0640
EISSN: N/A
Address Pronouns in French: Variation within and outside the Workplace
Warren, Jane
Australian Review of Applied Linguistics, v29 n2 p16.1-16.17 Dec 2006
This article examines speakers' perceptions of and attitudes towards address pronoun usage in Paris and Toulouse. The data on which this article is based come from a comparative project based at the University of Melbourne, "Address in some western European languages, and were generated in focus groups in both Paris and Toulouse, as well as interviews in Paris. It is generally accepted that in France the informal pronominal address form "tu" is used within the family, with close friends and with youngsters, and that the formal address form "vous" is used by adults when addressing strangers. The findings presented here indicate that, outside these general tendencies, individual preferences and negotiation can inform the choice of address pronoun in different ways both within and outside the workplace, with individual variation more common outside the work domain. (Contains 4 endnotes.)
Descriptors: Form Classes (Languages), Focus Groups, Foreign Countries, French, Work Environment, Language Usage, Language Variation, Contrastive Linguistics, Pragmatics
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Australia; France
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A