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It’s not all about you: New perspectives on address research
Edited by Bettina Kluge and María Irene Moyna
[Topics in Address Research 1] 2019
► pp. 99–122

Imaginary customers and public figures

Visual material as stimuli in studies of address practices

This chapter proposes and evaluates new data collection methods that use visual material to analyze address practices. The methods are illustrated by two experiments. The first experiment used photographs as part of Discourse Completion Tasks for exploring self-reported uses of address forms in service encounters in Helsinki and Tallinn. The second experiment, which simulates an encounter with a celebrity, was conducted using life-size photographs in a Finnish shopping center. While such test data cannot replace authentic discourse as reported use does not necessarily match actual use, the two data sources can complement each other. Using visual material also attracts respondents who might not be accessed by traditional data collection methods such as interviews and questionnaires.
Keywords: address, methods, Discourse Completion Task, visual material, Finnish
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background
    • 2.1Addressing with T and V forms in Finnish
    • 2.2Research project
  • 3.The Discourse Completion Task and visual material in previous research
  • 4.Experiment 1: Imaginary customers
    • 4.1Aims and implementation
    • 4.2Evaluation
  • 5.Experiment 2: Public figures in a shopping center
    • 5.1Aims and implementation
    • 5.2Evaluation of the experiment
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 28 November 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/tar.1.04lap
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