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It's different with you: Contrastive perspectives on address research
Edited by Nicole Baumgarten and Roel Vismans
[Topics in Address Research 5] 2023
► pp. 197–219

Chapter 8
A comparative study of nominal forms of address in metropolitan French and British English service encounters

| University of Cambridge

This chapter investigates nominal forms of address in metropolitan French and British English service encounters. The study considers the different pragmatic functions they play in interaction, examining their relational and organisational properties, combining a politeness theoretic framework and a conversation analytic one. Nominal forms of address play an important part in the management of the interpersonal relationship between customer and shopkeeper. As attention-getting devices, they can be used to delineate different phases of the interaction. Although they frequently have the same function in both linguacultures, they index different positions within the social order.

Keywords: vocatives, politeness, interpersonal relationship, routinisation, cooperation, respect, consideration, requests, reciprocity
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.What are NFAs? Definition, functions and values
    • 2.1Definition
    • 2.2Form selection: T and V
    • 2.3Pragmatic function of NFAs
  • 3.Methodology and data
    • 3.1Service encounters (SEs)
    • 3.1The data
  • 4.Data analysis: Patterns of NFA use in SEs
    • 4.1Frequency of NFAs in opening and closing sequences
    • 4.2NFAs in the French data: Reciprocity of use
    • 4.3NFAs in the English data: Asymmetry and absence of use
    • 4.4The NFA mate as an egalitarian marker
    • 4.5NFAs in the transaction: Request prompts and organisational markers
  • 5.Discussion and concluding remarks
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 6 September 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/tar.5.08gag
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