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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. 245–271

Chapter 10
Nominal address and introductions in three national varieties of German

Intralinguistic variation and pragmatic transfer to English

| The University of Melbourne
| The University of Melbourne
| The University of Melbourne
| Stockholm University

Using a large-scale survey, we explore reported nominal address and introduction routines in first encounters at international academic conferences. Our focus is on variation in such routines among respondents originating in Germany, Austria and Switzerland in their first language (L1) German and in English (L2 English, their second or further language). In L1 German, introduction by first name and last name tends to be the unmarked choice, with some national variation present. Similar national variation exists in L2 English, albeit to a lesser extent, showing some pragmatic transfer from the respondents’ L1 German variety to L2 English. In comparison to the results for L1 speakers of three national varieties of English, the German L1 speakers’ emulated behaviour diverges from their L1 behaviour without necessarily reflecting English L1 behaviour in most cases.

Keywords: address, introductions, German as a pluricentric language, L2 English, academic conferences, intercultural communication, pragmatic transfer, (varieties of) German, (varieties of) English
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background
  • 3.Data and methodology
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Introductions in L1 German
      • 4.1.1Quantitative results
        • Scenario 1: Introduction of self
        • Scenario 2: Introduction of others
        • Scenario 3: Introduction by others
        • Summary of quantitative L1 German results
      • 4.1.2Qualitative results
    • 4.2Introductions in English
      • 4.2.1Quantitative results
        • Scenario 1: Introduction of self
        • Scenario 2: Introduction of others
        • Scenario 3: Introduction by others
        • Summary of L2 English results
      • 4.2.2Qualitative results for English
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 6 September 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/tar.5.10sch
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