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In:“You can say you to me”: Address in German
Edited by Heinz L. Kretzenbacher, Horst J. Simon and Christa Dürscheid
[Topics in Address Research 7] 2026
► pp. 249–273

Chapter 12
Address on South Tyrolean websites

This content is being prepared for publication; it may be subject to changes.
Abstract
German is one of three official languages in the Italian province of South Tyrol. Within the German language group, the picture is further complicated by the coexistence of spoken dialects and the written standard. The study presented here examines address on (German-language) South Tyrolean commercial and institutional websites. It is shown that the formal Sie address is still the standard form in service provider-customer interactions on the 146 websites examined. However, non-pronominal strategies are used on hotel websites in particular to reduce social distance, while the sporadic T forms on the one hand form local clusters and, on the other hand, together with dialectal elements, can also be seen as identity markers.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The German language in South Tyrol
    • 2.1Sociolinguistic background
    • 2.2The German language in South Tyrol
  • 3.Address
    • 3.1Address in Germany and Austria
    • 3.2Modes of address in South Tyrol
  • 4.Methodology
  • 5.Results
    • 5.1Quantitative results
    • 5.2Discussion
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
  • Appendix
References (42)
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