National variation of address in pluricentric languages

Manuscript version of Norrby, Catrin / Kretzenbacher, Heinz L. Address in two pluricentric languages: Swedish and German. In: Soares da Silva, Augusto (ed.). Pluricentricity: Language Variation and Sociocognitive Dimensions Berlin - Boston: de Gruyter Mouton 2014 [recte: 2013] (Applications of Cognitive Linguistics, 24), 243-267.

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National variation of address in pluricentric languages: the examples of Swedish and German Catrin Norrby (Stockholm) and Heinz L. Kretzenbacher (Melbourne) 1. Introduction In this chapter we focus on the pragmatic dimension of pluricentric languages, an area which has, so far, received much less attention in the literature on pluricentric languages than lexical, morphosyntactic or phonological aspects.1 Based on data from the large-scale project Address in Some Western European Languages, we investigate the socio-cognitive phenomena of perceptions and attitudes that German and Swedish speakers display towards address practices in their own and other national and regional varieties of their respective languages.2 The choice of address form positions both speaker and addressee in their social field of interaction (cf. Carbaugh 1996: 143; Svennevig 1999: 19). Native speakers are usually quite aware of this pragmatic power of address, as recent studies have shown (Clyne, Norrby and Warren 2009). It is this pragmatic function of address, we believe, that is of special interest, not only because it is not officially planned (at least not in the languages under consideration), but also because it provides a link between language, human relations, and national culture. As will be demonstrated there is substantial variation between the national standard varieties of German and Swedish regarding how people address others and how they expect to be addressed. This national variation is linked to issues of perceived national identity, including stereotypical representations of “the Other” as well as asymmetrical power relationships between the varieties. Many of the publications arising from the address project include national variation (see Clyne, Kretzenbacher, Norrby, and Schüpbach (2006) and Clyne and Norrby (2011) for German and Swedish; Kretzenbacher, Clyne, and Schüpbach (2006) and Kretzenbacher (2011) for German; Norrby (2006) and Norrby, Nilsson, and Nyblom (2007) for Swedish, and Clyne, Norrby, and Warren (2009) for all four project languages).3 As far as we are aware, only few other authors, such as Muhr (2008) and Warga

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(2008), have also included address in studies on pragmatic features in national varieties of pluricentric languages.

2. The data This chapter draws on data from focus groups, social network interviews and questionnaires, online forums and participant observation. For the purposes of this chapter the discussion will focus on German and Swedish, which show contrasts in address in the national, and to some extent also in regional varieties. Data were collected in Mannheim in Western Germany, Leipzig in Eastern Germany, Vienna in Austria,4 Gothenburg in Sweden and Vaasa in Finland. In each location we organised a focus group (of about 12 participants) which met at the start and end of the project. A further 72 people in each research location participated in network interviews and filled out a questionnaire with 38 questions on reported address in various scenarios, such as addressing a stranger in the street, a police officer, a shop assistant, family members, co-workers and superiors at work, teachers at school and university, an unknown person in an email to name a few (for details on the questionnaire, see Clyne, Norrby, and Warren 2009: 164– 167). In the interviews some of these scenarios were followed up further with more questions probing the reported address practices and attitudes to existing address practices (e.g. on radio and TV, and in business and large companies). Further data were obtained by analysis of and participation in a wide scope of German and Swedish speaking online forums.

3. The pluricentricity of German and Swedish Both German and Swedish are characterised by asymmetrical pluricentricity, “i.e. the norms of one national variety (or some national varieties) is (are) afforded higher status than other varieties, internally and externally, than those of the others” (Clyne 1992: 455). Below we briefly outline how these languages came to be pluricentric. Adapting the terminology used by Clyne (1992) and Muhr (2004) we will distinguish between dominant (DV) and non-dominant national varieties (NDV), where members of DV nations such as Sweden and Germany typically regard their variety as the standard and do not understand the rules of NDV nations, e.g. Finland and Austria (Clyne 1992: 459–460).

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3.1. Swedish Contemporary Swedish is characterised by having a clearly dominant standard variety, Sweden-Swedish with about 9 million speakers, and a non-dominant standard variety, Finland-Swedish, spoken by a minority of about 300,000 in Finland. Finland was part of Sweden until 1809, when it was lost to Russia, but Swedish remained the language of the bureaucracy also during the Russian era. In the Finnish constitution of 1919 that followed independence in 1917, both Finnish (spoken by the vast majority of the population) and Swedish were afforded official status with equal rights. Over the years, the Swedish-speaking minority has declined due to fennicisation and now makes up just over 5% of the population. It is concentrated to coastal areas, such as Osthrobothnia, where Vaasa is the regional centre with a Swedish-speaking minority of 25% (Folktinget 2007). Despite its official status, Finland-Swedish is under heavy influence from Finnish, particularly in vocabulary but also in pragmatics, and Finland-Swedish has been described as more formal and using more negative politeness strategies than Sweden-Swedish (e.g. Saari 1995, 1997). However, Finland-Swedish language planning aims at maintaining similarity between the two Swedish national varieties and advises against the use of unnecessary loanwords and loan translations from Finnish. In terms of regional variation there are also significant differences between the two national varieties. While there has been extensive dialect levelling in Sweden-Swedish with very few traditional dialects remaining, Finland-Swedish dialects have a strong position and interact with the standard (often referred to as “high Swedish” in Finland-Swedish).

3.2. German Contemporary German is characterised by different national standards, of which the standard of the Federal Republic of Germany is the dominant variety for such reasons as, amongst others, the number of speakers and media concentration. There is a longstanding distinction between the national varieties of German and Austrian German, due to separate cultural and socio-political developments from the 18th century on, including the formation of separate nation-states in the 19th Century. The codification of


Austrian Standard German has been controversial, particularly regarding the definition of standard and the degree of distance from German Standard German. However, it has been shown that the variation between the varieties extends beyond the phonological, lexical and morphosyntactic levels to the pragmatic (e.g. Clyne, Fernandez, and Muhr 2003; Muhr 2008; Warga 2008 and Kretzenbacher 2011). Apart from the different national standards, German has regional supradialectal varieties with some standardised features and there is still quantitatively and socially significant regional variation in German to date (cf. Kretzenbacher 2011: 70). Also of importance is the special case of standardised features in the eastern states of the Federal Republic of Germany, the territory of the former GDR. Although the GDR as a state existed for only 40 years – a minute stretch of time, compared to the separate developments of national varieties such as Swiss and Austrian German – there was a strong ideology-driven tendency for different standards from West Germany in the public register. Consequently, there were characteristic differences between public and private registers. East Germans are still very much aware of this linguistic situation, although it has been obsolete for 20 years now. Clyne, Norrby and Warren (2009: 128) note that “for the eastern Germans today, address differences are not only regional, they are also historical, marking the difference between what it was like in the GDR and what it is like in post-unification Germany.“

4. Our model of address We see social distance as the overarching principle guiding speakers in choice of address forms. Following Svennevig (1999) social distance is perceived as a multi-dimensional concept involving degrees of affect, solidarity and familiarity. Central to our thinking is also the notion of face: for participants in a conversation, it is important to act in accordance with the face, or self-image, that they wish to project, and to act in such a way that the face of other participants is not threatened (Goffman 1967). Choice of address form is also an act of identity (Le Page and Tabouret-Keller 1985, Carbaugh 1996) and a vehicle for inclusion and exclusion. Our model of address underlines the importance of multidimensionality: it is based on three scales, six principles and a number of contextual factors. It compares grammar and pragmatics of a language, general principles across languages

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and contextual factors that may or may not apply. The tripartite model is dynamic in the sense that the grammatical and pragmatic resources in a language (the scales) interact with the principles of use, which in turn are contextually sensitive (the factors). Below we outline these three dimensions of the model).

4.1. Scale of grammatical resources, scale of V-ness and scale of sameness The scale of grammatical resources concerns the grammatical rules of a language, or national variety of a language. Examples of such grammatical resources are: pronouns of address (T/V distinctions) and verb morphology (agreement between pronoun and verb form). Languages can be places along this scale (continuum) from those with none or few to those with more grammatical resources. For German and Swedish the address pronoun systems are as shown in Table 1. Table 1. Address pronoun systems in German and Swedish Singular less formal (T) more formal (V) Plural less formal (T) more formal (V)

German

Swedish

du Sie

du du/ni

ihr Sie

ni ni

The scale of V-ness has to do with the frequency of T and T-like modes of address with regard to V or V-like modes of address in a given language or national variety of a language compared to other languages/national varieties. Examples of T-like modes of address are the use of first names (FN) and terms of endearment; examples of V-like modes of address include use of honorifics (Hon.) and/or title with last names (LN), and avoidance of direct address.5 Based on quantitative measures it is possible to describe a language/national variety along a scale of V-ness, i.e. along a continuum from T-ness to V-ness. The scale of sameness has to do with whether or not a language employs sameness (common ground, low social distance) as a major criterion for T or T-like modes of address. Generally speaking, if a language employs Vaddress (German Sie) as the default, sameness is the trigger for T-address,


and conversely, if a language employs T-address as the default (German du), lack of sameness (difference) may trigger V-address.6

4.2. Principles Human relations are primarily issues of identity – of inclusion and exclusion – and of face. These are central in the decision-making process when a choice of address mode is made, based on a set of principles. The principles are formulated here through a series of questions, but this is not to say that people consciously raise such questions in their interactions. They simply illustrate the principles at work. 1. Familiarity Principle: Do I know this person? 2. Maturity Principle: Do I perceive this person to be an adult? 3. Relative Age Principle: Do I perceive this person to be considerably older or younger than me? 4. Network Membership Principle: Is this person a regular and accepted member within a group I belong to? 5. Social Identification Principle: Do I perceive this person to be similar to or different from me? 6. Address Mode Accommodation Principle: If this person uses T (or V), or a T-like (or V-like) address with me, will I do the same? Principles 1, 2 and 4 concern absolute assessments of the interlocutor whereas principles 3 and 5 consider the other in relation to oneself and principle 6 relates to the address mode per se. Principles 1, 4 and 5 also relate to inclusion and exclusion, and the chosen form of address denotes degree of social distance. Principle 6 has to do with speakers’ orientation towards their interlocutor and to what extent they converge or diverge from the interlocutor’s address choices.

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4.3. Contextual factors The principles depend on the specific address rules of the language and/or national variety according to the scales above; the address preferences of the individual and/or the particular network (e.g. sports club) together with other contextual factors, covering domains and institutions (family, school, workplace) and medium (letters, chat groups, emails, and so on). The interface between scales, principles and factors enables people to decide where to place their interlocutor on the social distance continuum and thus which address form they will use. In the following we will discuss how the national varieties of German and Swedish differ in terms of which scales and principles apply, in a given context. We will start with Swedish.

5. National variation in Swedish Compared with many other European languages, such as German, Swedish has undergone dramatic changes in the use of pronominal and nominal forms of address since the middle of the last century. In Sweden, the earlier widespread use of titles had led to a situation where the V pronoun ni was used “downwards” to a person who lacked a title, who in turn was expected to respond with the superior’s person’s title. Due to this asymmetrical use, ni had attracted negative connotations and Swedish lacked a polite pronoun simply signalling social distance between equals. This in turn led to a situation where direct address was often avoided altogether, sometimes resulting in rather curious constructions in the third person (e.g. of the type Would Professor Bergman like something else? asked directly of the professor). In the politically radical climate of the 1960s, however, the cumbersome use of titles and avoidance of direct address led to the rapid establishment of universal T address, sometimes referred to as the du-reform (see Clyne, Norrby, and Warren (2009: 22–23) for further details). The historical development in Finland-Swedish address practices was similar, but it lacked the almost total abandonment of V typical of Sweden: The V form never attracted the same negative connotations, and while du was introduced widely in society from the 1960s onwards, it was not as strong a movement as in Sweden (Mara and Hulden 2000). Given the default position of T in modern Swedish, it is interesting to observe in which circumstances there is any substantial reported use of V


across the two research sites. The responses from the questionnaires show differences between the national varieties both in terms of frequencies and type of situations which would occasion considerable use of V, as outlined below in tables 2 and 3. Table 2. Swedish: Situations for V address in both sites Addressee A considerably older stranger, opposite sex Friends of grandparents Email to stranger

Question

1d 23 38

Gothenburg N

%

Vaasa N

%

72 65 70

46 49 43

72 62 66

70.8 45.2 69.7

As shown in table 2 there are only three situations (of 38) in the questionnaire where about half, or more, of the participants in both research sites report use of V or a V-like mode of address (e.g. various strategies of avoiding direct address). The situations indicate that the variables unfamiliarity, age (relative age) and medium are important for the choice of address in Swedish. There is, however, a much stronger tendency in the FinlandSwedish data to address a much older stranger and a client in an email with V (questions 1d and 38 are both significant at p