When we speak, we must constantly make choices of many different kinds: what we want to say, how we want to say it, and the specific sentence types, words, and sounds that best unite the what with the how. How we say something is at least as important as what we say; in fact, the content and the form are quite inseparable, being but two facets of the same object. One way of looking at this relationship is to examine a few specific aspects of communication: namely, pronominal choice between tu and vous forms in languages that require a choice; the use of naming and address terms; and the employment of politeness markers. In each case we will see that certain linguistic choices a speaker makes indicate the social relationship that the speaker perceives to exist between him or her and the listener or listeners. Moreover, in many cases it is impossible to avoid making such choices in the actual ‘packaging’ of messages. We will also see that languages vary considerably in this respect, at least in regard to those aspects we will examine.
Tu and Vous
Many languages have a distinction corresponding to the tu–vous (T/V) distinction in French, where grammatically there is a ‘singular you’ tu (T) and a ‘plural you’ vous (V) but usage requires that you use vous with individuals on certain occasions. The T form is sometimes described as the ‘familiar’ form and the V form as the ‘polite’ one. Other languages with a similar T/V distinction are Latin (tu/vos), Russian (ty/vy), Italian (tu/Lei), German (du/Sie), Swedish (du/ni), and Greek (esi/esis). English, itself, once had such a distinction, the thou/you distinction.
According to Brown and Gilman (1960), the T/V distinction began as a genuine difference between singular and plural. However, a complication arose, which they explain as follows (p. 25):
In the Latin of antiquity there was only tu in the singular. The plural vos as a form of address to one person was first directed to the emperor, and there are several theories . . . about how this may have come about. The use of the plural to the emperor began in the fourth century. By that time there were actually two emperors; the ruler of the eastern empire had his seat in Constantinople and the ruler of the west sat in Rome. Because of Diocletian’s reforms the imperial office, although vested in two men, was administratively unified. Words addressed to one man were, by implication, addressed to both. The choice of vos as a form of address may have been in response to this implicit plurality. An emperor is also plural in another sense; he is the summation of his people and can speak as their representative. Royal persons sometimes say ‘we’ where an ordinary man would say ‘I.’ The Roman emperor sometimes spoke of himself as nos, and the reverential vos is the simple reciprocal of this.
The consequence of this usage was that by medieval times the upper classes apparently began to use V forms with each other to show mutual respect and politeness. However, T forms persisted, so that the upper classes used mutual V, the lower classes used mutual T, and the upper classes addressed the lower classes with T but received V. This latter asymmetrical T/V usage therefore came to symbolize a power relationship. It was extended to such situations as people to animals, master or mistress to servants, parents to children, priest to penitent, officer to soldier, and even God to angels, with, in each case, the first mentioned giving T but receiving V.
Address Terms
How do you name or address another? By title (T), by first name (FN), by last name (LN), by a nickname, by some combination of these, or by nothing at all, so deliberately avoiding the problem? What factors govern the choice you make? Is the address process asymmetrical; that is, if I call you Mr Jones, do you call me John? Or is it symmetrical, so that Mr Jones leads to Mr Smith and John to Fred? All kinds of combinations are possible in English: Dr Smith, John Smith, Smith, John, Johnnie, Doc, Sir, Mack, and so on. Dr Smith himself might also expect Doctor from a patient, Dad from his son, John from his brother, Dear from his wife, and Sir from a police officer who stops him if he drives too fast, and he might be rather surprised if any one of these is substituted for any other, e.g., ‘Excuse me, dear, can I see your license?’ from the police officer.
In looking at some of the issues involved in naming and addressing, let us first examine practices among an ‘exotic’ people to distance ourselves somewhat from English. A brief look at such a different system may possibly allow us to gain a more objective perspective on what we do with our own language and in our own culture. That objectivity is not just useful; it is quite necessary if we are to avoid conclusions distorted by ethnocentricity.
The Nuer, a Sudanese people, have very different naming practices from those with which we are likely to be familiar (Evans-Pritchard, 1948). Every Nuer has a personal or birth name, which is a name given to the child by the parents shortly after birth and retained for life. A personal name may be handed down, particularly to sons, for a son may be called something equivalent to ‘son of [personal name].’ Nuer personal names are interesting in what they name, e.g., Reath ‘drought,’ Nhial ‘rain,’ Pun ‘wild rice,’ Cuol ‘to compensate,’ Mun ‘earth,’ and Met ‘to deceive.’ Sometimes the maternal grandparents give a child a second personal name. The consequence is that a child’s paternal kin may address the child by one personal name and the child’s maternal kin by another. There are also special personal names for twins and children who are born after twins. Males are addressed by their personal names in their paternal villages during boyhood, but this usage shifts in later years when senior males are addressed
as Gwa ‘father’ by less senior males, who themselves receive Gwa from much younger males. Children, however, call everyone in the village by their personal names, older people and parents included.
Every Nuer child also has a clan name, but this name is largely ceremonial so that its use is confined to such events as weddings and initiations. Use of the clan name between females expresses considerable formality as when a woman uses it to address her son’s wife. The clan name may also be used by mothers to their small children to express approval and pleasure. Clan names are also used when one is addressed outside one’s local tribal area by people from other tribes.
In addition to personal names, which are given, and clan names, which are inherited, the Nuer also have ox names, that is, names derived from a favored ox. A man may choose his own ox name. This is a name which a man uses in the triumphs of sport, hunting, and war, and it is the name used among age-mates for purposes of address. Women’s ox names come from the bulls calved by the cows they milk. Women’s ox names are used mainly among women. Occasionally, young men will address young girls by their ox names as part of flirting behavior or their sisters by these names if they are pleased with them. Married women replace the ox names with cow names taken from the family herds, and men do not use these names at all.
Evans-Pritchard points out a number of further complications in naming and addressing, having to do with the complicated social arrangements found in Nuer life. A person’s name varies with circumstances, for each person has a number of names which he or she can use. In addressing another, the choice of name which you use for the other depends both on your knowledge of exactly who that other is (e.g., his or her age and lineage) and on the circumstances of the meeting. (For another fascinating account of naming practices, this time among the Giriama, a coastal people of Kenya, see Parkin, 1989.)
Having taken this brief glance at Nuer name and addressing practices, we can now turn our attention to English usage. Brown and Ford’s study (1961) of naming practices in English was based on an analysis of modern plays, the naming practices observed in a business in Boston, and the reported usage of business executives and children in the mid-western United States and in ‘Yoredale’ in England. They report that the asymmetric use of title, last name, and first name (TLN/FN) indicated inequality in power, that mutual TLN indicated inequality and unfamiliarity, and that mutual FN indicated equality and familiarity. The switch from mutual TLN to FN is also usually initiated by the more powerful member of the relationship. Other options exist too in addressing another: title alone (T), e.g., Professor or Doctor; last name alone (LN), e.g., Smith; or multiple naming, e.g., variation between Mr Smith and Fred. We should note that in such a classification, titles like Sir or Madam are generalized variants of the T(itle) category, i.e., generic titles, and forms like Mack, Buddy, Jack, or Mate are generic first names (FN), as in ‘What’s up, Mate?’ or ‘Hey, Mack, I wouldn’t do that if I were you.’
Address by title alone is the least intimate form of address in that titles usually designate ranks or occupations, as in Colonel, Doctor, or Waiter. They are devoid of ‘personal’ content. We can argue therefore that Doctor Smith is more intimate than Doctor alone, acknowledging as it does that the other person’s name is known and can be mentioned. Knowing and using another’s first name is, of course, a sign of considerable intimacy or at least of a desire for such intimacy. Using a nickname or pet name shows an even greater intimacy. When someone uses your first name alone in addressing you, you may feel on occasion that that person is presuming an intimacy you do not recognize or, alternatively, is trying to assert some power over you. Note that a mother’s John Smith to a misbehaving son reduces the intimacy of first name alone, or first name with diminutive (Johnny), or pet name (Honey), and consequently serves to signal a rebuke.
We can see some of the possible dangers in cross-cultural communication when different relationships are expressed through what appears, superficially at least, to be the same address system. The dangers are even greater if you learn the terms in a new address system but fail to appreciate how they are related to one another. Ervin-Tripp (1972, p. 231) provides the following example:
Suppose the speaker, but not the listener, has a system in which familiarity, not merely solidarity, is required for use of a first name. He will use TLN in the United States to his new colleagues and be regarded as aloof or excessively formal. He will feel that first-name usage from his colleagues is brash and intrusive. In the same way, encounters across social groups may lead to misunderstandings within the United States. Suppose a used-car salesman regards his relation to his customers as solidary, or a physician so regards his relation to old patients. The American . . . might regard such speakers as intrusive, having made a false claim to a solidary status. In this way, one can pinpoint abrasive features of interaction across groups.
I might add that the use of a person’s first name in North America does not necessarily indicate friendship or respect. First names are required among people who work closely together, even though they may not like each other at all. First names may even be used to refer to public figures, but contemptuously as well as admiringly.
The asymmetric use of names and address terms is often a clear indicator of a power differential. School classrooms are almost universally good examples; John and Sally are likely to be children and Miss or Mr Smith to be teachers. For a long time in the southern states of the United States, whites used naming and addressing practices to put blacks in their place. Hence the odious use of Boy to address black males. The asymmetrical use of names also was part of the system. Whites addressed blacks by their first names in situations which required them to use titles, or titles and last names, if they were addressing whites. There was a clear racial distinction in the practice. According to Johnson (1943, p. 140), one consequence of this practice was that:
middle- and upper-class Negro women never permit their first names to be known. . . . The wife of a well-to-do Negro business man went into a department store in Atlanta to enquire about an account. The clerk asked her first name and she said ‘Mrs William Jones.’ The clerk insisted on her first name, and when she refused to give it declared that the business could not be completed without it. It was a large account; and the manager, to whom appeal was made, decided that ‘Mrs’ was simply good business and not ‘social equality.’
In this case ‘good business’ overrode the desire to reinforce the social inequality that would have resulted from the woman’s giving the sales-clerk the information requested and then the inevitable use of that first name alone by the clerk in addressing the customer.
In English, when we are in doubt as to how to address another we can actually avoid the difficulty by not using any address term at all. We can say Good morning as well as Good morning, Sir/Mr Smith/Susie. In other languages such avoidance may be either impolite or deficient. In France, you cannot say Bonjour, Au revoir, Merci, or Pardon without attaching an address term. So the French say Bonjour, Monsieur or Merci, Pierre, whereas we can say simply Good morning or Thank you.
In English we therefore have the possibility of the avoidance of an address term, that is, Ø use, or of a choice between familiar and polite. One simple test for distinguishing familiar, informal address terms from polite, formal ones in English is to look at them in conjunction with informal and formal greetings and leave-takings, e.g., Hi, Bye, and So long in comparison with Good morning and Goodbye. Hi, Sally; Bye, Honey; and So long, Doc are possible, just as are Good morning, Mr Smith and Goodbye, Sir. However, there is something peculiar about Hi, Colonel Jones; Bye, Professor; Good morning, Mate; and Goodbye, Pussykins. (See McConnell-Ginet, 2003, for a discussion of naming and address-ing in relation to issues of gender.)
As you age and your family relationships change, issues of naming and addressing may arise. For example, knowing how to address your father-in-law (or mother-in-law) has often been a problem for many people: Mr Smith is sometimes felt to be too formal, Bill too familiar, and Dad pre-empted or even ‘unnatural.’ The arrival of grandchildren is sometimes seen as a way out, it being easier to call a father-in-law Grandad than Dad. Such a move may also be accompanied in some families with a switch of address for your own parents, so that your mother is addressed as Grandma rather than Mom; sometimes this appears to be intended only as a temporary help to the grandchildren in learning the right terms of address, but it can easily become a permanent change so that Grandad and Grandma come to replace Dad and Mom. In some cases Grandma may be used for the maternal grandmother and Gran or Nana for the paternal one, or vice versa.
(Source: Wardhaugh: 2006)
