In the previous chapter, we discussed the principles and variables that lead to the choice of one mode of address over the other, especially in spoken language. Differences between French, German and Swedish became evident. It was also possible to sketch the situation in English, which has to use modes of address other than pronouns to mark differences in social distance. The reader is reminded that the English data, intended for comparison, comprise only focus group discussions. In other words, these data do not investigate address practices in various domains in the same structured way as our questionnaire and interview data for the other languages. In this chapter, we will turn our attention to how address actually works in institutions and domains – the family, workplace, university, school and the transactional domains – and what the social significance of these address practices is. We will also consider address in letters and chat groups.

Family

French

Communication within the family adds kinship terms to the set of modes of address in all our languages. In French, our Paris interview data show that T is used 100% of the time between parents and children and around 95% of the time between grandparents and grandchildren. The overwhelming majority of parents are addressed by a kinship term – maman, papa.