Relative statuses in discourse

A further important feature is the relative statuses of participants in discourse. For example, the speech between the individuals of an unequal status, social class, age, or some other factor is likely to be less relaxed and more formal than that between the equals. In certain languages definite rules may exist as to what linguistic forms may or may not be used. A good example of this is the different forms of address that are produced by different degrees of status: formality, relationship or intimacy The connotations of English address-forms such as Sir, Mr Smith, Smith, Fred, My friend, mate and so on, are all different. Each has different stylistic implications, and the rules for their usage, as well as the frequency are quite complex. These rules often vary from class to class, age-group to age-group, and place to place. For example, there are notable differences in the usage of Sir between British and American speakers, i.e. used more freely as a term of address to attract someone's attention in the United States than in Britain. Many British people are not certain as to what they should call their parents-in-law, for example, and this may well result in no address-form being used at all.

In languages other than English the position may also be complicated by the problem of personal pronoun selection. Most European languages, for instance, unlike English, which has only ‘you’, distinguish between a polite and a familiar second-person pronoun: especially in singular.

familiar polite

French tu vous

Italian tu Lei

Spanish tu usted

German du Sie

Greek esi esis

Russian ty vy

It has been argued that, originally, the familiar pronouns were the normal forms of address for single individuals, and the polite forms were either the second-person or third-person pronouns (in plural). However, a habit grew up amongst the upper classes in the medieval times of showing respect for a person by addressing him with what is now a polite form of pronouns. Is it historically English only? Hard to say.

Following the French sociolinguistic traditions, we can refer to the familiar pronouns collectively as ‘T’ and to the polite forms as ‘V’. This aristocratic habit then led to a situation where, although the upper classes called each other V and addressed the lower classes using T. While the lower classes, on the other hand, addressed the upper classes only with V. This can be interpreted as signifying that where the difference of power was involved (the aristocracy having the power in community) in a meeting between two individuals, the pronoun usage was non-reciprocal: those with power used T addressing those without, but received back V, much as a schoolteacher today in most parts of the English-speaking world may call a child Johnny (i.e. T), but be called Mr Smith in return, i.e. V. Strange it may seem but the Russian nobility was expressed by using “мы”, for example “Мы, Николай II постановили…”

Subsequently, however, another feature of social relationships began to have influence on the pronoun selection. Following Roger Brown and Albert Gilman, who have carried out a valuable research into T- and V-usage, we can call this factor solidarity. It seems that the usage of V became generalised to symbolising all types of social difference and distance. This means that, while the non-reciprocal T-V-usage remained in discourse between the unequals, the equals now addressed each other as either T or V, depending on the degree of intimacy or solidarity involved.

In two cases this led to a conflict:

1) someone of high rank addressing someone of low rank with whom he were not intimate (for instance, a customer addressing a waiter) the power factor would suggest T, but the new solidarity factor V;

2) a person of inferior rank addressing a superior with whom he was intimate, such as a child addressing a parent, the power factor would indicate V, but the solidarity factor T;

3) in most European languages, the solidarity factor now has won the battle, so that the pronoun usage is nearly always reciprocal. For example, an officer, instead of calling a soldier T but receiving V, will use V, because the relationship, in both directions, is not one of solidarity.

And indeed, because of the gradual rise of democratic egalitarian ideology, solidarity, has become the major factor involved today. There are still, however, some interesting differences between language communities in T- and V-usage. Brown and Gilman have investigated the extent of T- and V-usage by the students from different European countries. They found that the relationships such as father - son, customer - waiter, boss - clerk were never power-coded in modern French, German or Italian. Pronoun usage is now always reciprocal, although formerly this would not have been the case.

From many other sources, it also appears that French and Italian speakers are more likely to use T to acquaintances than German speakers; that German speakers are more likely to use T to distant relations; Norwegian school children are more likely than Dutch or German pupils to use T to their teachers (indeed some Norwegian pupils also address their teachers by their first names); male Italians are more likely to use T to female fellow students; and so on.

Many aspects of a social situation can contribute to deciding which linguistic variety is to be employed on a particular occasion, while the styles and registers which make up speakers' verbal repertoires are the particular versions of their dialects which they use in particular contexts for particular topics. As we have seen, styles range from formal to informal. Pronouns of the V type signal a relatively formal style. Formality is not, in fact, something, which it is easy to define with any degree of precision because it subsumes (соотносить) very many factors including familiarity, kinship-relationship, politeness, seriousness, hostility and so on. But most people have a good idea of the relative formality and informality of particular linguistic variants in their own language. It is not difficult, for example, to decide upon the relative formality of the following pairs of sentences:

I require your attendance to be punctual. - I want you to come on time.

Father was somewhat fatigued after his lengthy journey. - Dad was pretty tired after his long trip.

A not inconsiderable amount of time was expended on the task. - The job took a long time.

Styles of this type in English are characterised not only by vocabulary differences (‘tired’ as opposed to ‘fatigued’, ‘trip’ as opposed to ‘journey’) but also by syntactic differences, i.e. the passive voice was fatigued, was expended is much more frequent in formal styles in English. However, Dad was pretty fatigued after his long tri p is also possible.

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