Cover not available

Article published In: Pragmatics
Vol. 31:1 (2021) ► pp.33–61

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF

Dear, my dear, my lady, your ladyship

Meaning and use of address term modulation by my

 | KU Leuven | FWO – Research Foundation Flanders
Open Access logo
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) 4.0 license.
Published online: 25 August 2020
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/prag.19024.buy
Abstract
This paper investigates the use of my as part of address formulae by means of a corpus consisting of eight British English plays published between 1899 and 1912. For each conversational turn, address terms, speaker, addressee, power and solidarity dynamics, and speech acts have been identified. The address terms most frequently modified by my have been selected for further investigation, which allows an analysis of the alternation between dear and my dear, as well as my lord/lady and your lordship/ladyship. Results show that, when my has impact on the power dimension, the address formula with my construes the addressee as less powerful than the speaker. When my has impact on the solidarity dimension, the address formula with my construes the addressee as a close interlocutor. The functional import of my varies depending on the address term it modifies, which is consistent with its function as a modulating element.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theoretical framework
  • 3.Methodology
    • 3.1Corpus
    • 3.2Annotation procedure
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1First alternation: Dear and my dear
    • 4.2Second alternation: My lord/lady and your lordship/ladyship
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Note
  • References
References (39)
References
Aalberse, Suzanne. 2004. “Waer bestu bleven? De verdwijning van het pronomen ‘du’ in een taalvergelijkend perspectief.” Nederlandse Taalkunde 91: 231–252.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Austin, John L. 1962. How to Do Things with Words. Oxford: Clarendon.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bates, Elizabeth, and Laura Benigni. 1975. “Rules of Address in Italy: A Sociological Survey.” Language in Society 41: 271–288. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Blum-Kulka, Shoshana, and Elite Olshtain. 1984. “Requests and Apologies: A Cross-Cultural Study of Speech Act Realization Patterns (CCSARP).” Applied Linguistics 5 (3): 196–213. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brown, Penelope, and Stephen C. Levinson. 1987. Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: CUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brown, Roger, and Albert Gilman. 1960. “The Pronouns of Power and Solidarity.” In Style in Language, ed. by Thomas A. Sebeok, 253–276. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1989. “Politeness Theory and Shakespeare’s Four Major Tragedies.” Language in Society 181: 159–212. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brown, Roger, and Marguerite Ford. 1961. “Address in American English.” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 621: 375–385. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Buyle, Anouk, and Hendrik De Smet. 2018. “Meaning in a Changing Paradigm: The Semantics of you and the Pragmatics of thou.” Language Sciences 681: 42–55. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Clyne, Michael, Heinz-L. Kretzenbacher, Catrin Norrby, and Doris Schüpbach. 2006. “Perceptions of Variation and Change in German and Swedish Address.” Journal of Sociolinguistics 10 (3): 287–319. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Culpeper, Jonathan. 1996. “Towards an Anatomy of Impoliteness.” Journal of Pragmatics 25 (3): 349–367. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Davis, Angela. 2014. Modern Motherhood, Women and Family in England, c. 1945–2000. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Economidou-Kogetsidis, Maria. 2010. “Cross-Cultural and Situational Variation in Requesting Behavior: Perceptions of Social Situations and Strategic Usage of Request Patterns.” Journal of Pragmatics 421: 2262–2281. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fanego, Teresa. 2005. “‘Fare thee well, dame’: Shakespeare’s Forms of Address and Their Socio-Affective Role.” Sederi 151: 23–42.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hickey, Leo, and Miranda Stewart. 2005. Politeness in Europe. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Holloway, Gerry. 2005. Women and Work in Britain since 1840. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hook, Donald D. 1984. “First Names and Titles as Solidarity and Power Semantics in English.” International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching 22 (3): 183–189. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jaramillo, June. 1996. “Tu and usted.” Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences 181: 522–532. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Leech, Geoffrey. 1983. Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1999. “The Distribution and Function of Vocatives in American and British English Conversation.” In Out of Corpora, ed. by Hilde Hasselgård, and Signe Oksefjell, 107–118. Amsterdam: Rodopi.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Levshina, Natalia. 2017. “A Multivariate Study of T/V Forms in European Languages Based on a Parallel Corpus of Film Subtitles.” Research in Language 15 (2): 153–172. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mahood, Linda. 1995. Policing Gender, Class and Family: Britain, 1850–1940. London: UCL Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Martiny, Thierry. 1996. “Forms of Address in French and Dutch: A Sociopragmatic Approach.” Language Sciences 181: 765–775. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mazzon, Gabriella. 2003. “Pronouns and Nominal Address in Shakespearean English: A Socio-Affective Marking System in Transition.” In Diachronic Perspectives on Address Term Systems, ed. by Irma Taavitsainen, and Andreas H. Jucker, 223–250. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Moreno, María C. 2002. “The Address System in the Spanish of the Golden Age.” Journal of Pragmatics 341: 15–47. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nevala, Minna. 2004. “Accessing Politeness Axes: Forms of Address and Terms of Reference in Early English Correspondence.” Journal of Pragmatics 361: 2125–2160. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nevalainen, Terttu, and Helena Raumolin-Brunberg. 1995. “Constraints on Politeness: The Pragmatics of Address Formulae in Early English Correspondence.” In Historical Pragmatics. Pragmatic Developments in the History of English. Pragmatics and Beyond New Series 35, ed. by Andreas H. Jucker, 541–601. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Norrby, Catrin, Camilla Wide, Jenny Nilsson, and Jan Lindström. 2018. “Positioning through Address Practice in Finland-Swedish and Sweden-Swedish Service Encounters.” In Positioning the Self and Others. Linguistic Perspectives, ed. by Kate Beeching, Chiara Ghezzi, and Piera Molinelli, 19–49. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Risselada, Rodie. 1993. Imperatives and Other Directive Expressions in Latin: A Study in the Pragmatics of a Dead Language. Amsterdam: Gieben. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Spencer-Oatey, Helen. 1996. “Reconsidering Power and Distance.” Journal of Pragmatics 261: 1–24. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Taavitsainen, Irma, and Andreas H. Jucker (eds). 2003. Diachronic Perspectives on Address Term Systems. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Thompson, Francis M. L. (ed). 1990. The Cambridge Social History of Britain, 1750–1950. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Thorndike, Ashley H. 1965. English Comedy. New York: Cooper Square.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Trosborg, Anna. 1995. Interlanguage Pragmatics: Requests, Complaints and Apologies. Berlin: de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Vismans, Roel. 2016. “Jojoën tussen u en je. Over de dynamiek van het gebruik van Nederlandse aanspreekvormen in het radioprogramma Casa Luna.” Internationale Neerlandistiek 54 (2): 117–136. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Weigand Edda. 2009. Language as Dialogue. Edited by Sebastian Feller. Amsterdam: Benjamins.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zwicky, Arnold. 1974. “Hey, Whatsyourname!” In Papers from the 10th Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, ed. by Michael W. La Galy, Robert Fox, and Anthony Brack, 787–801. Chicago: CLS.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (2)

Cited by two other publications

Nkansah, Samuel Kwesi & Emmanuel Mensah Bonsu
2024. Between tradition and modernity: naming practices as indicators of identity in post-colonial Ghanaian literature. Cogent Arts & Humanities 11:1 DOI logo
Yáñez-Bouza, Nuria
2024. ‘My dearest Clara … my dear friend’ – Personal Names and direct address in Mary Hamilton’s private correspondence. Journal of Historical Sociolinguistics 10:1 ► pp. 31 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 30 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue