Address in some Western European Languages (2003-2006)
Assoc. Professor Catrin Norrby, Dr Leo Kretzenbacher, Dr Jane Warren, Professor Michael Clyne
ARC Discovery Project (2003-2006)
This project aimed to develop a unified model of address usage within a small group of related languages: French, German and Swedish. Each of these languages can be loosely characterised as providing a different sociolinguistic type within the European context. Specifically, this project investigated the extent to which recent sociopolitical events and changes have impacted on language by examining how the unmarked choice of address pronouns (ie the pronoun chosen more normally) has changed since World War II, and comparing across the three languages. Comparisons were also made with English and between nations using the same language.