Sociolinguistics, solidarity and politeness

The purpose of the present paper from a sociolinguistic stance is to consider the aspects of solidarity and politeness including face-threatening acts from the point of view of their linguistic components, relevance for social interaction and their usage in male/female discourse. In addition, the apparent complexity of the sociolinguistic dimension of solidarity and politeness will be dealt with to give details to the function and consequence which arises from the use of address terms as well as politeness and solidarity patterns reflecting complex social relationships linguistically. In essence, this paper will show that certain linguistic choices a speaker makes indicate the social relationship that the speaker perceives to exist between his or her interlocutor. Aspects of social relationships, such as distance, solidarity or intimacy are given linguistic expression by address systems consisting of a T/V distinction and address terms. This way, speakers are given the chance to either be more formal or less formal with their interlocutor on certain occasions (Hickey 2007: 3). Hence, the aim of this chapter is to consider the basic concepts and terminology of a T/V distinction as well as forms of address and so pointing out the only two pronominal variants tu and vous of address in French and German which either represent social distance or intimacy between interlocutors. In addition, a general description of the semantic evolution of the two pronouns of address will be offered. In dealing with the pronouns of address in French and German from the point of view of their function in actual speech, this chapter describes on the one hand the semantic differences existing today among the pronouns of address and on the other hand contrasts these two languages in regard to their different usage of address pronouns in social relationships.