Address pronouns in French

Abstract

This article examines speakers’ perceptions of and attitudes towards address pronoun usage in Paris and Toulouse. The data on which this article is based come from a comparative project based at the University of Melbourne, Address in some western European languages, and were generated in focus groups in both Paris and Toulouse, as well as interviews in Paris. It is generally accepted that in France the informal pronominal address form tu is used within the family, with close friends and with youngsters, and that the formal address form vous is used by adults when addressing strangers. The findings presented here indicate that, outside these general tendencies, individual preferences and negotiation can inform the choice of address pronoun in different ways both within and outside the workplace, with individual variation more common outside the work domain.