First-name address, interpersonal interaction and the public face: the case of the Russian language
This article describes the vocative use of first names. The literature cites addressing a person by a given name as the preferential mode of politeness when the addressee's name is known to the speaker. The study aims to clarify this idea, demonstrating limitations on using first names imposed by the interactional context. It also seeks to examine the role of given names and terms of address ...
Ideas about private space boundaries and tact in Russian communicative culture: results of a sociolinguistic experiment
This article discusses the results of a survey underlying a reconstruction of ideas about tact and tactlessness in Russian communicative culture.
The author considers the concept of tact to be a communicative strategy within the category of politeness that is closely related to native speakers' notion about the boundaries of private space. Thus, tact is defined as a communicative strategy driven by the speaker's desire to avoid infringing on the private space of their interlocutor. Moreover,...
