Question about usage of names and social convention

[Tom Anderson]

Greetings,
 
I actually live with Russians and have noticed that they refer to me as "chelovek" in my presence; or "rebenok" in front of my son. I have often wondered about that.
 
Just an observation.

--- On Tue, 4/28/09, greniers at GEORGETOWN.EDU <greniers at GEORGETOWN.EDU> wrote:


From: greniers at GEORGETOWN.EDU <greniers at GEORGETOWN.EDU>
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Question about usage of names and social convention
To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
Date: Tuesday, April 28, 2009, 9:22 PM


Sarah Hurst wrote:

I think it's also considered rude in English to say "he" or "she" instead of
the person's name in the presence of the person, so I'm guessing your book
refers to the first example, where someone addresses a second person by
their name. It seems to me this is done more commonly in Russian than in
English, especially when a patronymic is involved for further emphasis of
politeness. 

Sarah


I hear my American students routinely referring to their classmates as "he" or "she" in the particular classmate's presence--and I routinely explain to them that it is not considered polite in Russian; in response, some of the students say, "yeah, it is not too polite in English either,"--from all of which I gather that the rule against saying "he" or "she" about a person who is present must be much stronger in Russian than in English.  So I would say that this rule is what the book was referring to.  

In addition, I have not noticed that Russians address their interlocutor by name more often than Americans do.  In fact, I remember someone--perhaps John Stewart--analyzing Sarah Palin's interview style and showing how she kept saying "Charlie" to the reporter, so it must be a question of individual differences in the US.  What do other SEELANGers think?

Best regards, 
Svetlana Grenier 

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