Analysis of Addressing in Works of the French Literature
Published December 12, 2025
https://doi.org/10.23999/j.lcsm.2025.5
Linguistic Cues to Social Meaning 5, December 2025, 100013.
Under a Creative Commons license
HOW TO CITE THIS ARTICLE (APA STYLE)
Chasnyk, V. I. (2025). Analysis of addressing in works of the French literature. Linguistic Cues to Social Meaning, 5, Article 100013.
ARTICLE
When discussing a polite addressing an interlocutor per YOU there is a need in an independent evaluation of the point whether your interlocutor agrees or not with you on the matter. Thus the coefficient of politeness (content of plural addressing a person) has been arisen showing the relations in dialogues in literature works. Therefore it’s not someone’s point of view but an impartial reality intrinsic to a literature work of a given author; this reality can be tested by anybody because calculating the number of addressing in the text is a relatively easy task. Besides, not only some regularity in frequency of one another addressing of the characters is revealed (per YOU or THOU), but the correlation of politeness coefficient is observed with a popularity of a given literature work among readers of different ages, tastes and times.
And more to say, time is an independent parameter, collecting the literature works in terms of our new criterion – coefficient of politeness.
New possibilities for research in the literature texts are opened then – in terms of polite or impolite addressing people in a communication process.
On the other hand, the way the characters communicate depends solely on author, on her/his wish and understanding of the very historical background and time of the literature plot. How realistic is the background, how satisfactory it approaches and characterizes the depicted events – the historians, literature critics and readers know better. Variety of estimations may be a vast one. Nevertheless, having at our disposal one more criterion for independent estimating the literary work is an additional advantage.
Dumas made characters of the novel The Three Musketeers – French noble men of 1600th – living in a plot, rich in adventures [1]. They address one another in plural, but in the hot moments of their risky life they suddenly use THOU, e.g. Atos and d’Artanian. He (d’Artanian) is addressed in singular more than any other character – 172 times of total 531 singular addressing in the novel. The sum of plural and singular addressing in the novel is huge – 6730, and mostly all of them are plural. The coefficient of politeness is equal correspondingly to 0.92 [2].
In a novel Twenty Years After [3] – as bulky as The Three Musketeers – the politeness coefficient is a little bit higher and is equal to 0.93. The positive gain – the difference – is caused by the less sum of addressing their servants by the noble French.
J. Verne in his novel Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea [4] gave some different types of addressing a person – plural (per YOU), singular (per THOU), and singular (per third person). In this way, the author shows some unexplained social meanings. We are reading that a professor Pier Aronaks (40 years old) saw only one tiny drawback in his servant Konsel (30 years old) – he addressed the professor only in a third person. At first sight it is a form of politeness, but when we take into account the number of a verb used in communication, this manner may be a mimicry in order to hide the singular addressing in return to low politeness of the professor with addressing a servant per THOU. During all their adventures, in most critical moments the professor never used YOU to his devoted Konsel. Although the form of addressing “My friend” is polite and comfortable, the number of addressing used by the professor permanently was singular. This is a code of J. Verne for the French language of XIX century. Konsel have heard singular addressing from the professor 47 times. That makes 78% from total 60 singular addressing in the text of Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea. Moreover the professor addressed in singular twice both Ted Land and captain Nemo. The chosen by J. Verne way of communication implicates something to the French Society.
REFERENCES (4)
- Dumas, A. (1976). The Three Musketeers. Translated by Valdman, V., Lifshits, D., Ksanina, K. Molodaya Gvardiya. (Original work published 1844).
- Fesenko, I. P., & Chasnyk, V. I. (2025). Data base of plural addressing a person. Linguistic Cues to Social Meaning, 5, Article 100011. https://doi.org/10.23999/j.lcsm.2025.3
- Dumas, A. (1977). Twenty Years After. Khudozhestvennaya literatura. (Original work published 1845).
- Verne, J. (1956). Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea. Translated by Yakovleva, N. G., Yakovleva, N. P., Korsh, E. (Original work published 1870).