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Title:
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The Translation of 'You': an examination of German, Portuguese, and Vietnamese address systems and their treatment in dictionaries and L2 learning materials
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Author:
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Laura Sacia
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Email:
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click here to access email
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Degree Awarded:
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University of Hawai'i at Mānoa
, Department of Linguistics
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Degree Date:
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2006
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Linguistic Subfield(s):
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Pragmatics
Translation
Lexicography
Language Acquisition
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Subject Language(s):
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English
German, Standard
Portuguese
Vietnamese
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Director(s):
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Michael Forman
Paul Chandler
Kenneth Rehg
Albert Schutz
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Abstract:
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Terms of address can reflect a society’s norms and values, and often
provide information about a speaker, such as age, gender, occupation, and
social status, as well as information about the relationship between the
interlocutors, such as degree of intimacy, deference, social superiority,
or level of solidarity. While standard modern English uses only one
pronoun of address for the second person singular (you), the address
systems of other languages are often much richer and more complex in their
degree of differentiation. Since such incongruity may pose a challenge to
the L2 learner, it is important that foreign language materials provide an
adequate treatment of address forms. This dissertation examines
Vietnamese, Portuguese, and German systems of address, focusing on the
strategies employed in the translations and descriptions of address terms
found in dictionaries and second language learning materials. This
information was compared to native speakers’ descriptions of their address
systems, and the L2 materials were evaluated according to their accuracy,
thoroughness, and consistency. The present study suggests that a number of
foreign language learning materials do not provide a consistent amount of
information for all of the address forms, often providing more information
on male forms than on female forms, which in some cases were even omitted.
Furthermore, the labels used to describe the register of the address form
were not always representative of the context in which the term was used.
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