Social Relationship Marking in German from a Variationist Perspective: Inter- and Intra-Individual Variation in the Use of Vocatives and Vocative-like NPs

In this article, we address the issue of the sometimes indeterminate grammatical and functional status of vocatives and vocative-like NPs by proposing a prototype-based approach to their classification. We then explore the socio-pragmatic functions of these vocative types, adopting a variationist perspective that considers both macro- and micro-social factors to determine when the different types of vocatives occur and how they contribute to managing interpersonal relationships. This exploratory analysis is based on data from an online questionnaire featuring Discourse Completion Tasks of over 3000 participants in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. The findings show that different vocative types fulfill distinct socio-pragmatic functions, ranging from signaling positive politeness to heightening the face-threatening potential of an utterance, depending on the communicative task performed. In addition, their use varies between participants, based on the speakers’ regional background, gender, age, or personality traits.