Communities of addressing practice? Address in Internet forums based in German-speaking countries

Abstract

This case study on address in computer-mediated communication (CMC) analyzes the forms of address in a corpus of readers' forums in online editions of German, Austrian and German-Swiss newspapers. More formal Sie (V) pronominal and nominal address forms are the dominant and sometimes only address forms found in the forums, contrary to frequent assumptions. Addressing behaviour in the forums shows significant differences between the three countries, but above all each individual forum displays characteristic patterns of address, supporting the view that forum participants form communities of linguistic practice.