Apologies for the long title. One of the things I am still trying to grasp about French culture 4 weeks is how to know if I should use the formal vs. informal ‘you’ to address a stranger and how I should phrase questions and requests to people I do not know.
My struggle to read social situations in order to figure out what linguistic register I should use first comes from not knowing where to place myself and whoever I’m speaking to in the social hierarchy. I believe this is a challenge that most young adults face when they transition out of their teenage years, no matter if they speak a language that makes a distinction between formal and informal ways of address. For example, navigating this transition in English might look like: addressing some professors or staff in college by their first name (depending on the situation), being called with a title like “miss/mister/madam/sir/etc.” in some service settings, or using titles less when making a request to someone.
I am in the tail end of this transitional phase, so it is not so difficult to navigate anymore in my native language. However, now that I am expressing myself in a second language that has the added hurdles of formal/informal 2nd person pronouns and variations of question structures for different levels of politeness, it feels as though I am learning how to be respectful all over again. Add shifting times where younger generations are less likely to place an importance on being formal with strangers (especially if they are speaking to someone of the same age), and now every social interaction becomes a guessing game that only has the potential to lose points if I accidentally mis-address someone.
Luckily, I don’t seem to have disrespected anyone so far. I tend to stick with formal ‘you’ when I do not know someone and the informal version at work, when requested, or when I am in a social setting that seems “more equal” in terms of social hierarchy (in other words, interactions where I feel I am seen just as adult enough as the person I am talking to or more).
To an English speaker, it may be hard to grasp why understanding this distinction is still important if it has become more common to address strangers in a casual way.
For starters, it certainly still makes a difference in signaling when someone has authority. On my first day at the museum, I addressed a few students with the formal ‘you’ before quickly realizing that I should probably address them informally due to our age gap and my position as a museum guide. It helps establish myself as a figure of authority (which I may have written about in my first post), someone that they should listen to and someone who can help them when they are lost on a question or task. In turn, they address me with “madame” and the formal ‘you.’ It is just like calling adults and staff by a title and their last name as a student in grade school, with a few added steps.
Moreover, the choice of informal versus formal address can also show how close someone is with whom they are speaking or that they are equals in the social hierarchy. At work, I have some colleagues I address informally despite having a large age gap with them because we work in a casual setting with only a few active interns and “friends of the museum” who stop by to visit or help out every now and then. With my boss, I tend to address him both formally and informally since he is also not a native French speaker and because I have not been told off for using one or the other. I should probably choose by this point, but I think I subconsciously decide which register to use depending on the setting and if I need to ask something of him while he is busy.
Finally, with visitors, I think it depends on who addresses who first and if there is a visible age gap. If I address them formally, I believe it encourages them to address me formally as well, no matter if we may be closer in age. The direct opposite has not occurred yet, but there have been some cases where I follow my coworkers’ leads if they address visitors casually. After all, it would likely be odd if one person addressed them informally and their colleague who is a similar age then addressed them formally.
It still feels awkward to be more casual with strangers, especially when I am trying to network more and ask when someone seems like they could be a contact who may help me or the museum with our current projects. Just yesterday I did my best to politely request if the museum could have the contact of a visitor’s school or organization while using the informal 2nd person pronoun. Things were completely fine, but this is an area I continue to ask for advice and guidance from native French speakers to really make sure I am adapting well.
In any case, I still have a lot of time to adapt to this part of the French culture and language. It may just be time to be a little bolder with my choice of address and the requests I make, as I won’t learn and gain new connections by always playing it safe.
