The thesis deals with pronominal and nominal forms of address in German. Forms of address are special linguistic units, of a dual nature and a complicated grammatical character. Structure of each language can't be the same, forms of address depend on social, economic, cultural changes, reflect history of the nation, its peculiarities. Means of address show the state of language development, and their evolution reflects important historic events. Universal category of address and its specific features are revealed. It is pointed out that forms of address have special place in language as a social phenomenon and are closely connected with the society. Social, economic and cultural changes influence language and forms of address as well. The researches of modern scientists dedicated to the grammatical category of address and its aspects are characterized. Scientists studied forms of address from grammatical point of view, as elements of discourse, communicative potential, means of address, its spheres, semantic area. Different approaches acknowledge that address is a multifunctional communicative category and a specific language element.
The main address functions are those of appeal, distinctive, emotional, function of orientation, phatic function. Forms of address are shown as means of politeness. The role of address as an important part of language etiquette is shown as well. Etiquette is a universal phenomenon typical for each society. Every country has its own and specific language etiquette reflecting its history and culture. Address is an important part of language etiquette. It is essential to address people correctly. To be polite means to speak with your communicator showing him respect and kindness by using different forms of address, which guarantee each member of communication a due distance between them and are the way to achieve the aim of language communication. The research has found that the use of different addresses depends on such factors as social position of communicators, age, official and personal relationship, education, upbringing, character, preferences etc. Peculiarities of the language etiquette are shown, their functions are pointed out; forms of address as indicator of politeness, language marker of social status are analyzed. Socio-economic, cultural and ethical conditionality of addresses are defined. Wide variety of address forms exist because every social group has its own special lexical means including addresses. Each person uses different forms of address, which depend on a lot of extra-lingual conditions. Address is one of language means of expressing mutual relationships between people.
Nominal addresses and forms of address expressed by pronouns in German with its dialects and national variants, and their functioning in different social spheres have been studied. The analysis of address forms has shown that the main reason for using different addresses is to differentiate elements of social structure. We have distinguished that forms of address in academic sphere, school, police, army, church have mainly a formal and regulated character. Address peculiarities in political sphere are determined, forms of address that are used by political leaders are analyzed, the examples are taken from modern authors’ fiction and speeches of political leaders, samples of old forms of address are given, besides, official forms of address and forms that have stylistically marked character are cited as well.
Key words: means of address, forms of address expressed by personal pronouns, nominal forms of address, language etiquette, spheres of communication, sociolinguistics.
