Second-person pronoun use in French language discussion fora

Abstract

This article examines the use of second-person pronouns in on-line French language discussion fora, with specific focus on Doctissimo and Meilleur du chef, two fora from which approximately 400,000 words were collected for this corpus. Two hundred discussion threads (i.e., series of linked postings), with a minimum of fifteen postings (i.e., messages) and a maximum of twenty per thread, were analysed in three different ways in order to determine whether tu, vous-singular, or neither could be considered the default address pronoun. The results of the analysis suggest that while tu is clearly preferred in many cases, its use has not become systematic. © 2009 Cambridge University Press.