Etiquette forms of address in contemporary Russia: Social and ethical aspects

   The article deals with the issue of etiquette forms of address in contemporary Russia. The change of political regimes in the country has eventually led to the loss of the pre-revolutionary extensive forms of address (your honor, sir, madam, miss, etc.). Later, the Soviet period address comrade disappeared as well. Nowadays, there is a lacuna in the literary language. The common polite form of address is absent, and this leads either to the violation of the norms when addressing a person by gender (man, woman, etc.), or forces a speaker to use various forms of apology when trying to arrest someone’s attention (excuse me, pardon me, etc.). This situation disrupts the effectiveness of communication, it does not allow the address to reveal its communicative potential, lowering the general cultural level of communication. In this respect, the article deals with the notions of ethics and etiquette, speech etiquette and speech act theory. The focus is on the address as an element of speech etiquette and speech act theory, its illocution and perlocutionary effects. The article highlights the notion of responsibility in communication, as it is closely connected with the notions of ethics and speech etiquette. In order to find out which address forms are used, which ones are acceptable and desirable, what attitude to the existing system of vocatives is, and what suggestions to improve it are, an Internet survey was conducted among people, aged 18 to 76, of both sexes and different education levels. The article presents the results of the survey that demonstrate the priorities of the society in relation to the forms of etiquette address and reveal problems, existing in the field of language ecology and culture.

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