Address negotiations in Dutch emails

This chapter presents a qualitative analysis of address forms in a small corpus of Dutch emails/email chains, in particular their strategic use in moving from a more formal, distant relation between correspondents to a more familiar one. In addition to pronominal address forms, it also considers other linguistic features, including salutations and signing off formulae, and style. Adopting a discursive approach, the chapter identifies a number of different strategies in negotiating address, including avoidance of address forms and the use of the plural familiar pronoun jullie as a transitional form between formal and familiar address. The chapter makes an original contribution to the (currently rather limited) research on address in computer-mediated communication (CMC) and comments on the hybridity of email.