You are cashing a personal check at a bank, the employee reads your name on the check and addresses you with your first name. - Vous touchez un chèque dans une banque, l'employé lit votre nom sur le chèque et vous adresse la parole en utilisant
Edgar - 01:49am Nov 2, 2004
Being a naturalized (foreign-born American citizen) I can understand why both sides wrote the answers they wrote.
For the American side, most students wrote that they would think the cashier is friendly, and would be happy. This has to do with a couple of factors. First, general American culture encourages people calling each other by the first name; it radiates a feeling of friendliness and proximity. It reduces tension in nervous situations (for example: if you are really nervous for a test, and the proctor calls you "Edgar" instead of "Mr. Terrero", you're going to feel a lot better. "Mr. Terrero" makes things too formal, and only adds to the anxiety.) Also, there's a language issue. In English, there is no distinction between "you" as in "you, my friend", and "you, Doctor Phillips." "You" addresses everyone you are talking about. And also, to a person the sound of their name is one of the best sounds they can hear. The fact that people address each other by first name in the U.S. does not mean they are being impolite.
My first language is Spanish, and at least in my country of origin (Dominican Republic) there is an important distinction between who gets called what. If you don't know the person, one must address them by "Senor / Senorita / Senora" (I guess those are the Spanish equivalents of "Monsieur / Mademoiselle / Madame") and then say their LAST name. Also, in the language, there is a strict distinction between "Tu" (Tu) and "Usted" (Vous). This distinction encourages a higher level of formality when addressing people. To the French students: do you feel that language has something to do with how you address people? Obviously, culture plays a role, but I think language does so as well.
Henri - 08:28am Nov 2, 2004
Je ne suis pas de la mafia donc je vois pas pourquoi je serais choqué qu'on dise mon nom.
Lauren - 08:28am Nov 2, 2004
I know this question is about first names and informality, but I can't remember the last time I cashed a personal check with an employee at the bank. I like the mechanized formality of the ATM. Am I an anormal American banker? Do students on either side spend a lot of time cashing checks at the bank? sorry to get off topic.
marie - 08:29am Nov 2, 2004
Je trouve aussi que le language et la culture ont des impacts sur nos réactions dans la vie quotidienne. C'est vraiment très flagrant, la plupart des français sont étonnés d'être appelé par leurs prénoms et trouve cela un peu déplacé!!! Alors que vous semblez être plus "cool", cela vous parait amical.
Je pense que si l'on comparait avec des allemands, ils réagiront encore plus fortement que nous !!!
Pourquoi autant de différences? en france nous avons une diversité de langage qui montre quel est le lien entre les interlocuteurs. pour le "vous" le "tu" ... finallement on catégorise les gens pour savoir si on emploie le tu ou le vous, si on l'appelle par le prénom... Mais dans un cadre professionnel on se pose plus trop de question lorsque c'est des clients anonymes c'est un usage courant.
Delphnie - 08:44am Nov 2, 2004
moi non plus je ne fais pas partie de la mafia (du moins pas à ma connaissance...) ce n'est pas pour ça que j'apprécie que quelqu'un que je ne connais absolument pas et avec qui je n'ai pas forcément envie de sympathiser m'appelle par mon prénom. Chez nous c'est une marque de respect d'appeler quelqu'un par son nom à partir du moment où on ne le connaît pas. Evidemment, s'il y a ensuite des affinités, pas de problème. Mais l'emploi du nom n'est pas simplement censé être un détail administratif, il est aussi une marque de bienséance.
gregory - 08:44am Nov 2, 2004
Je suis entièrement d'accord avec toi Edgar. Je pense que tu as bien exprimé cette différence de culture qui nous concerne. L'anglais est beaucoup plus convivial et bien moins stricte que le français mais en même temps beaucoup moins riche!!
Quentin - 08:45am Nov 2, 2004
En France, nous avons de grands principes tel que le "tu" et le "vous", alors que vous, vous utilisez le "you".... bref tout ca pour dire que tout est dans la facon de dire les choses et non sur le fait qu'on utilise le prenom ou le nom....!!!
Xiaojie - 09:55am Nov 2, 2004
Several French students responded that it was "cool" or not a big deal if the bankers addressed them by their first names. Do you think the younger generation of French people are becoming more lax about the strictures of manners?
Edgar - 04:14am Nov 3, 2004
Oh wow, lots of interesting responses on the French side. First, the "mafia membership" comments were pretty funny. They were funny, but I couldn't make out why they were made. So, Henri or Delphni, can you guys tell me why you made the joke?
Marie-Elisabeth: I thought your comments about the German reactions were really interesting. Do you really think they react stronger than you guys? You guys seem to be very sensitive about the naming issue. However, at the same time, the French responses weren't as negative as I thought. An equal number of you said that "it's OK" or "it doesn't matter" than those of you who got a heart attack about the issue.
Either way, to sum this up, I will stick to my hypotheses that the reactions are greatly affected by the language and cultural differences. However, I will add one more clause. In class today (or, I guess, yesterday), we discussed how a lot of the reactions came down to how much we know the person addressing us. For the French, the less you know the person, the more uncomfortable they will feel when someone else addresses them by first name. For Americans, it doesn't matter as much.
Tufool - Nuaimi
I think the English language has something to do with it. Like you guys stated before, in English people use "you" whereas in France there is "tu" and "vous" depending on who you talk to. And although I think maybe the 2 languages affect the different levels of formality, I don't think that that is the only reason. I think that another reason is that maybe the american attitude is more causal and laid back in general. for example, here, at MIT, a lot of professors ask you to call them by their first name. I think that makes you probably less intimidated by the professors. But to get back to my point, in England, for example, people tend to use professor, Sir, etc in a more formal situation.
Jorge - 07:23pm Nov 3, 2004
To respond to Lauren's question, If I don't already have direct deposit, I like to cash it with a teller, maybe because I get a more personal and human feel to the action, but mostly because I like to get a validation that my check was cashed, and that it's all taken care of from that point....I guess you could say that I really don't trust the ATM to do my cashing-of-check....I'm scared it might eat it, or something.
To add a retrospect to Edgar's comments: I've worked in bilingual customer service before (Spanish and English), and I was actually trained to call the clients by their first name, even if the person was a Spanish speaker. I found overall that when you did that, the person did feel more comfortable, and would joke around with you more, especially those who spoke Spanish. This I wouldn't have expected, coming from a mostly Mexican region where, like you said, it is more polite to address the person by Señor(=Monsieur), or something of the like. I did, however, address them by usted(=vous). But the point is, these people live in the US, which means they have most probably been exposed to the US' level on informality, so most of them found it perfectly fine to be called by their first name. Perhaps if I was to have worked in Mexico, or France for example, they would not have been as receptive.
Brian - 09:42pm Nov 3, 2004
What's funny about this situation is that it really is a product of the language. However, French has not really made any significant changes in the past 200 years, while English has. We used to have formal and informal words, Thee, Thou, Thine, etc. For some reason, however, we abandoned them. Some people argue that English is worse off now, because we have lost that politeness. Of course, there are arguments against that. I, for one, would have been offended if a bank teller called me by my first name. We may not use thee and thou anymore, but another way of expressing respect is by using Mr. and Ms. Whenever I meet someone whom I do not know, I refer to them as sir, ma'am, Mr. and Ms.
Actually I met Keith Foulke the other night (Boston Red Sox pitcher who won the World Series last week) and although everyone knows his first name, when I adressed him I said "Mister Foulke." Am I the only American who still believes in this kind of chivalry?
Alejandro - 01:28am Nov 4, 2004
I think I don't count as an American, but when I talk to professors at MIT or other older people, I usually adress them like Mr. or Ms. and then the last name, like Brian. On the other hand, I wouldn't mind being called by my first name by anybody, stranger or not, faculty or nobody. Being from Mexico, I do feel confused cause I thought Edgar's theory made sense, yet somehow it doesn't apply to me as much. I use politeness to talk to others but I don't require it when people talk to me, and this seems to hold for both English and Spanish for me. I'm a terrible counterexample to all of the theories proposed, hehe.
Evans - 03:37am Nov 4, 2004
No Brian, you're not the only person who still refers to his elders as Mr., Mrs., and even sometimes sir and mam. This was drilled into my head as a kid, and now it's very weird for me when a person 10 or more years older than me requests to be called by their first name. It just doesn't feel right, like I'm disrespecting them.
I guess that's probably how it is when you call a French person you don't know by their first name.
Xiaojie - 07:41pm Nov 7, 2004
In an article I read in "Liberation," it says that President Chirac uses the "tu" form to address people. Do the French think that Chirac is a rude person?