A new analysis from the German project on pragmatic variation (VariPrag) shows clear age differences in how people phrase requests: 30-year-olds use the word “please” about half as often as 70-year-olds in everyday situations. The researchers also stress that this is not evidence of lower politeness among younger people, but points to changing linguistic routines.
According to the project team, the findings are based on standardised online questionnaires, which asked about realistic scenarios and analysed the responses by age, region and other characteristics. The study also recorded alternatives to explicit “please” – such as modal questions, subjunctive forms or mitigating adverbs like “perhaps” and “possibly”. These devices can also signal restraint and respect, and are used more often by younger speakers.
The authors of the analysis interpret the findings as a pattern of language change: politeness is not tied to a single formula, but is conveyed through different pragmatic strategies. Another finding is a north–south divide in the German-speaking world. In southern regions, several markers of politeness, including explicit “please”, tend to occur more often than in the north. For Germany this is best explained as variation in established conventions, not as a simple scale from polite to impolite.
The key point is therefore that the difference concerns how often one particular marker of politeness is used. The researchers explicitly qualify any assessment of overall politeness. They see the main practical consequence as the risk of misunderstandings between generations – for example in customer service, public administration or media communications. Depending on the other person’s expectations, not using “please” can be interpreted in different ways. The researchers therefore suggest that context, relationships and regional influences should be given greater consideration when judging what constitutes appropriate behaviour.
VariPrag is a trinational collaborative research project involving, among others, Free University of Berlin and the Bielefeld University . For several years, it has documented variation and change in the pragmatics of German. The findings now brought together fit into this work and provide new, data-based evidence of how language change, generational affiliation and regional patterns interact in Germany.
Editor: Mira Cadena (Article created with AI assistance).