What follows are examples of activities that could be used to practise translating forms of address at university level.

For a start, a good way to test your students' competence in this respect is to give them the following simple introductory task:

Students usually do not have any problems in finding four versions once they realise you can stand for both men and women here. However, the author has tried out this exercise with four different groups and none of them came up with all the ten versions they were asked to produce in Polish:

1. (Ty) byłeś.
2. (Ty) byłaś.
3. (Wy) byliście.
4. (Wy) byłyście.
5. Pan był./ Był pan.
6. Pani była. / Była pani.
7. Panowie byli. /Byli panowie.
8. Panie były. / Były panie.
9. Państwo byli. / Byli państwo.
10. Państwo byliście. / Byliście państwo.

The obvious conclusion is that students—as do many other Polish speakers—mistakenly assume that you always means ty or wy regardless of the context, instead of pan/pani. This exercise can be adapted to be used in many different languages, for example French or German (see suggestions in the table below), the difference being in the number of possible outcomes.

The students are asked to render this dialogue into the target language, bearing in mind the characteristics of each of the three modes of film translation. The class could be divided into three groups, one of which translates the above dialogue in the form of dubbing, the second—subtitling, and the third one—voiceover. This activity seems quite appealing to students as they are usually frequent cinema-goers and have a host of opinions regarding the official translation of certain films². Thus, this activity would be aimed not only at developing their awareness of audiovisual translation modes and their restrictions, but it would also provide useful natural context for appropriate use of address forms in both the source and the target language.

In translation classes we also need to make students sensitive as to the crucial role of the context and circumstances. This point can be rightly illustrated by the following dialogue, adapted from Bridget Jones's Diary, in which the main protagonist, Bridget, informs her boss that she is quitting her job. The dialogue takes place a few days after the two split up. Having been provided with essential facts regarding the film, the students are asked to watch the chosen fragment. This is followed by a discussion on the formality of the dialogue and the role of the context. Students watch the scene for the second time and they are asked to focus on how characters address each other.

[Daniel Cleaver] "Bridge, c'mon, I know it's been awkward as ass, but there's no need to leave."

[Bridget Jones] "No, actually there is. I've been offered a job in television."

[DC] "Television?"

[BJ] "Mmm. And they want me to start straight away. So I've got to leave in about ooh 3 minutes. So ...am.. [leaving his room and coming to an open space office where other people are working]"

[DC] "Would you just hold it right there, Ms Jones. I am sorry to inform you that I think you'll find that by contract you are expected to give at least 6 weeks' notice."

[BJ] "Ah, yes, well... I thought with the company being in so much trouble and all, you wouldn't really miss the person who waltzes in a see-through top and funnies about with the press releases."

[DC] "Bridget!"

At first the boss, Daniel, addresses Bridget in an intimate way using the diminutive form Bridge, but on hearing the news he immediately switches to a more formal style, calling her Ms Jones and adopting a very formal and official style. In this dialogue we can observe the phenomenon known as code-switching, which is a regular and natural element of everyday encounters. This is something that needs to be pointed out in translation, and rendered accordingly. Such a translation activity would undoubtedly help open students' eyes to this very common phenomenon.

One problem that always crops up in translation classes is that of proper names, of which first names constitute a significant share. The currently prevailing tendency in translation studies is that proper names should be retained in their original form since they carry crucial sociolinguistic information on family, ethnic, or national affiliation. A change of the names, which are very much culture-bound phenomena, into the target language could suggest a change of nationality (Newmark 1981: 71). In order to introduce the following task, the students could be asked about their visits to English-speaking countries and how they were addressed there—was their real (Polish) name used, or perhaps some anglicised version of it? The teacher can recount his/her own personal story: for instance, in Polish Agnieszka is a very popular modern name, whereas Agnes in English is pretty old-fashioned, and it could be compared to Genowefa or Pelagia³ in Polish when it comes to the frequency of its use or the associations it triggers.

The significance of proper names can be very well illustrated by the following excerpt from Lost in Translation. A Life in a New Language by Eva Hoffman, a Polish-born Jew who emigrated to Canada as a teenager. Hoffman (1989: 105) depicts life in the new culture and the fragment below describes her and her sister's first day at the new school.

After an introductory discussion, the students are ready to read and translate the assigned fragment. As a follow-up activity, it could be a good idea to analyse the published Polish translation of this fragment:

Another task is related to translating letters, of which address forms are an intrinsic part. To this end, the following fragment from the novel A Severed Head by Iris Murdoch can be used. To introduce the task, students are asked whether they have read the book and—if any of them have—to briefly summarise the plot. The story is set in and around London, among middle-class people, and it is useful to present the plot outline. The main character is Martin Lynch-Gibbon, a wine merchant, married to Antonia—a marriage out of convenience rather than love. While Martin is having a secret affair with a young academic Georgie, he is shocked when his wife tells him she is leaving him for Palmer Anderson, their friend and psychoanalyst. Shortly after, Martin falls for Anderson's step-sister, Honor Klein, who is a lecturer in anthropology at Cambridge. One evening Martin gets drunk, and a series of more or less fortunate events follow, after which he writes the letters (presented below) to Antonia, Georgie, and Honor Klein in order to apologise for his unacceptable behaviour.

At the beginning of the task, the students are provided with fragments of these letters and they are asked to find stylistic clues that will help them decide what style they are dealing with in each letter. It may also prove beneficial to discuss the differences in letter writing conventions in English and Polish. Having done this, the students should be ready to translate the letters.

(Murdoch 1961: 113-116)

In this excerpt there are several aspects worth analysing. First, students need to discover stylistic clues in each fragment that will later guide them in translation. For example, in the first two texts, an intimate form of address opens the letters and there are contractions denoting informal style. In the letter to Honor Klein, however, there are no contractions, the vocabulary used is quite formal, and the first two versions begin with an address by surname. The exercise also proves very useful in teaching students the differences between English and Polish address, such as the use of Szanowna in formal style, and not Droga, which seems to be the preferred version of the majority of students. What is more, in this exercise students will most probably translate formal forms of address as Droga Dr Klein / Droga Pani Klein, which is a mistake as in Polish we do not use surnames in this situation, but we rather write Szanowna Pani / Szanowna Pani Doktor.

Alternatively, students can be divided into five groups, and each group is given one excerpt to translate. They then exchange their translations and carry out peer correction. They are asked to comment on their friends' translations, and make their own suggestions. Then they can be confronted with the group who actually translated the letter, and an interesting discussing can ensue with regard to translation decisions taken.

The problem of addressing others by their surnames is also touched upon in the following dialogue adapted from the feature film Before Sunset. The scene takes place in a Parisian bookshop, where Mr Wallace, a young promising American writer, is having a meeting with French journalists. Students watch the entire scene and they are then asked to translate the following utterance:

"Mr Wallace, the book ends on an ambiguous note. We don't know. Do you think they get back to each other in six months like they promised each other?"

It worth to point out not only the differences in English and Polish forms of address, but also certain similarities, such as the rule that our friends' friends are our friends too, which means we are on first name terms from the very beginning. This can be illustrated by a scene from Bridget Jones's Diary, which takes place at a party.

[Perpetua to Bridget and Mark talking] "Anyone going to introduce me?"

[Bridget to Perpetua] "Perpetua, this is Mark Darcy. Mark's a top barrister (...). [To Mark] Perpetua is one of my work colleagues."

[Perpetua to Mark] "Hi Mark, I know you by reputation of course."

[Mark] "Aaa, Natasha. [To Natasha] This is Bridget Jones. [To Bridget] Bridget, this is Natasha."

When talking about translation of English address forms, it is worth mentioning typical British expressions such as love, dear, mate, lad or governor. They should be elicited from the students, together with the information that they are used in British English only. The following dialogue comes from an Oscar-winning film Million Dollar Baby, a film presenting a trainer, Frankie, who works with a woman, Maggie, determined to establish herself as a boxer. The scene takes place during their trip to London, just before a fight, when a local assistant comes in to tell Maggie and Frankie how much time they have left.

[British assistant entering the room] "10 minutes, love."

[Maggie] "Thank you. [The assistant leaves] (...) says he loves me."

[Frankie] "Oh he's probably not the first one to say that."

[Maggie] "First since my daddy. If I win you think he'll propose?"

[Frankie] "You win, I'll propose."

As was mentioned earlier, forms of address do not need to be taught explicitly all the time. They can be emphasised when discussing, for instance, translation of idioms. For this purpose, Monty Python's sketch entitled Dead Parrot can be used. The dialogue takes place in a shop between a shop assistant and a customer who is lodging a complaint with regard to the parrot he bought, which turns out to be dead. In the dialogue, attention is paid to how idioms should be translated, but at the same time, the students can be reminded of how strangers address each other in a shop.

When teaching translation, the role of forms of address tends to be neglected and underestimated, as a result of which students are not fully aware of both linguistic and cultural differences between the source and target languages in this respect. In response to this problem, the article has offered some practical ideas how the translation of address forms can be incorporated into translation classes from English into another language.