Botoks, słońce i podróże. Językowy obraz szczęścia w niemieckich życzeniach urodzinowych dla 65-latków
Botox, sunshine, travelling. The linguistic picture of happiness in German birthday wishes for 65-year-olds

Summary/Abstract: The article aims to analyse birthday wishes as examples of linguistic politeness.The research material consists of 100 wishes for the 65th birthday, that is the momentof retiring, which appear on the most popular German websites with wishes. The mainpurpose of the undertaken analysis is to reconstruct the linguistic picture of happinesscreated in German online wishes. Highly conventionalized texts of wishes point to a systemof values shared both by the sender and by the recipient of wishes (generally understoodhappiness/prosperity, and/or more specific values such as joy, health, material well-being, long life, future experiences, success/career, peace/rest, happy/successful relationships withloved ones, joyful birthday celebrations). These values are embedded in language and arebelieved to embody happiness. The article also contains comments on the structure anddegree of conventionalization of birthday wishes. In addition to the traditional realisationof the act of wishing, numerous examples of breaking the genre convention are presented(including co-occurring speech acts such as thanking, praise/compliment, congratulations,toast), illustrating changes in the contemporary model of politeness.

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