An Evaluation of the Aramaic and Greek Language Criteria... 49 their solidarity with their addressee or native group64. Friendly relations also move along in this social distance dimension. If the social situation involves a more formal relation between participants, the code-switch engages the status scale, which evaluates the superior or subordinate status between participants65. Using “titles”, such as Sir, Mr., Mrs., or Dr. to address a conversation partner may signal an “unequal” status between the participants66. In a formal transaction67, one that relates to the social setting/context or type of interaction, the code choice is assessed using the formality scale68. Such a transaction is often seen when a person is situated, for example, in a bank manager’s office, at a ritual service in the church, in an academic or professional conference, or in a law court. Jesus’ trial before the Sanhedrin (Mark 14,53-65; Matt 26,57-68; Luke 22,67-71; John 18,19-24) and Pilate (Mark 15,2-5; Matt 27,11-14; Luke 23,2-4; John 18,29-38) can be an example of this kind of formal setting. The functional scale comes in two types. The referential scale assesses whether an utterance has high or low information content, whereas the affective scale evaluates the level of its affective content69. When Jesus gave the injunction “Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s” (Mark 12,17)70, his use of a command reveals a high information 64 Holmes, An Introduction to Sociolinguistics, 35. 65 Holmes, An Introduction to Sociolinguistics, 36. 66 Holmes, An Introduction to Sociolinguistics, 9. Even in a society like Sweden, where egalitarianism is consistently stressed and remains to be a dominant ideology, the use of the proper form of the second-person singular form of address, du (informal) and ni (formal), such as in asking the question “What do you want?” is a highly complex and sensitive matter for the Swedish. C.B. Paulston indicates in a list that in 11 out of 13 instances the use of du is inappropriate in light of the speaker-addressee relationship. See Paulston, “Pronouns of Address in Swedish: Social Class Semantics and a Changing System”, in Baugh ‒ Sherzer, Language in Use, 268-91, esp. 271-72. Cf. the German use of “Wie heißt du?” (informal be- tween friends) and “Wie heißen Sie?” (formal between an older person and a younger person). 67 While the word “formality” may readily or easily be understood by anyone, what has been meant by formality is more complex in sociolinguistic terms. J. T. Irvine sum- marizes three typical senses of the word: (1) properties of a communicative code (e.g. extra rules that deviates from a norm); (2) properties of the social setting in which the code is used (characteristics of a social situation); or (3) properties of the analyst’s description (technical mode of description by the analyst). See Irvine, “Formality and Informality in Communicative Events”, 211-28, esp. 212-13. I have referred to the second sense of meaning in this paper. Further, there are four aspects of formality that apply cross-culturally, which one normally considers when describing social occasions as formal or informal. These are: (1) increased code-structuring; (2) code consistency; (3) invoking positional identities; and (4) emergence of a central situational focus. 68 Holmes, An Introduction to Sociolinguistics, 10. 69 Holmes, An Introduction to Sociolinguistics, 10. 70 This is the only instance in Mark that was highlighted red by the Jesus Seminar. R.W. Funk and R.W. Hoover, The Five Gospels: The Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus: New Translation and Commentary (New York 1993) 102.