LINGUIST List 9.1198

Sun Aug 30 1998

Sum: Terms of Endearment

Editor for this issue: Martin Jacobsen <martylinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Elizabeth Grace Winkler, Terms of Endearment

 I have compiled below the pertinent information I have received thus
far concerning 'terms of endearment'.

Best wishes,
Elizabeth Grace Winkler

I'd like to than the following people for providing information:
Karen D Dykstra		Randall Eggert		Richard Hudson
Antoine Lonnet		Judy Reilly		Svenja Sachweh
Amy L. Sheldon		David Wilmsen

SPECIFIC REFERENCES:
Chastaing, Maxime. (1995) Fonctions des hypocoristiques. REVUE
PHILOSOPHIQUE de la France et de l'itranger, n. 3 :

Coates, Jennifer. Men, Women & Language. Longman.

Hudson, R. (1996). Sociolinguistics' Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press. p. 126

Marynissen, C. (1986). Hypokoristische Suffixen in Oudnederlandse
Persoonsnamen inz de Z en L suffixen - Gent.

Newman, Paul and Mustapha Ahmad. (1992). "Hypocoristic Names in Hausa
"Anthropological Linguistics vol. 34, n. 1/4. p. 159 -172 :

Parkinson, Dilworth. Constructing the context of communication:terms
of address in Cairene Arabic.

Plinat, Marc. "Quatre notes sur la morphologie des hypocoristiques `
redoublement" in: Cahiers de grammaire, no 5, dicembre 1982,
p. 79-134.

Sachweh, S. (1998). Granny darling's nappies - Secondary Babytalk in
German nursing homes for the aged. Journal of Applied Communication
Research 26, 52-65.

Wolfson, Nessa. "Don't dear me"

You may also find papers on the web:
http://www.csua.berkeley.edu/~pathall/ipaper.html "Hypocoristics in
Igbo or Chu Be or Not Chu Be Chi" by Pat Hall

OTHER AUTHORS TO REFERENCE:
Biber and Finnegan
Alan Kaye
Elinor Ochs
Judith Reilly
David Wilmsen
Anna Wierzbicka

Additional Comments Provided by Contributors:
 
(1) Did you know, for example, that throughout (?) the Arabic speaking
world parents call their children `mummy' and `daddy'? Just find any
Arabic speaker and ask ... (I can't remember whether the choice
between `mummy' and `daddy' is fixed by the sex of the child or of the
speaker.) And it's not just Arabic that does this. I'd say this would
be a wonderful little research project - linguistic details plus
geographical distribution.

(2) One place to look is in the bibliographies in Thorne, Kramarae, &
Henley's _Language, Gender & Society_ (Title?). or Thorne & Henley's
_Language and Sex_. The first was published about 1982, the second
1975. There must be more since then, so check in the Berkeley Women &
Language Conference proceedings, of which there are about 4-5
(available from UC-B Dept. of Linguistics).

(3) In Greek (modern), the expression "matia mou" means "my dear" or
"my love," but it is literally "my eyes." I have never asked my Greek
friends about this expression, so I can't tell you if it is familial
or passionate or what. But, since I hear it in fairly sultry/sad love
songs, I think it is definitely romantic. A reference to eyes seems
rich symbolic turf -- windows to the soul, the evil eye, etc.