Query Details
| Query Subject: |
Query: Functions of nominal forms of address
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| Author: | Claudia Bubel |
| Submitter Email: | click here to access email |
| Query: |
Dear colleagues, in the course of studying constructed dialogue from English language plays and TV sitcoms, we have come across several phenomena of nominal forms of address. Reading up on the existing literature and checking former mailing list queries (see bibliography below) we realised that the discourse functions of nominal terms of address have only been treated peripherally. We are specifically interested in the functions of address (firs names, kinship terms and terms of endearment) in talk amongst (female) friends and in mother-daughter interaction. In this kind of data (constructed by playwrights, and TV production crews) we encountered the following examples: 1) Use conventional terms of endearment (sweetie, honey, sweetheart) amongst female friends to indicate intimacy e.g. in greeting and leave-taking sequences, to reinforce an apology etc.: a) C: {answering the phone}hello? Ch: hey Carrie, it's Charlotte. C: hey sweetie. b) M: yes.(1.0) now would be a good time to wipe that HORRIfied look off your face. C: sorry sweetie. I'm sorry. I just- wow I didn' know. where have I been? 2) Use of conventional terms of endearment in a context in whihc one female friend takes on a superior role, e.g. due to expert knowledge (this corresponds to Wolfson/Manes 1980 who ague that the social meaning this usage has in parent-child interaction is carried over and therefore the term of endearment is patronising, but it might also function as a positive politeness strategy to soften a face-threatening act (cf. Brown/Levinson 1987, 107-110). c) C:(...) and then we're picking up Samantha. Ch: oh Carrie no: C: sweetie listen, you need all the girl support you can get, and I'm late for drinks with Big. d) S: Carrie, I have to look fabulous. EVeryone is going to be there. C: reminder honey, this is a funeral, .. not forty-nine Bond Street. S: that's your grief talking honey. get your purse. lets go. 3) Use of kinship terms and first names in conflict situations to indicate disagreement (this corresponds to Kramer (1975) who found that in literary texts addressing is used as a sign of aggression in situations where someone is in control or trying to gain control; this is certainly connected to the "magic of names"): e) Olivia has just told her daughter Mary Jane that someone would like to buy their house. O: She was so thrilled. She took my hands and said, "Mrs. Dunn, I always loved your house from the outside when I used to pass it every day on my way to school." MJ: It's a development. They all look exactly the same. O: She said there was always something special about it. (...) She said, "Mrs. Dunn. It's a dream come true for me to have your house. I wouldn't do a thing to it." I was so flattered. MJA: What? O: So they're coming to take a look around. MJ: Mother. O: Well, I never said I was happy here. Has anybody studied such usage in naturally occurring conversation or is there any systematic research on the multifunctionality of nominal forms of address especially first names, kinship terms and terms of endearment? Thank you very much for your help. Claudia Bubel and Alice Spitz Bibliography: Bing, Janet. 1995. Killing us softly: Ambiguous markers of power and solidarity. Communication in, through, and across cultures, ed. by Mary Bucholtz et al. Berkeley, CA: Berkeley Women and Language Group. [located on the internet at: http://courses.lib.odu.edu/engl/jbing/status.html] Braun, Fredericke. 1988. Terms of address: Problems of patterns and usage in various languages and cultures. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Brown, Penelope and Levinson, Stephen. 1987. Politeness: Some universals in language usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brown, Roger; and Marguerite Ford. 1961. Address in American English. Journal of abnormal and social psychology 62. 375-385. Dickey, Eleanor. 1997. Forms of address and terms of reference. Journal of Linguistics 33. 255-274. Gardner, Carol Brooks. 1980. Passing by: Street remarks, address rights, and the urban female. Sociological Inquiry 50.325-356. Holmes, Janet. 1995. Women, men, and politeness. Harlow: Longman. Hudson, Richard A. 1996. Sociolinguistics, 2nd edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hymes, Dell. 1974. Foundations in sociolinguistics: An ethnographic approach. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Kramer, Cheris. 1975. Sex-related differences in address-systems. Anthropological Linguistics 17,5. 198-210. Leisi, Ernst. 1978. Paar und Sprache: Linguistische Aspekte der Zweierbeziehung. Heidelberg: Quelle und Meyer. Poynton, Cate. 1989. Terms of address in Australian English. Australian English, ed. by Peter Collins and David Blair, 55-69. St.Lucia: University of Queensland Press. Sachweh, Svenja. 1998. Granny darling's nappies: Secondary babytalk in German nursing homes for the aged. Journal of Applied Communication Research 26. 53-65. Wardaugh, Ronald. 1986. An introduction to sociolinguistics. Oxford: Blackwell. Wolfson, Nessa; and John Manes. 1980. 'Don't dear me!' Women and language in literature and society, ed. by Sally McConnell-Ginet; Ruth Borker; and Nelly Furman. 79-92. New York: Praeger. Former list queries: LINGUIST 2.696 October 1991: Using names LINGANTH November 1999: English address forms when name is unknown LINGUIST 11.2745 December 2000: Use of address forms (in the classroom) LINGANTH summer 2003: title use in academic settings - - --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- Claudia Bubel Graduate Assistan Fachrichtung 4.3 Anglistik Universitaet des Saarlandes Postfach 15 11 50 D-66041 Saarbruecken e-mail: c.bubel@mx.uni-saarland.de url: http://www.uni-saarland.de/fak4/norrick/ Everyday language is a part of the human organism and is no less complicated than it. - Ludwig Wittgenstein |
