Politeness and pragmatic transfer in L2 pronominal address usage

This study investigates how Chinese learners of Spanish, who have a T/V distinction in their first language (L1), use the T/V address forms in Spanish as a second language (L2). Findings show that the learners rely mainly on their L1 pragmatic knowledge to employ the T/V in the L2. Despite having relatively good grammatical control of T/V, the learners produced frequent T/V alternation due to negative pragmatic transfer. In Chinese using V normally conveys speaker’s perception of a high-power differential and in relationships that are borderline T or V usage, shifting from T to V can convey deference and tends to co-occur with face-threatening or face-enhancing acts. The learners transferred from Chinese their tendency to use V to express deference and overutilized this politeness strategy in Spanish regardless of their relationship with the addressee. This problematic usage may generate negative social consequences and calls for pedagogical intervention.

Address Terms Used among Male Basketball Players at a Ghanaian University

In the last three decades, there has been an increasing interest among scholars in the use of address terms across domains such as academia, politics, religion, family, friendship, and sports. The present study examines the range of address terms and the factors that influence their use among male basketball players in a Ghanaian university. In this study, we draw on the notion of community of practice. An ethnographic research approach, comprising mainly participant and non-participant observation and interview, was adopted in collecting our data. Two key findings emerged from the analysis. First, Ghanaian male university students used four major categories of address terms while playing basketball: personal names, descriptive terms, nicknames, and ethnic-related terms. Second, in general, these address forms constituted an isogloss or idiolect, identifying the male basketball players as a distinct community of practice. These findings have implications for the sociolinguistic research on address terms in the domain of sports, gendered language, and further research on communication in sports.

Semantic Changes and Pragmatic Functions of Address Form “Bao” in Chinese Media Context

As an emerging address form, "Bao" is popular and widely used in media and has its own place in lovers' prattles. This article compares the newly fashioned address "bao" with the other two address forms, "bao bao" popular in 2015 as one of the ten buzzwords and "bao bei", respectively. It is found that the three shares the basic semantic meaning, but the degrees of their semantic extension differ. There are three semantic meanings: to refer to children from the parents' part, refer to someone in close relation, and refer to all the people. Meanwhile, "bao" has its distinctive features in pragmatic functions. The first one is to maintain a harmonious relationship, and the second is to achieve communicative goals. Therefore, we should consider when choosing among the three addresses, albeit their semantic generalization, in case of pragmatic failure.

As formas de tratamento na abordagem multissistémica: um novo modelo teórico de análise

Address Forms in a Multisystemic Approach: A New Theoretical Model of Analysis. The aim of this paper is to propose a new theoretical model for the analysis of address forms. In the first part of the paper, I do a critical evaluation of existing theoretical models, showing, on the one hand, that the divergent approaches reflect the complexity of address research, and, on the other hand, that there is a need for a unified model to englobe morphosyntactic, semantic, pragmatic, discursive, and diachronic approaches. In the second part of the paper, I present the multisystemic theory developed by the Brazilian linguist Ataliba de Castilho and demonstrate that it can be successfully used for the analysis of address forms. In the last part of the paper, I show that lexicalization, semanticization, discursivization, and grammaticalization (linguistic processes identified by Ataliba de Castilho in his theory) can explain linguistic phenomena of the address systems in Portuguese and Romanian. Keywords: address forms, European Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese, Romanian, multisystemic theory, multisystemic theory of Ataliba de Castilho

Address terms in New Zealand English: Tracking changes to the social indexicality of gendered terms of address

<p>Recent research has suggested that some conventionally masculine address terms are becoming more gender neutral in English speaking countries. This study examines the four most prominent gendered address forms in New Zealand English: mate, bro, man and guys in order to gain insight into the terms’ social indexicalities, and track any shifts towards gender neutrality. The study takes a mixed-methods approach to analysing two distinct data sets: four corpora of spoken New Zealand English and a data set collected from a range of current media sources. Results from this study suggest that mate is in retreat in younger New Zealanders’ speech, while bro may be increasing in usage as an unmarked form. Results also suggest that both man and guys have a largely gender free status and are being used frequently in New Zealand. These findings contribute to the growing interest sociolinguists are taking in informal address terms by providing an analysis of the interactional and social functions of address forms in New Zealand English.</p>

Address terms in New Zealand English: Tracking changes to the social indexicality of gendered terms of address

<p>Recent research has suggested that some conventionally masculine address terms are becoming more gender neutral in English speaking countries. This study examines the four most prominent gendered address forms in New Zealand English: mate, bro, man and guys in order to gain insight into the terms’ social indexicalities, and track any shifts towards gender neutrality. The study takes a mixed-methods approach to analysing two distinct data sets: four corpora of spoken New Zealand English and a data set collected from a range of current media sources. Results from this study suggest that mate is in retreat in younger New Zealanders’ speech, while bro may be increasing in usage as an unmarked form. Results also suggest that both man and guys have a largely gender free status and are being used frequently in New Zealand. These findings contribute to the growing interest sociolinguists are taking in informal address terms by providing an analysis of the interactional and social functions of address forms in New Zealand English.</p>

Address Forms in Turkish Culture as a Reflection of Social Status

The study concerned itself with forms of communication and address in Turkish culture and seeks to study how they are today regarding how they have been developed historically. Many variables determine how one addresses another and the reasons behind how that forms are chosen. It is known that what is culturally acceptable and deemed polite varies across many different cultures, although some patterns are identical regardless of the culture in which they are exhibited. For the study, a survey was conducted upon several Turkish individuals, and the findings were analysed to extract specific themes and similarities in answers. The analysis was conducted via the Colaizzi method, in which a seven-step process was used to determine themes and recurring branches of themes in subjective interviews. The findings were reported upon and determined to correlate with what has been reported in previous literature on Turkish culture concerning social norms, forms of address and politeness. Received: 10 September 2021 / Accepted: 12 October 2021 / Published: 5 November 2021

Salience in EFL speakers’ perceptions of formality: (In)formal greetings and address forms combined with (in)formal nouns, verbs, and adjectives

This study explores whether English-dominant (ED) speakers and speakers of English as a foreign language (EFL) perceive the same degrees of formality in combinations of (in)formal greetings (Hi/Dear) and address forms (informal First Name/Ms. Last Name) with (in)formal nouns, verbs, and adjectives (Latinate/Germanic). It also explores which of these variants the two groups perceive as salient in communicating formality. Twenty-five ED undergraduates in Canada and 27 EFL undergraduates in Slovakia rated the formality of 20 sentence-length examples of business email correspondence and identified features that were the primary basis for their formality rating. Distributions of 11 of the formality ratings were statistically significantly different in the two groups (with most effect sizes ranging from small to medium), and trends in the reports of salient features suggested that the EFL speakers focused on the formality of address forms more frequently than did the ED speakers. The findings are discussed in relation to infelicitous interlingual transfer and strategies for developing pragmatic competence.

Family Addressing System in Malay and Arab Languages: An Analysis of Sociolinguistic Clash

This study is a first attempt to comparatively study the addressing system in Malay and Arabic societies, which is an important element in communicating and interacting. This analysis uses lexicological and sociolinguistic approaches. The study found that the family addressing system in Arabic is viewed as more complicated and complex than the address forms used within the Malay society. This will cause difficulty and confusion in determining the appropriate meaning match for the terms. As a result, translators and anyone else involved in the process of moving the meaning of a word between Malay and Arabic should be cautious and always refer to the term’s meaning before assigning a match so that the receiver or reader of the translation do not become confused.

Tuteo, Effeminacy and Homosexuality: Change and Continuity in Costa Rican Spanish

Costa Rica’s second-person singular (2PS) address system is known for both its changing nature and its incorporation of tuteo, ustedeo, and voseo forms. While the latter are generalized across communicative contexts, tuteo use has oscillated over time, being consistently associated with foreignness, effeminacy and homosexuality, with one study (Marín Esquivel, Rebeca. 2012. El pronombre ‘tú’ en los grupos homosexual y heterosexual heredianos. Revista Comunicación 21(2). 31–40) suggesting that homosexual men report using tuteo at levels significantly higher than heterosexuals. In this study, we revisit this finding using new data from a survey that elicited stated preferences for address forms and attitudes towards tuteo across different communicative contexts. Multinomial logistic regressions compared the address choices of homosexual men with those of heterosexual men and women, and attitudes were gauged by means of a thematic analysis. Results indicate that currently, with few exceptions, what best characterizes the distribution of address forms are similarities, regardless of sexuality or gender, with all participants reporting low rates of tuteo use across communicative settings. While these results suggest continued change in tuteo use, linguistic attitudes reveal a persistent perceived ideological connection between tuteo, foreignness, effeminacy and homosexuality.