English and Arabic Address Forms in the Academic Circle in Baghdad

Forms of address can be defined as the words speakers use to designate the persons they are talking to while they are talking to them (Fasold, 1990:1f). The study of forms of address of various languages is not new; many studies are available on this topic in many languages. Most of these languages differentiate between the familiar forms and the formal ones. For example, in French tu / vous and in Arabic انتَ / انتم respectively. Even in languages that do not have the tu / vous distinction there is the use of address terms. English once had the thou / you distinction and still offers a range of address terms ranging from Title alone (Sir, Your Majesty, Madam, Constable) through Title + last name (Mr. Jones, Dr. Smith, Lord Clard, Miss Jones, Mrs. Jones) to first name to multiple names (including Nicknames). The conditions for choosing vary socially (Spolsky, 1998:21f).