Address Forms and Variation Among University Students in Ghana

Abstract

Since Brown and Gilman’s (1960) study, sociolinguists have shown an increasing interest in the use of address forms in various social domains such as politics, workplace, religion, and acdemia. This study shows how students in a Ghanaian university address one another in varied linguistic forms. To accomplish this task, a three-pronged conceptual framework derived from interactional sociolinguistics and an ethnographic-style research design are adopted. Three key findings emerged from the study. The first finding concerns personal name, descriptive phase, and title as key naming practices among students. Second, constrained by socio-cultural and other situational factors, students draw on these naming practices to address an interlocutor. The third point relates to the display of innovativeness and playfulness in the variation of address forms used in, especially, spontaneous interactions. These findings have implications for variationist theory, intercultural communication, and future research on address forms.