Mister, bro, or ada? Styles of Addressing among Multilingual Pakistani Students

Authors

  • Muhammad Arif Soomro Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia (RUDN University), Moscow, Russia Department of English, QUEST, Nawabshah-Sindh, Pakistan
  • Tatiana Larina Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia (RUDN University), Moscow, Russia

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.17576/gema-2023-2302-13

Keywords:

address forms, academic discourse, university setting, bi-multilingual identity, Pakistani English

Abstract

Address forms are an important component of communication with a wide range of socio-cultural differences across languages and cultures. In a multilingual context, their variety creates problems in comprehending their pragmatic meaning and appropriate usage. The study aims to define the categories of address forms used by multilingual Pakistani students speaking in English in an academic setting and to highlight the impact of socio-cultural context and identity on their choice in different situations. We have limited our study to the interaction between students in three social contexts and explored addressing a peer (a classmate), a junior student, and a senior student. The data were collected through a questionnaire with the participation of 252 students and were analysed with a mixed-method approach both quantitative and qualitative. Our results show that Pakistani students use a creative mixture of different categories of English and native address forms while speaking in English to express their values, attitudes, and identity. They demonstrate a strong sensitivity to the asymmetrical relations and adherence to hierarchy among junior and senior students resulting in variations of formality and informality. The findings illustrate the impact of context, values, and identity as well as the native language on address forms and their functioning in a bi-multilingual context and contribute to sociolinguistics, pragmatics, variational linguistics, bi-multilingualism, and cultural linguistics. Keywords: address forms; academic discourse; university setting; bi-multilingual identity; Pakistani English 

Author Biographies

Muhammad Arif Soomro, Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia (RUDN University), Moscow, Russia Department of English, QUEST, Nawabshah-Sindh, Pakistan

Muhammad Arif Soomro is an assistant professor of linguistics at Quaid-e-Awam University of Engineering, Science & Technology, Nawabshah-Sindh Pakistan. His research interest focuses on socio-psycholinguistics, multilingualism, address forms, and discourse analysis. Currently, he is a candidate of PhD at RUDN, University, Moscow. He authored and co-authored research articles in communication and applied linguistics also.

Tatiana Larina, Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia (RUDN University), Moscow, Russia

Tatiana Larina is Doctor Habil., a Full Professor at RUDN University. Her research interests and publications deal with cultural linguistics, cross-cultural pragmatics, intercultural communication, communicative ethnostyles, and (im)politeness theory with a focus on English and Russian. She has numerous publications in Russian and English which comprise monographs, book chapters, and articles in peer-reviewed journals, including the International Review of Pragmatics, Intercultural Pragmatics, Journal of Politeness Research, and Lodz Papers in Pragmatics among others. She is currently the Editor-in-Chief of the Russian Journal of Linguistics.

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Published

2023-05-29

Issue

Vol. 23 No. 2 (2023): May 2023

Section

Articles

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