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A case study of four terms of address in Singapore English
Author
Fairuz Said Abdul Rahman
Supervisor
Lubna Alsagoff
Abstract
In sociolinguistics, terms of address constitute an important area of study as “they signal transactional, interpersonal and deictic ramifications in human relationships” (Leech, 1999). Wardaugh (2006) also notes that a variety of social factors affect the choices of address terms such as the social status or rank of the speaker and addressee, their gender, age and family relationships. Though various studies have been conducted to study address terms among different languages, the English used in Singapore has not been studied. This dissertation investigates the Singapore English terms of address such as "aunty‟, "makcik‟, "uncle‟ and "pakcik‟. A structured interview on each of the above Singapore English terms of address and their occurrence was constructed and administered to 20 randomly selected speakers of Singapore English. Results from the study reveal striking issues which indicate that speakers of Singapore English make a distinction between the use of "aunty‟ vs. "makcik‟ and "uncle‟ vs. "pakcik‟ as terms of address. Factors such as "age‟, "ethnicity‟, "relationship between the speaker and hearer‟ and "educational level‟ affect the speakers‟ choice of term of address and that it is a highly complex process. Singapore English terms of address and the related use of these terms in a referential sense show that there are interesting patterns in Singapore English which do not quite fit the theoretical frames discussed in the literature.
Date Issued
2011
Call Number
PE3502.S55 Fai
Date Submitted
2011