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Sunday, November 20, 2005
Forms of Address
Another short paper written for the undergraduate linguistics course I'm taking:
The discussion in Salzmann 2004 about forms of address and greeting reminded me of something that I became aware of only after I began pursuing my interest in higher education and the politics of graduate school. How students address one another and how students and professors address each other can be as complex as any other dimension of personal interaction in professional versus non-professional contexts. This brief paper will highlight my experience with formal and informal forms of address and greeting.
All throughout high school and undergraduate most individuals are conditioned to maintain a degree of respect in the classroom by referring to their instructor with a title followed by a last name (e.g. Mrs. Smith or Dr. Smith). All throughout undergraduate I addressed my professors as Dr. [preferred last name]. I have never had a problem with this and in fact I felt most comfortable referring to my instructors in this way. There was a degree of mutual respect that called for the student to address the professor by a title.
When I entered graduate school I was able for the first time to refer to two of my professors by their first names. Even so, this did not come about immediately and it was only after a firm ground on which to establish both professional and personal relationships was established. When I applied to USF, I referred to both individuals by a title and their last name in my initial correspondence with them. Undoubtedly if I had immediately began using their first name only (which I that point I didn’t even consider as an appropriate option) there would have been a sense of awkwardness from the start. Eventually I had contact with both professors outside of a classroom setting. This alternate setting was one that I was previously only acquainted with in the context of interactions with my peers. I observed my new friends (fellow students, who had known both professors for some time) referring to them by their first name and this indicated to me that it was indeed appropriate for me to do the same because I had been accepted into this circle of relationships defined by both professional and personal interactions.
There are many factors that I feel shape the contexts in which a student refers to his or her professor by a first name only or a title and a last name. The first factor has to do with how well acquainted the two individuals are. Obviously, when you (a student) first meet a professor in an academic setting you will show respect by using a title and last name. This may or may not change over time. Secondly, the terms of the relationship can be indicative of when it is appropriate to use a certain form of address. If you only have contact with a professor in a classroom setting I feel there is a lesser chance that that personal, informal relationship will form. Conversely, if you socialize with the professor outside the classroom and participate in activities that promote a different kind of relationship, one more casual, the likelihood of a shift in form of address is greater (although not implied or inevitable). This brings me to my final point: the age of the two individuals will have much to do with the level of interaction outside of the classroom. Broadly put, if the student and the professor are closer in age and that age is of a generation characterized by casual student-professor relationships then an address form shift is more likely.
This brief paper has outlined the nature of the types of relationships that can be forged between university or graduate level student and professor and how the former address the latter in different contexts. It is my opinion that forms of address as described by Salzmann are rich linguistic indicators of degrees and varieties of social relationships.
Reference cited: Salzmann, Zdenek. Language, Culture, and Society, Third Edition. 2004. Westview: Boulder.
Posted by Will at November 20, 2005 05:20 PM in Anthropology