Power and solidarity : an investigation of address forms in Malta

Abstract

The main objective of this study was to analyse forms of address in Malta, in the home and work domains. In both Maltese and English, the official languages of Malta and the languages under investigation in this study, there is not T/V distinction so the forms of address investigated in this study were terms of address like First Name (FN) and Title Last Name (TLN) and variants of these forms of address, as investigated by Brown and Ford in American English (1961) . In this study, both qualitative and quantitative forms of investigation were used. The qualitative research is reported in Chapter 3 and is divided into 2 sections. In the first section there is an investigation of address forms used in plays written by Maltese dramatists in a Maltese context. In the second section of Chapter 3, a number of companies were chosen and the address forms used among the employees observed were reported and analysed. Chapter 4 presents the quantitative research which reports the forms of address employed in the home and work domains by 250 respondents who were randomly selected and interviewed through face to face questionnaires.