Forms of Address

Forms of address or address forms are stylistic features of speech. Stylistic features reflect a speaker's lexical choices. Whether a speaker addresses a colleague as Mr. Baker, Bill, or dude reflects a stylistic feature of speech. The use of certain address forms may also indicate setting. When speakers move from one speech situation to another, speech participants—and thus stylistic features such as address forms—change. Stylistic features related to address forms include terms of endearment and diminutives. Terms ...