A Comparative Study of Address Forms in English and Persian Movies

The way someone calls or addresses someone else additionally referred to address terms. There are numerous ways on how someone address someone else like using title, first name, surname, last name, etc. This study aimed to identify the variation and function of address terms used in five American and five Persian movies. In addition, it aimed to investigate if there were any significant difference in the types and functions of address terms used by the characters in Persian and English movies .To reach the goals of this study, a corpus including five Iranian and five American English address forms was selected .Wardhaugh's (2015) model for categorizing address terms and Chaika's (1982) model for classifying functions of address terms were employed. The results revealed that the highest frequency of the address forms in English and Iranian movies belonged to the class of Giving tu which includes First name, - Full name, - Nickname, - Kinship terms with 24.10% and 24.56%, respectively. In addition, the results of a Chi-square test revealed a significant difference between the two corpora in terms of their frequency (p< .05). Functional analysis of the English corpus revealed that the main function for which the address terms were employed in English movies was showing respect followed by showing power differences as well as showing intimacy. Moreover, the first dominant function of address term was showing respect followed by showing power differential and showing intimacy. Finally, the results of a Chi-square revealed a significant difference between the two corpora in terms of their function (p< .05). Language learners should be encouraged by instructors to develop and enhance the necessary social skills to interact with other interactents in different situations effectively.