Terms of Address in Guam (Chamorro) Variety of the English Language as a Means to Express Guamanians’ National Identity

Abstract

The article is part of the authors big research on the forms of address in Asian varieties of the English language, which will finally be reflected in the Dictionary of the Forms of Address in World Englishes: Singapore, the Philippines, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Guam. Effective and successful communication largely depends on the forms of address used by the speakers. Being social phenomena, forms of address can vary from culture to culture following the traditions and etiquette rules of this culture. The questionnaires on the forms of address filled in by Guamanians; two dictionaries on Chamorro English; local newspapers analyses; and personal observations of the authors turned out a solid proof of the hypothesis that even though speaking English as a second language, Guamanians make English their local variety, with forms of address typical to Guam variety of the English language. Quantitative, descriptive, and observation methods were used to analyze the forms of address in Chamorro variety of the English language, and classification of the forms of address used by the native people of Guam was formed and presented in the article.

Keywords

• world englishes
• new variety of the english language
• chamorro
• guam
• term of address
• speaking etiquette
• intercultural communication
• language pattern