English address forms when name is unknown

[Kerim Friedman]

I am auditing a sociolinguistics class in Taiwan and they often use me as a "native informant" when discussing American speech, however I was stumped by the following rather simple question:

What are the different ways we address people whose names we don't know? What are the appropriate contexts for these forms of address, and what are the implications.

All I could think of is how much anxiety this situation usually causes me simply because I don't know what to do. But I did make a list and would like to see if other people basically agree with this list or not. Also, references to actual research on this topic would be much appreciated. Please e-mail me directly at <kerim.mail at oxus.net>, and I will post a summary to the list. I imagine there is a lot of variation in how people would answer this question according to age, gender, and geographic location, not to mention dialectical differences. I am very interested in that variation, but I also would like to try to provide my classmates with some generalizations about American usage that they can use as a point of comparison.

Here is what I came up with:

(1) I usually just ask someone their name, or try to avoid any kind of address altogether (simply using a greeting without an appelation of any sort following it ie: "hey there").

(2) With a male classmate I might use "hey man" (but I couldn't think what I use for a female classmate, I think I just follow rule #1).

(3) In public I might use "sir" or "mam" if, for example, someone I don't know drops something on the subway and I need to get their attention.

(4) In some contexts I might use title: "waiter," "doctor," and "nurse," etc. In most professional encounters it seems that I would avoid any appelation as well. "Excuse me, could you help me?" not "Excuse me Mr/Ms/etc, could you help me?" In many cases the person will tell you their name right away, although I usually forget it.

(5) I could think of no equivalent to the Chinese terms used for young children and old people that one doesn't know. Actually, I can recall hearing expressions like "little buddy" and "aunti" used in movies, but I would never use them.

Thanks for your help.

kerim
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P. KERIM FRIEDMAN
			Anthropology, Temple University
			<mailto:kerim.mail at oxus.net>
			<http://kerim.oxus.net>
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