Further re title use at Chicago

[Alexandra Jaffe]

I read with interest Dr./Mr./Prof. Rumsey's account of forms of address at
the U. of Chicago as well as Laura Miller's, Hal Schiffman's and Peter
Patrick's comments. I think that there is another interesting dimension of
the usage described (this is also suggested by Peter). At the same time as
reciprocal TLN may have been indexing shared membership in a community of
high-powered scholars (downplaying internal status hierarchy) it surely also
served to differentiate that community from other academic communities that
used the (normative) Dr. or Professor. The choice of less hierarchy-laden
terms acted as a powerful assertion of high status in the broader field of
American Universities precisely by downplaying the need for display of
power. That is, only the professionally insecure (and second-rate) would
need to hear their professorial titles.



I concur with Laura's comment on "Mrs." used with female academics.  My
sense is, though I have no real evidence to back this up, that in an
institution where the use of "Dr." is the norm, students are more likely to
use "Mrs." with women than they are to use "Mr." with men.





Alexandra Jaffe
Department of Linguistics
California State, Long Beach
1250 Bellflower Boulevard
Long Beach, CA 90840

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