The Impacts of Level of Education and Economic Status on the Choice of Address Terms by Young Couples

This study aimed to investigate the effects of economic status and level ofeducation on the choice of address terms by Iranian couples in Shahrekord,Iran. To this end, 50 couples were selected, based on their educational andeconomic statuses, and were studied in terms of their choice of address terms. Adiscourse completion task was used as the data elicitation technique and Chisquarewas conducted to analyze the data. The results of this study unveiled thepatterns of realizations of terms of address among the couples in differentsituations. It was found that level of education (though not economic status) wasan important factor in the choice of address terms among couples. Unsurprisingly,the more educated the participants, the more formal address terms they used.Indeed, level of education brought about significant differences among the low,mid, and high level of education couples in the address termed they chose to use. Itwas also divulged that there was no significant difference in using terms of addressfor couples with low and high economic status.

Keywords:

Address Terms , Level of Education , Economic Status , Sociolinguistic Investigation