The English system of address constitutes an exception among the European languages, in that it does not have a grammatical distinction between a formal pronoun of address and an informal one. Rather, English speakers exploit lexical strategies (i.e. nominal vocatives). This study aims to shed light on the address strategies used by students and members of the teaching staff in academic interactions, with reference to the University of Reading (UK). Data from semi-structured interviews and video-recordings outline an unmarked pattern of asymmetry between the parties, in which students mainly employ formal vocatives towards lecturers (title+surname, honorifics), while lecturers frequently use first names and other informal expressions. Reciprocal informal vocatives, by contrast, emerges as a marked practice, which is resisted or delayed in time. This asymmetrical distribution of forms questions classical models and previous research on address and calls for the necessity of new components for the understanding of the phenomenon.

Following the recent development of address research in pluricentric languages (Clyne et al. 2006), the present study describes address practices in English-speaking academic settings and pursues two main objectives: (a) to provide a profile of address patterns in academic interactions in Australian English; and (b) to compare address practices in higher education across the three dominant varieties of English, namely American English, Australian English, and British English. The data on Australian English are drawn from 235 questionnaires completed by students, who reported on the address strategies adopted by students and teaching staff in classroom interactions in an Australian university. Data on American and British academic settings were retrieved from the research literature on the topic. The findings show a high degree of informality and familiarity in student-teacher relations in Australia, where reciprocal first names are the default pattern of address at all levels. By contrast, in American academia the hierarchical organization of roles and the different professional positions are foregrounded and reinforced through an asymmetrical use of titles, honorifics and first names. Finally, the British university setting displays a non-reciprocal usage of first names and titles between lecturer and students, which gradually evolves into a more generalised reciprocal use of first names, usually after extended contact and collaboration. We argue that the distinctive patterns of address observed in the three varieties of English reflect diverse social and cultural values systems at work in different speech communities.

Insults are prototypical means to express impoliteness in social interactions. In film they are prime ways of staging conflict or jocular abuse, reflecting everyday communicative practices while contributing to the emotionality of dialogue, characterisation and plot advancement. Both original and dubbed films offer a privileged perspective to investigate the codification of impoliteness within and across linguacultures. In this contribution, we hypothesise that cross-cultural mediation in dubbing arises from hybridisation, a product of the contact between source and target language. Drawing on a parallel and comparable corpus of original and dubbed films, the study focuses on two major categories of insults and explores contrastively their overall frequency, the distinction between genuine and mock impoliteness and the structural complexity of forms. A degree of comparability is observed across Anglophone, Italian and dubbed Italian films, although distinctive trends also emerge from the corpus analysis. If Italian films globally make more frequent use of insults, Anglophone films stand out for their greater reliance on mock impoliteness and greater elaboration of forms. Dubbed films tend to position midway, reproducing source language patterns, while also partaking distinguishing lexico-grammatical traits of the target language. The results substantiate the function dubbing serves in cross-cultural mediation by activating an array of frames of reference that allow the new receiving audiences to experience foreign communication practices from their native language perspective.

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