5.2.1 Syntactic and combinatorial properties
All the nouns which can be used as forms of address in English differ in the syntactic construction in which they are used and in their combinatorial options. Some nouns are only used with a following first name (e.g. Father John used to address a priest) or a following surname (e.g. Dr. used to address an academic or Mr./Mrs.). By contrast, other nouns are used as forms of address only without a surname, for example sir and Boss. The combinatorial differences between Dr. and Boss are summarised in the following minimal pairs:
i. Good morning, Dr. Robertson vs *Good morning, Dr. ii. Good morning, Boss vs *Good morning, Boss Robertson iii. Good morning, Dr. Robertson vs Good morning, Boss
Moreover, some nouns can be used as forms of address both with and without an accompanying surname, e.g. Good morning, Professor vs. Good morning, Professor Brown. The purpose of this chapter is to show that nouns which, as forms of address, have different combinatorial options differ in interactional meaning, too, and therefore need to be grouped in
separate categories. One of the reasons why the six nouns Doctor, Nurse, Professor, Coach, Chef and Boss can be grouped together is that they share the same syntactic property: they can be used as forms of address in a simple syntactic construction consisting of the noun only, possibly preceded by a short utterance (e.g. Thank you/I’m sorry), but without a following surname:
(1) “I’ve. . .I’ve done it, Professor,” he choked. […] “Thank you, Hagrid,” said Professor McGonagall, standing up at once and turning to look at the group around Bill’s bed.
(J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, 2005)
(2) ALI: Hello there, my name is Ali Sharif. I’m the Intensive Care Consultant who’s
looking after your mother…
KATIE: Could you tell us what’s happening, Doctor?
(David Williamson, At any cost?, 2011)
(3) During the time when I was a probationer student nurse in Reading, I was working on a male medical ward. I carried out simple duties such as washing the locker tops, and was at the bedside of a man who was very ill. He grabbed my wrist, and with fierce intensity barked: “Have I got a growth, Nurse?”
(Jennifer Worth, In the midst of life, 2010)
(4) Wright was at the stadium, filing a feeble protest. He seemed dazed, literally turning in circles, when I found him. Stan was near 50, heavy, jowly, with large ears and sad eyes so full of tears that the next blink was sure to start a deluge. `Coach," I said, `I'm awfully sorry about what happened.
(Wordbanks, usbooks)
(5) BOBBY: Sorry I’m late, Boss. Old Norm caught me in the corridor.
(David Williamson, The Department, 1975)
(6) Yann, the young French waiter who was famously scolded and humiliated in the first episode of Boiling Point for wearing a blue plaster on his finger - `you're smart, you're immaculate, and a fucking blue plaster!"- comes over. `Yann, how many dirty magazines did I find in your flat?" `None, really, Chef," says Yann, whose blush rapidly shoots up his neck while I, too, cringe with embarrassment.
(Wordbanks, brnews)
Doctor and Professor can also be followed by a surname, but as I will discuss, in this case they express a different interactional meaning and therefore are polysemous. It could be asked why nouns like sir/madam or Minister/Senator, which as forms of address can also be used by themselves in a short utterance, are not included in the same category as Doctor and Boss. The
reason is that Doctor (used by itself) and Boss differ from sir and Senator in the situational context in which they are used, which I will discuss in the next section. My hypothesis is that this difference reflects a difference in meaning and, in turn, in categorisation.
5.2.2 The situational context of use
The second reason why the six nouns Doctor, Nurse, Professor, Coach, Chef and Boss can be grouped together in a separate category is that they are used in the same situational context, which is based on two factors: ‘place’ and ‘inequality of role’. Firstly, all the six nouns in this small categoryare used as forms of address within the context of a specific place or institution, outside of which they are either not used or, in the case of Doctor and Professor, do not express the same interactional meaning (see 5.3 and 5.4). In the case of sir/madam or even kinship nouns like dad/mum and Father/Mother, which are also used by themselves as forms of address, ‘place’ is not a relevant situational factor because these nouns are not restricted to one particular situation.10
Secondly, the recipient of Doctor is someone who, in a specific place (the hospital), can be seen by the speaker (the patient or a nurse) as being ‘someone above me’ and ‘above many other people in this place’ (security guards and other staff). In the same way, the recipients of Nurse, Professor, Boss, Coach and Chef can be seen as being people above the speaker in a specific place (e.g. the university, a company, a sports club, a restaurant’s kitchen). Essentially, the situational context in which these six nouns are used as forms of address is such that the speaker has a construed relationship of inequality with the addressee in the place where they interact.
10 Kinship nouns are limited to the more general situational context ‘family’, outside of which they do not express the same
meaning (e.g. Father John said to a priest).
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The same kind of relationship between the interactants does not characterise the situations in which dad, sir or Senator are used, and this difference in relationship affects the speaker’s professed way of thinking about the addressee which is inherent in the interactional meaning of Doctor and the other five nouns. It is plausible to assume that the idea “I think about you like this: ‘this someone is someone above me’” is also inherent in the meaning of sir as said by a shop assistant to a customer in British or American English; however, sir does not also express the idea ‘this someone is someone above many people in this place’.
Essentially, it is the combination of two situational factors, ‘place’ and ‘relational inequality’, plus specific syntactic properties, which distinguishes the interactional meaning of the six nouns Doctor, Nurse, Professor, Coach, Chef and Boss from the interactional meaning of other nouns used as forms of address in English. I will present my hypothesis on the meaning of these nouns in the next section, starting from Doctor used by itself.