My aim with this paper was to investigate the overall usage of forms of address in Britain and to find possible similarities and differences in the way men and women employ forms of address and moreover, how age affects the British way of using forms of address. Between March and May 1999, a questionnaire on forms of address was handed out in the London area and filled in by 60 men and women of different ages. The idea was to see how people addressed others and were addressed in different contexts, but also to see how they themselves desired to be addressed. The analysis of this questionnaire demonstrated a lot of interesting results. Firstly, it was stated that the differences between the way men and women employ forms of address in the contexts investigated outnumbered the similarities. One difference between the way men and women employ forms of address was the fact that men in general were found to be more polite when it comes to their way of addressing others. It was noted that this goes against most investigations about gender differences when it comes to politeness. It was also noted that men are more conservative, keeping more to the old ways of addressing people. This is, however, not a new finding but has already been stated before by linguists such as for example. This means that British women are the driving forces when it comes to developing the address system. The expected result that power and solidarity would influence the way the British people employ forms of address was demonstrated. The usage of forms of address varied substantially in situations were people knew each other from when they were addressing strangers. The results of the investigation also demonstrated that age is an important factor in the British address system, older people for example being addressed in a more polite way. Moreover, several substantial variations between the way the young informants between 15 and 25 years of age and the old informants over 51 years of age indicated that the British address system is changing. One part of this change is that the system is becoming increasingly informal, less of titles and more of no-naming (addressing without using title or name). Thereby one can conclude that the British address system is approaching the Swedish address model, which is known for the substantial usage of no-naming and where the status of titles have really decreased during the last century.

My aim with this paper was to investigate the overall usage of forms of address in Britain and to find possible similarities and differences in the way men and women employ forms of address and moreover, how age affects the British way of using forms of address. Between March and May 1999, a questionnaire on forms of address was handed out in the London area and filled in by 60 men and women of different ages. The idea was to see how people addressed others and were addressed in different contexts, but also to see how they themselves desired to be addressed. The analysis of this questionnaire demonstrated a lot of interesting results. Firstly, it was stated that the differences between the way men and women employ forms of address in the contexts investigated outnumbered the similarities. One difference between the way men and women employ forms of address was the fact that men in general were found to be more polite when it comes to their way of addressing others. It was noted that this goes against most investigations about gender differences when it comes to politeness. It was also noted that men are more conservative, keeping more to the old ways of addressing people. This is, however, not a new finding but has already been stated before by linguists such as for example .This means that British women are the driving forces when it comes to developing the address system. The expected result that power and solidarity would influence the way the British people employ forms of address was demonstrated. The usage of forms of address varied substantially in situations were people knew each other from when they were addressing strangers. The results of the investigation also demonstrated that age is an important factor in the British address system, older people for example being addressed in a more polite way. Moreover, several substantial variations between the way the young informants between 15 and 25 years of age and the old informants over 51 years of age indicated that the British address system is changing. One part of this change is that the system is becoming increasingly informal, less of titles and more of no-naming (addressing without using title or name). Thereby one can conclude that the British address system is approaching the Swedish address model, which is known for the substantial usage of no-naming and where the status of titles have really decreased during the last century.