Cover not available

Article published In: Pragmatics: Online-First Articles

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload EPUB
authorization required

A pragmatic analysis of the addressing patterns and functions of the Saudi masculine vocative yakhy

ORCiD logo with link | Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz University
Published online: 18 August 2026
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/prag.24069.alh
Abstract
Previous work has shown that masculine vocatives are increasingly used beyond their typical context of designating a masculine addressee across a range of languages. Building on this scholarship, this study investigates the Saudi Arabic vocative yakhy (‘my brother’), drawing on a self-report survey and a corpus of X.com (formerly Twitter) posts. The findings reveal that yakhy exhibits usage patterns comparable to those of several vocatives in other languages. It is used to address both men and women and serves various interactional functions. Moreover, yakhy displays rich stance-taking and indexical properties, making it a useful resource for navigating interactional and cultural contexts. These findings contribute to a deeper understanding of yakhy and offer broader insights into the cross-linguistic patterning and development of masculine vocatives.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background
    • 2.1Masculine vocatives
    • 2.2Arabic fictive kinship terms
    • 2.3Yakhy
  • 3.Data and methods
    • 3.1The self-report survey
    • 3.2The X.com corpus
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Self-report survey results
    • 4.2Qualitative analysis of X.com posts
      • 4.2.1Use of yakhy to negotiate agreement and disagreement
      • 4.2.2Using yakhy to take a cool solidarity stance
      • 4.2.3Use of yakhy to enhance expressivity
      • 4.2.4Metapragmatic commentary about yakhy
  • 5.Discussion and conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
References (45)
References
Aba-alalaa, Hessah. 2015. “Terms of Address in Najdi Dialect: Normativity and Variation.” PhD diss. SOAS University of London.
Agha, Asif. 1994. “Honorification.” Annual Review of Anthropology 231: 277–302. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2007. Language and Social Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Al-Bataineh, Hussein. 2020. “The Syntax of Arabic Vocatives.” Brill’s Journal of Afroasiatic Languages and Linguistics 12 (2): 328–360. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Alenizi, Aied. 2019. “The Norms of Address Terms in Arabic: The Case of Saudi Speech Community.” International Journal of English Linguistics 9 (5): 227–241. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Alhojailan, Ahmad I. 2024. “A Sociopragmatic Study of Saudi Arabic Address Terms: Implications for Cross-Cultural Communication.” Forum for Linguistic Studies 6 (5): 522–534. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Al-Rojaie, Yousef. 2003. “A Discourse Analysis of Interruption, Moderator Role, and Address Terms in Arab and American Panel News Interviews.” PhD diss. Oklahoma State University.
Bedirian, Razming. “‘Qamar’: Arabic Word for Moon Invokes Beauty and Beyond.” The National News, 9 Sept. 2022. [URL]
Braun, Friederike. 1988. Terms of Address: Problems of Patterns and Usage in Various Languages and Cultures. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brown, Roger, and Albert Gilman. 1960. “The Pronouns of Power and Solidarity.” In Style in Language, ed. by Thomas A. Sebeok, 253–276. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brown, Roger, and Marguerite Ford. 1961. “Address in American English.” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 62 (2): 375–385. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bucholtz, Mary. 2009. “From Stance to Style: Gender, Interaction, and Indexicality in Mexican Immigrant Youth Slang.” In Stance: Sociolinguistic Perspectives, ed. by Alexandra Jaffe, 146–170. New York: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Darics, Erika. 2013. “Non-Verbal Signalling in Digital Discourse: The Case of Letter Repetition.” Discourse, Context & Media 2 (3): 141–148. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Eckert, Penelope. 2008. “Variation and the Indexical Field.” Journal of Sociolinguistics 12 (4): 453–476. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Helmbrecht, Johannes. 2003. “Politeness Distinctions in Second Persons.” In Deictic Conceptualization of Space, Time and Person, ed. by Friedrich Lenz, 185–202. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2014. “Politeness Distinctions in Personal Pronouns: A Case Study in Competing Motivations.” In Competing Motivations in Grammar and Usage, ed. by Brian MacWhinney, Andrej Malchukov, and Edith Moravcsik, 315–332. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hassanain, Khalid. 1989. “A Sociolinguistic Study: Address Rule System in the Western Region of Saudi Arabia.” PhD diss. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Herring, Susan C. 2004. “Computer-Mediated Discourse Analysis.” In Designing for Virtual Communities in the Service of Learning, ed. by Sasha A. Barab, Rob Kling, and James H. Gray, 338–376. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Heyd, Theresa. 2014. “Dude, Alter!: A Tale of Two Vocatives.” Pragmatics and Society 5 (2): 271–295. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jaime Jiménez, Elena. 2018. “Variable Use of Plural Address Forms in Andalusian Spanish.” PhD diss. The Ohio State University.
Joseph, John E. 1987. “Subject Relevance and Deferential Address in the Indo-European Languages.” Lingua 731: 259–277. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Johnstone, Barbara. 2000. Qualitative Methods in Sociolinguistics. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kiesling, Scott F. 2004. “Dude.” American Speech 79 (3): 281–305. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2009. “Style as Stance: Stance as the Explanation for Patterns of Sociolinguistic Variation.” In Stance: Sociolinguistic Perspectives, ed. by Alexandra Jaffe, 171–194. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kleinknecht, Friederike, and Miguel Souza. 2017. “Vocatives as a Source Category for Pragmatic Markers: From Deixis to Discourse Marking via Affectivity.” In Pragmatic Markers, Discourse Markers and Modal Particles: New Perspectives, ed. by Chiara Fedriani, and Andrea Sansò, 257–287. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kalman, Yoram M., and Darren Gergle. 2014. “Letter Repetitions in Computer-Mediated Communication: A Unique Link Between Spoken and Online Language.” Computers in Human Behavior 341: 187–193. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Locher, Miriam A. 2013. “Relational Work and Interpersonal Pragmatics.” Journal of Pragmatics 581: 145–149. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mahzari, Mohammad A. 2021. “The Use of Address Terms by Saudi Facebook Users in Arabic: A Discursive Approach.” Applied Linguistics Research Journal 5 (4): 27–42. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Moyna, María I. 2017. “Voseo Vocatives and Interjections in Montevideo Spanish.” In Contemporary Advances in Theoretical and Applied Spanish Linguistic Variation, ed. by Juan J. Colomina-Almiñana, 124–147. Columbus: The Ohio State University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nawawi, Imam. 2006. Gardens of the Righteous (Riyadh as-Salihin). Translated by Muhammad Zafrulla Khan. London: Curzon Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Palacios Martínez, Ignacio M. 2018. “Help Me Move to That, Blood’: A Corpus-Based Study of the Syntax and Pragmatics of Vocatives in the Language of British Teenagers.” Journal of Pragmatics 1301: 33–50. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Parkinson, Dilworth B. 1985. Constructing the Social Context of Communication: Terms of Address in Egyptian Arabic. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pastorino, Valeria. 2022. “Dude in British English: Towards a Non-Gendered Term of Address.” York Papers in Linguistics 2 (17): 13–28.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Raymond, Chase. 2016. “Reconceptualizing Identity and Context in the Deployment of Forms of Address.” In Forms of Address in the Spanish of the Americas, ed. by María I. Moyna, and Susanna Rivera-Mills, 267–288. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rendle-Short, Johanna. 2009. “The Address Term Mate in Australian English: Is It Still a Masculine Term?” Australian Journal of Linguistics 29 (2): 245–268. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2010. “‘Mate’ as a Term of Address in Ordinary Interaction.” Journal of Pragmatics 42 (5): 1201–1218. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sadiq, Saudi, and Naglaa Ahmed Awny. 2024. “From Past to Present: Exploring Semantic Change in Egyptian Colloquial Arabic Address Terms.” Journal of Languages and Translation 11 (4): 64–99. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Silverstein, Michael. 2003. “Indexical Order and the Dialectics of Sociolinguistic Life.” Language & Communication 23 (3–4): 193–229. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tannen, Deborah. 1993. “The Relativity of Linguistic Strategies: Rethinking Power and Solidarity in Gender and Dominance.” In Gender and Conversational Interaction, ed. by Deborah Tannen, 165–188. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2007. Talking Voices: Repetition, Dialogue, and Imagery in Conversational Discourse, 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Urichuk, Matthew, and Verónica Loureiro-Rodríguez. 2019. “Brocatives: Self-Reported Use of Masculine Nominal Vocatives in Manitoba (Canada).” In It’s Not All About “You”: New Perspectives on Address Research, ed. by Bettina Kluge, María Irene Moyna, Horst J. Simon, and Jane Warren, 355–372. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Yassin, Mahmoud Aziz F. 1977a. “Kinship Terms in Kuwaiti Arabic.” Anthropological Linguistics 19 (3): 126–132.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1977b. “Bi-Polar Terms of Address in Kuwaiti Arabic.” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 40 (2): 297–301. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zappavigna, Michele. 2015. “Searchable Talk: The Linguistic Functions of Hashtags.” Social Semiotics 25 (3): 274–291. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zuhur, Sherifa. 2012. Saudi Arabia. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue