From "I Love You, Habibi" to "Oh My God, Habibi, It's Not That Hard!": What Address Terms Tell Us About Relationships and Culture

Authors

  • Nura Naama Saint Louis University, Madrid Campus

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15273/jue.v6i1.8274

Abstract

The address term habibi is one of the most frequently used terms by the Arab community. Literally translated, ‘habibi‘ and the feminine version habeebti mean my love or my dear, however, use of this word extends to far more figurative uses than literal ones. Personal address terms are fertile grounds for examining interpersonal relationships and by extension examining the culture as a whole. This study examines the different functions invested in the term ‘habibi‘, where four major codes were identified through interviewing participants and taking part in participant observation. The data were analyzed using Hymes‘ speaking framework and a grounded theory approach. Through primary-cycle coding, I identified the following codes: maintaining a relationship/closeness, politeness, showing compassion, and saving face. All of these codes belonged to more general codes of familiarity, solidarity and unity, all of which belong to the larger overarching theme of harmony. The implications of this study suggest that key terms of address such as ‘habibi‘ are important to study because of the relational information they contain, as well as the invested cultural values which will ultimately help us understand how members of a given cultural group communicate.

Downloads

Issue

Vol. 6 No. 1 (2016)

Section

Articles

License

By sending potential submissions to the editors, you grant The Journal for Undergraduate Ethnography a royalty-free, perpetual, license to: use, reproduce, store, adapt, translate, and publicly display such submissions for any purpose.  In addition to the grant of the above license, you hereby consent to your name appearing as the contributor of any submission where applicable, and to the disclosure and/or display of such information and any other information which appears in or is associated with a submission. Further, you acknowledge and agree that The Journal for Undergraduate Ethnography is not responsible for any loss, damage, or corruption that may occur to your submissions, and acknowledge and agree that any submissions you provide for display on the website will be considered non-confidential. If your manuscript is rejected, the above license is revoked, and your submission (manuscript, name, and associated documentation) will be stored only in the correspondence records of The Journal for Undergraduate Ethnography. You may submit your manuscript to other publications, but must withdraw if selected for publication in The Journal for Undergraduate Ethnography. Your paper itself is published using a strict Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 Unported License that allows others to download your works and share them with others as long as they credit you, but they can‘t change them in any way or use them commercially. You retain the right to grant other permissions.