About INAR

The International Network of Address Research is an informal network of scholars researching and writing about address in the world’s languages. We consider all forms of language that are used to address an interlocutor as our object for research. This includes pronominal forms, verb forms such as imperative or addressee honorific forms, nominal address such as kinship terms, titles and honorific nouns, and terms of endearment and abuse. Address related phenomena such as salutations, address forms used in generic meaning and address-derived discourse markers are wider fields of interest.

The inaugural INAR workshop took place in Berlin in 2013, followed by Hildesheim (2014; where the acronym was coined), College Station (2015) and Helsinki (2017). There is no formal infrastructure for the network and anyone who wishes to be on the circulation list, which is maintained by Leo Kretzenbacher in Melbourne, is deemed to be a member. Leo is also the webmaster of a website linked to the network (inarweb.wordpress.com). Topics in Address Research (TAR) is an occasional series published by John Benjamins in Amsterdam. The first volume is in print.

Address research has also been covered at other international conferences, such the Sociolinguistics Symposium and IPrA, which regularly host panels on the subject, and the regular international conferences on address in Spanish and Portuguese. There will also be a panel on address at the international conference Languages, Nations, Cultures: Pluricentric Languages in Context(s) at Stockholm University (22–24 May, 2019).

The first volume in the series Topics in Address Research (TAR), published by John Benjamins, is out in spring 2019.