Participants consider all forms of language used to address an interlocutor as their 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 also fields of interest.
The conference theme is Contrasting Address and sessions include gender, address in the media and drama, address in service encounters, language contact and more. Some papers consider historical developments, others are about present-day usage.
Languages discussed include may European languages, but also Arabic, Japanese and Persian.