'Iwe' or 'imi'? An analysis of terms of address used by police officers at Mbare Police Station

Using Fairclough's (1989) Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and Giles' (1971) Communication Accommodation Theory (CAT), this article analyses the terms of address used by police officers at Mbare Police Station in Harare in conversational interaction either with suspects or with people visiting their relatives in custody at the police station. The data analysed in this research was collected through participant observation where the researchers posed as members of the public in need of assistance while they listened in to the discourse between participants. The researchers also interviewed police officers on their use of the various terms of address they employed in dealing with different categories of members of the public who visited the police station. It was established that the police officers used linguistic terms, which included pronouns (both singular and plural), friendship terms, kinship terms and metaphors to address the people who visited the police station for a variety of reasons. These included soliciting for information and demonstrating institutionalised power.