Where next for comrade? On the use of ideology-based address forms in post-Communist societies (with reference to modern-day Serbia)

The article reports on some preliminary findings of an ongoing research initiative investigating the pragmatics of daily interaction, cross-culturally and trans-nationally. Phase one of the initiative looks into the specifics of how cultural differences impact on cultural values, social categories and, ultimately, communicative styles, focusing initially on address forms (Larina et al. 2011). More specifically, the article looks into the current status of the ideology-based address form comrade, its pragma-semantic profile and rules governing its usage in post-Communist Eastern-European societies, looking primarily into selected instances of public communication and media language in modern-day Serbia. Having identified and contextualised key usage patterns of the ideology-based forms of address clustering around the title comrade (in Serbian: drug, m. and drugarica, f.) and the set of options associated with it, the article concludes by suggesting future parameters of research.