How one spouse addresses the other spouse predicts their couple communication. The present study focuses on the spousal forms of address with acknowledgement and investigates the link between the forms of address and couple communication patterns. The pilot study sampled 161 university students in Japan and surveyed semantic differences of the spousal forms of address. The main study sampled 76 married women and 55 married men in Japan. They answered the communication patterns questionnaire and their daily forms of address. Results showed that arrogant meaning of husbands' forms of address for their wives was a significant negative predictor of mutual constructive communication and a significant positive predictor of mutual avoidance. On the other hand, wives' form of address for their husbands did not predict couple communication patterns. Husbands' arrogant forms of address with wives' acknowledgement might predict negative couple communication patterns.

Key words: forms of address with acknowledgement; semantic differential method; communication patterns questionnaire; husbands' arrogant forms of address.