Linguistic politeness across Arabic, French, and English languages (original) (raw)

Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Linguistic Politeness

Cross Cultural Communication, 2014

Linguistic politeness is one of the most significant underpinnings of interactional communication and social everyday life. This article reviews the most important theoretical and analytical frameworks which attempt to conceptualize politeness within and across cultures with the aim to uncover the universality of linguistic politeness.

Some Aspects of Verbal Politeness in Maghrebi Arabic Dialects

2014

The study of verbal politeness has been one of the most interesting fields of research for sociolinguists over the past few decades. The publication of Brown and Levinson’s seminal work Politeness, Some universals in language usage (1978), in particular, gave to field researchers and theorists a general framework able to account for the outer manifestations of verbal politeness in different languages and cultures. The two scholars borrowed the anthropological concepts of face and face-wants from Erving Goffman and successfully employed them to explain the principle that triggers all verbal politeness phenomena. Their theory and methodological tools it provided have been employed by field researchers to describe the code of politeness of ancient and contemporary societies. Despite the undeniable progress of sociolinguistic studies during the last three decades, few studies have so fare tackled the description of the verbal code of politeness employed in Maghrebi Arabic dialects as a ...

Language Politeness: Pragmatic-Sociocultural Perspective

Proceedings of the International Conference on Education, Language and Society, 2019

This study is aimed to explain the perspective of language politeness in terms of the sociocultural background of the Indonesian Language and Literature Education Study Program students at the Universitas Islam Riau (UIR). By applying the Phenomenology approach, data was collected through interviews with 44 students about language politeness which was then analyzed by applying the Miles & Huberman's analysis techniques. The results of the study showed that someone is said to be polite when s/he does not offend other people's hearts (the other person) in speaking, speaking in a soft tone, speaking based on contexts; who is the interlocutors, where the conversation takes place, whether in a serious or relaxed atmosphere, what topics are being discussed, and consider the norms in speaking. It can be concluded that the students are polite in speaking based on their respective cultural backgrounds with regard to contexts. The results of this study imply everyone with different cultural backgrounds has different language politeness.

More than words: Linguistic and nonlinguistic politeness in two cultures

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1996

This article extends the validity of politeness theory ( P. by investigating the nonlinguistic aspects of politeness in 2 cultures. Politeness strategies expressed through different channels of communication (silent video, speech, full-channel video and audio, and transcripts of speech ) were examined, and it was found that politeness strategies were communicated nonlinguistically as well as linguistically and that nonlinguistic strategy usage was related to social and contextual factors. Two studies revealed that Koreans' politeness strategies were influenced more by relational cues, whereas Americans' strategies were influenced more by the content of the message. This research represents a 1st attempt to explore the nonlinguistic communication of politeness across cultures.

(2024) Formulaic Politeness in Moroccan Arabic

International Journal of Language, Literature & Culture, 2024

This paper aims to show that Moroccan males and females do make use of polite speech behavior that cannot be accounted for in Brown & Levinson’s framework of politeness. In other words, such highly expressive speech behavior is different from Brown & Levinson’s politeness strategies in many respects. While such politeness behavior attends to the face wants of the hearer, it cannot be considered as politeness strategies in Brown & Levinson’s sense, but rather as Politeness Formulas. Politeness formulas differ also from strategies with respect to their politeness conversational structure.

Formulaic Expressions of Politeness in Jordanian Arabic Social Interactions

Formulaic Language and New Data, 2020

This study explores the use of politeness formulaic expressions in everyday social interaction in colloquial Jordanian Arabic. Analysis of ethnographically observed data of ninety-four formulaic expressions within the framework of Brown and Levinson's (1987) classical politeness theory reveals that these formulae are of two types: positive politeness formulae which are used in interactional and transactional contexts and emphasize solidarity and communal belonging; and negative politeness formulae concerned with showing deference and non-imposition. The use of these formulae reflects speakers' greater concern with positive rather than negative politeness. It further displays the fixity and continuity of social norms and traditions transmitted through these formulae. As many of these formulae involve reference to God, such formulaicity further emphasizes the religious and fatalistic nature of the community.

Conventionalized Politeness Structures Empirical Evidence from Hindi/Urdu

2017

This paper discusses the results of a survey undertaken to investigate conventionalized politeness structures in Hindi\Urdu, with specific focus on the ability of native speakers to view politeness as a scalar phenomenon across different utterances vis-à-vis each other. The speakers were provided with utterances that encoded systematic differences in lexical choice (High Perso-Arabic\High Sanskritic\neutral native) and construction choice (suggestion\ request\subjunctives, etc.), but nevertheless performed the same act so as to be possible to rank on a politeness scale as realizations of the same speech act. The paper focusses on the correlation between High\formal registers and politeness as well as the correlation between different grammatical structures and politeness to argue that linguistic structures are conventionalized for possible politeness effects. 1 Theoretical background In the last three decades politeness theorists have studied and commented upon a number of issues related to the phenomenon of politeness. The major questions addressed include-what is this phenomenon that we are trying to study and understand, why does it occur, and how is it realised in language. While the earliest theories of politeness (Brown & Levinson 1978, 1987; Leech 1983) largely assumed the object of investigation, it was with Watts (1989) and Eelen (2001) that the focus shifted to the phenomenon actually being studied. A distinction between first-order (politeness1) and second-order (politeness2) politeness was drawn. First-order politeness refers to the lay, non-scientific con-ceptualisation of politeness and the ways it is perceived and contested by

Sajjadiyya -Sahifa al S -Linguistic politeness in the Al

Politeness, a branch of language pragmatics, is related to the person's awareness about the audience's face; and includes different manner and speech that cause respect to others. Imam Sajad (PBUH) has used a different politeness style in the Al-Sahifa al-Sajjadiyya in billing and cooing with God. The present study aimed to analyze linguistic politeness in the Al-Sahifa al-Sajjadiyya. To this aim was used descriptive-analytical method. Based on the results, the critical linguistic politeness style, including audience description using call style; the way of names report and negative and positive attributions of God in the form of verbal and noun sentence; praise, and laud and confess to the unity of God when saying divine attributes; speaker description himself and comparison and use of moderators in the order space. With politeness in God's presence and honoring his rank, these styles have presented a purposeful system in the prayer context to bowing the audience and emphasizing their position.