A contrastive study on thanking in Arabic dialects and English

Abstract EN

Cross-Cultural Pragmatics (CCP) is a field of study that focuses on the interaction of people from various cultures.

It is to clarify cultural distinctions between languages that acquire meaning through context and sociocultural embedding, resulting in a pragmatic communication failure.

This study determines whether the Arabic language, because of dialectical variation, contains more thanking methods than English.

Additionally, it aims to investigate the face-threatening strategies used by Arabs and native English speakers.

Besides, it aims to determine whether contextual variables affect thanking expressions.

The data collection instrument was an open-ended questionnaire in two versions Arabic and English.

The results were then analyzed quantitatively using SPSS software version 26.0, following Cheng's classification of thanking.

The findings indicate that dialectical diversity is not associated with an increase in thanking strategies that are more prevalent in English.

Additionally, religion affects the Arabs speaking, their manner of thanking does not exclude religious expressions, which are their preferred method of expressing their politeness and gratitude.

In terms of face-threatening strategies, both native Arabic and English speakers preferred negative politeness to positive politeness, which focuses on minimizing the FTA's particular imposition.

Concerning contextual variables such as familiarity and social status, both affect how the thanking speech act is performed.

It will be worthwhile to investigate thanking in Arabic and English with a specific factor such as social distance.

Additionally, it is beneficial to examine thanking in Arabic dialects regarding civilization's cultural influence and the dialect's proximity to standard Arabic.