Politeness in the educated Arabic dialect of Palestine at a dinner-table conversation

Abstract AR

The main aim of this paper is to provide a linguistic analysis of forms and strategies of politeness patterns as used informally by educated adults in the Arabic dialect of Palestine (ADOP).

Fifty four utterances were selected from a naturally occurring informal conversation around a dinner-table.

Implementation of the three Hallidian (1991) metafunctions: the ideational, the interpersonal and the textual aspects to which choices of politeness strategies closely correspond, is applied whenever felt required.

Choices of the different politeness patterns by educated adults vary where ADOP forms of positive strategy predominate