Iraqi tribal disputes : a sociopragmatic study

Abstract EN

This work investigates the general politeness strategies (henceforth GSP), as proposed by Leech (2014), used in the Iraqi tribal disputes, in particular, the southern region.

It shows that these strategies help resolve serious cases, resulted from murder, armed assault or honour issues, among tribes.

This paper is based on the information obtained from 15 interviews held with 15 tribal leaders and spokesmen from different tribes.

These participants were later asked to choose clauses of maxims in a questionnaire devised by the researcher that judge the potential compatibility of the 10 maxims under the umbrella of the GSP.

Further, their ticks helped decide the degree of effectiveness of each maxim in attenuating the face of the afflicted party.

The results of this study show that all the 10 maxims are applied and widely used in the Iraqi tribal contexts; though the degree of effect is different.

The findings also entail that the positive politeness strategies overwhelmed the negative ones which do not correspond with Leech‟s study subject as a result of traditional, cultural, and attitudinal differences between the Iraqi and European societies.

This, in turn, ensures that the Iraqi tribal context is an object-oriented community rather than being speaker-oriented one.