On Congratulating, Thanking, and Apologizing in Jordanian Arabic and American English
Abstract
A mounting body of evidence suggests that despite the existence of shared underlying elements, politeness is realized differently across cultures. This study examines the politeness strategies used by 50 Jordanian native speakers of Arabic and 50 American native speakers of English. A 9-item Discourse-Completion Task was used to collect the data for the purpose of identifying potential similarities and differences in the use of (and response to) politeness strategies between Jordanian speakers of Arabic and American speakers of English. The two sample groups were found to employ similar politeness strategies with varying frequencies and realizations.
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