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Complimenting Behaviour in Native Speakers of English and Iraqi Arabic:
A Cross-Cultural Pragmatic Study Mazin J. Al-Hilu (PhD Candidate- 2nd Year)
School of Modern Languages & Applied Linguistics
Supervisor: Dr. David Atkinson
Introduction
Despite the growing interest in studying speech acts (SAs) in various languages
and its varieties, the current study is innovative in comparing the performance of
native speakers of English (NSE) and Iraqi Arabic native speakers (NSA) as far as
complimenting behaviour is concerned in English.
A compliment is a speech act which attributes credit to someone, for some
good (possession, appearance, skill, etc.). It is positively valued by both parties
of interaction to establish and maintain rapport and solidarity between them and
keep the social wheels running (Holmes,1986).
Cultural values are reflected in the strategies used by different people
performing such a speech act (cf. Ting- Toomy , 2005; Wierzbicka , 2003).
The current study aims to provide a baseline for pinpointing the potential
convergence / divergence in the performance of these two groups of
informants.
Research Questions:
1. How do Native speakers of English (NSE) and Iraqi Arabic native speakers
(NSA) produce the speech behaviour of complimenting?
2. Do they employ similar or different linguistic patterns in producing the
speech act under investigation ?
3. Do contextual variables of social distance, social status, and gender
influence the two groups’ pragmatic performance in different ways?
4. Do cultural values and assumptions influence the two groups’ pragmatic
performance ?
Data Collection
Quantitative : Discourse Completion Task (DCT)
Native Speakers of English NSE ( n= 50)
Native Speakers of Iraqi Arabic NSA (n=50)
Qualitative Retrospective Interviews (n=25 Iraqi EFL Learners)
Content Analysis ( Conversation Textbook)
Data Analysis
47.56%
36.98%
11.81%
3.65% 0%
Assertives
Directives
Expressives
Commissives
Declarations
96.83%
3.17%
0.00%
20.00%
40.00%
60.00%
80.00%
100.00%
120.00%
Other Types of Expressives Complimentins
Figure 1 Figure 2
Contact: [email protected]
Findings to date: Figure (1) shows that Speech Acts in the textbook under inquiry are not evenly distributed.
Figure (2) indicates that complimenting expressions in relation to other types of
expressive speech acts are inadequately represented in the textbook.
References Holmes,J.(1986).’Compliments and compliment responses in New Zealand English’
Anthroplogical Linguistics, Vol.28, No.4:485-518.
Ting-Toomy(2005).Communicating across Cultures..New York:Guilford Press.
Wierzbicka,A.(2003).Cross-Cultural Pagmatics:The Semantics of Human Interaction. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Acknowledgements: (Scholarship- Wasit University – Iraq)
Methodology Triangulation
Discourse Completion
Task
Retrospective Interviews
Content Analysis
Quantitative Qualitative
SPSS
Software
Analytical
Statistics
Content Analysis using
descriptive and analytic codes
Overview of Literature
Pragmatics: The study of meaning in interaction, including roles of participants in
shaping the meaning conveyed and the context in which meaning is to be
communicated.
Speech acts are all the acts we carry out while speaking .
Studies underpinning the investigation of speech acts within different languages
have originated in the field of cross-cultural pragmatics.
Different hierarchies of values are reflected in cross-cultural communication
(Wierzbicka,2003)
The use of modified scenarios in the DCT enriches comparability due to the
constancy of these situations and it is one of the most practical tools used in
data collection in cross-cultural studies .