Requests and Responses to Requests in Jordanian Arabic

Authors: Raghad Abu Salma, Beatrice Szczepek Reed

Abstract:

Politeness is one of the most researched areas in pragmatics as it is key to interpersonal interactional phenomena. Many studies, particularly in linguistics, have focused on developing politeness theories and exploring linguistic devices used in communication to construct and establish social norms. However, the question of what constitutes polite language remains a point of ongoing debate. Prior research primarily examined politeness in English and its native speaking communities, oversimplifying the notion of politeness and associating it with surface-level language use. There is also a dearth of literature on politeness in Arabic, particularly in the context of Jordanian Arabic. Prior research investigating politeness in Arabic make generalized claims about politeness in Arabic without taking the linguistic variations into account or providing empirical evidence. This proposed research aims to explore how Jordanian Arabic influences its first language users in making and responding to requests, exploring participants' perceptions of politeness and the linguistic choices they make in their interactions. The study focuses on Jordanian expats living in London, UK providing an intercultural perspective that prior research does not consider. This study employs a mixed-methods approach combining discourse completion tasks (DCTs) with semi-structured interviews. While DCTs provide insight into participants’ linguistic choices, semi-structured interviews glean insight into participants' perceptions of politeness and their linguistic choices impacted by cultural norms and diverse experiences. This paper discusses previous research on politeness in Arabic, identifies research gaps, and discusses different methods for data collection. This paper also presents preliminary findings from the ongoing study.

Keywords: politeness, pragmatics, jordanian arabic, intercultural politeness