The pragmatics of requests in Lebanese Arabic and English in the discourse of Lebanese students -

Abstract

This thesis examined the politeness strategies involved in making requests in English and Lebanese Arabic. It investigated the influence of gender and interlocutor status on speakers’ choice of strategy. Data were collected by means of a discourse completion task (DCT) that was administered to 137 students in 8 sections of English 202, Sophomore Rhetoric, at the Lebanese American University’s Beirut campus. Only 51, however, were chosen that fit the inclusion criteria. DCTs contained six items where respondents had to answer as if they were in that particular situation. They were asked to respond in both English and Arabic. Data were coded and analyzed according to the coding scheme proposed by Blum-Kulka and Olshtain (1989). They were first classified into direct-conventionally indirect- non-conventionally indirect responses and then further subdivided into the 9 subcategories presented in the CCSARP coding manual. The results revealed that the participants generally and overwhelmingly preferred conventionally indirect strategies, followed by direct strategies. Hints were not used in any of the groups, and this was explained by an aversion to ambiguity and a preference for pragmatic clarity. Gender of the speakers was an influential factor: as expected, females preferred to use conventionally indirect strategies in both languages. Male participants also used conventionally indirect strategies more frequently than the other categories, albeit far less than the females. In terms of the sub-strategies used, it was found that the query preparatory strategy (asking for permission-ability-willingness to perform the act in question) was the most preferred strategy by both males and females across the two language groups. However, a Chi-Square analysis showed that gender was not a statistically significant factor. Another finding is that status was not as influential as initially thought. Social distance was more influential than status; generally, the more unfamiliar the hearer was to the speaker, the le