[lg policy] Linguist List Issue: Cross-Cultural Pragmatics of the Expressions of Gratitude in the Performance of Native Speakers of American English, Iraqi Arabic, and Iraqi EFL Learners

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H. Schiffman thought you might be interested in this item from the LINGUIST List
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H. Schiffman says ...

Interesting dissertation on cross-cultural pragmatics
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Message1: Cross-Cultural Pragmatics of the Expressions of Gratitude in the Performance of Native Speakers of American English, Iraqi Arabic, and Iraqi EFL Learners
Date:09-Jul-2012
From:Nassier Al-Zubaidi naghubin1975 at yahoo.com
LINGUIST List issue http://linguistlist.org/issues/23/23-2982.html 


Institution: University of Baghdad 
Program: PHD Program (Linguistics) 
Dissertation Status: Completed 
Degree Date: 2011 

Author: Nassier Abbas Ghubin Al-Zubaidi

Dissertation Title: Cross-Cultural Pragmatics of the Expressions of Gratitude
in the Performance of Native Speakers of American English,
Iraqi Arabic, and Iraqi EFL Learners 

Linguistic Field(s): Pragmatics

Subject Language(s): Arabic, Standard (arb)
                     English (eng)


Dissertation Director(s):
Dr. Abdullatif Alwan Al-Jumaily

Dissertation Abstract:

Expressing gratitude is one of the most frequently occurring 
communicative acts in most human languages/cultures. It is a pragmatic 
function that is crucial in establishing and maintaining social bonds. 
The present study investigates Iraqi EFL learners' realization and 
perception of the speech act of expressing gratitude compared to the 
performance of native speakers of American English and Iraqi Arabic. 
The objectives of the present study are: (1) to investigate the 
production and perception of the speech act of expressing gratitude by 
native speakers of American English, Iraqi Arabic, and Iraqi EFL 
learners; (2) to investigate whether these three groups employ similar 
or different patterns in realizing and perceiving the speech act under 
investigation, and whether Iraqi EFL learners are closer to Iraqi Arabic 
or American English speech norms; (3) to investigate the influence of 
L1 pragmatic transfer on Iraqi EFL learners' performance; (4) to 
investigate the influence of contextual variables of social status, social 
distance and imposition on the three groups' pragmatic performance; 
and (5) to investigate the influence of cultural values and assumptions 
on the three groups' pragmatic performance. The data were collected 
through a discourse completion task (DCT) and a scaled-response task 
(SRT) which were utilized to elicit pragmalinguistic knowledge and 
sociopragmatic knowledge respectively from 150 participants divided 
into three groups: (1) 50 native speakers of American English; (2) 50 
native speakers of Iraqi Arabic; and (3) 50 Iraqi EFL learners.  The 
results show that: (1) on the perception level, the three groups followed 
different patterns in assessing the four perceptional questions of the 
degree of gratefulness, the degree of imposition, the likelihood of 
expected gratitude giving, and the likelihood of expected gratitude 
responding; (2) on the production level, the three groups generated 
relatively similar strategy types with some exceptions and different 
amount of strategy use. As far as length of speech is concerned, Iraqi 
EFL learners generated a different number of strategies of thanks 
giving and responding compared to that of native speakers of American 
English and of Iraqi Arabic; (3) contextual variables influenced the 
groups' production and perception of the speech behavior under 
investigations. Overall, Iraqi Arabic and Iraqi EFL groups were more 
sensitive to social status while American English group was more 
sensitive to social distance. As to the degree of imposition, it 
consistently affected the three groups' performance; (4) Iraqi EFL 
learners demonstrated a relatively developmental pattern 
approximating the use of American English norms of speech, though  
they continued to be significantly influenced by their L1; (5) both 
negative pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic transfers were found in 
Iraqi EFL learners' production and perception of the speech act under 
investigation; and (6) cultural values and assumptions of both native 
cultural groups influenced the production and perception of the speech 
act under investigation. Based on the findings, the study concludes 
with some pedagogical implications that could be implemented in the 
EFL context, and presents some suggestions for future research.
 


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