scholarly journals Politeness Strategies in English Business Letters: a Comparative Study of Native and Non-Native Speakers of English

2015 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elahe Goudarzi ◽  
Behzad Ghonsooly ◽  
Zahra Taghipour
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Study ◽  
Social Distance ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Frequent Use ◽  
Politeness Strategies ◽  
Native Speakers Of English

Abstract This study investigated the use of politeness strategies in a corpus of English business letters written by Iranian non-native speakers in comparison with business letters written by English native speakers. The positive and negative politeness strategies proposed by Brown and Levinson’s (1978) theory were employed. A corpus of 46 business letters written by non-native employees of four companies and 46 letters written by native speakers who were in correspondence with these companies were analyzed to examine their use of politeness strategies. Th e results collected from the analysis of letters written by nonnative parties as senders were compared to those written by native speakers as receivers in response. Th e findings showed that although both parties used both types of politeness strategies in their letters, non-native participants employed both types (negative and positive politeness strategies) more than native speakers, especially positive politeness strategies, which were found to be used more frequently than negative ones. Additionally, the results demonstrated that social distance plays an important role in the employment of different strategies, particularly in choosing the type of salutation, which is an act requiring the positive politeness strategy to reduce face threatening act. Th us, more frequent use of positive politeness strategies by non-native speakers could be an effect of this factor.

A contrastive pragmatic study of politeness strategies in disagreement between native speakers of English and Chinese EFL learners

2016 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Chu Yan
Keyword(s):  
Social Distance ◽  
Social Power ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Pragmatic Competence ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Cross Cultural Study ◽  
Politeness Strategies ◽  
Completion Test ◽  
Native Speakers Of English ◽  
Chinese Undergraduates

AbstractThis paper attempts to make a contrastive cross-cultural study of a special speech act— “disagreement.” Participants are 35 American undergraduates and 42 Chinese undergraduates respectively with the data eliciting technique—DCT (discourse completion test). Findings show that Chinese undergraduates tend to use different politeness strategies according to different social distance and social power while American undergraduates prefer to use positive politeness strategy most followed by negative politeness strategy, regardless of social distance and social power. The results of the study reveal cultural differences between the U.S. and China that lead to the distribution of diverse politeness strategies and also offer insights into what Chinese EFL learners are struggling with during their development of interlanguage pragmatic competence.

scholarly journals Strategies and mitigation devices in the speech act of disagreement in American English

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-39
Author(s):  
Hassen Khammari
Keyword(s):  
Social Distance ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
American English ◽  
Strategy Selection ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Lower Status ◽  
Politeness Strategies ◽  
Completion Test ◽  
Native Speakers Of English

The present study aimed at exploring the strategies of disagreement and hedging devices used by native speakers of English. The study elicited the informants’ reactions when disagreeing with higher, equal, and lower status. The responses were analyzed using Brown and Levinson’s (1987) politeness model and Hyland’s (1998) hedging taxonomy. Discourse completion test data was analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. The findings revealed that native speakers of American English used positive politeness strategies considerably with higher and equal status interlocutors (father, teacher, and friends). The respondents were concerned with saving their interlocutors’ positive face regardless of their social distance and power. The only significant difference, in terms of strategy selection, was identified in highly face-threatening contexts (accusation), where the informants opted for bald on record politeness strategies because of the seriousness of the interlocutor’s (supervisor) claims (plagiarism). The data showed also that native speakers relied on hedges considerably to mitigate their disagreements.

CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF REFUSAL EXPRESSIONS IN JAPANESE AND BAHASA AT WORKPLACE

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 132
Author(s):  
Maria Gustini
Keyword(s):  
Social Distance ◽  
Speech Acts ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Japanese Language ◽  
Contrastive Analysis ◽  
Politeness Theory ◽  
Research Subjects ◽  
Politeness Strategies ◽  
Completion Test ◽  
Age Range

This article examines Contrastive Analysis of Refusal in Indonesian language and Japanese language. Up to now, there have been no contrastive researchs which compare refusal speech acts within Indonesian language and Japanese language, focused on working situations. This article reports on a study to investigate differences and similarities in the politeness strategies of refusals between Japanese language (JS) and Indonesian language (IS). This study employed politeness theory of Brown and Levinson (1987). Therefore the participants of this research were Indonesian and Japanese who currently work in company, school, etc. This research used descriptive method and collecting data using DCT (Discourse Completion Test) in Indonesian and Japanese. Therefore, the research subjects were those who already worked with the age-range from 22 to 50 years. 40 native speakers of Indonesian (IS) and 40 native speakers of Japanese (JS) participated in this study. All participants were asked to fill out a Discourse Completion Test (DCT) which written in the form role-play questionaire, consisting of 3 situations. DCT situations were categorized based on power and familiarity/social distance between speaker and hearer. Results are as follows: (1) JS and IS using apology, reason, fuka, and requeirment in refusal act. (2) IS explain reason clearly in refusal act. Other hand JS using aimai reason. (3) JS used expressions of apology appropriately according to their power (hierarchical position), while IS made appropriate use of these expressions according to relative social distance. (4) IS tend to using requeirement in each refusal act.

scholarly journals Speech Acts across Cultures: A Comparative Study of Chinese and Pakistani Students’ Request and Politeness Strategies

sjesr ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Amina Shahzadi ◽  
Abdul Ghaffar Bhatti ◽  
Munir Khan
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Study ◽  
Social Distance ◽  
Speech Acts ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Chinese Students ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Politeness Strategies ◽  
Request Strategies ◽  
Esl Learners

The examines are the different request strategies in English used by Pakistani and Chinese students according to social distance and power of interlocutors. Data comprises students from Pakistan and China enrolled in an undergraduate program at International Islamic University Islamabad, Pakistan. Blum-Kulka, House, and Kasper's (1989) taxonomy of request strategies is taken as a theoretical framework to compare the request speech act patterns of Pakistani and Chinese students. This study analyzed the request speech act in terms of head act strategies used by participants. Blum-Kulka et al. (1989) categorized the request speech act into three request strategies i.e. direct, conventionally indirect, and non-conventional indirect strategies. The study identifies similarities between Pakistani ESL learners and Chinese EFL learners in making use of mood derivable as the preferred strategies for making requests in situations of different social distance, power, and familiarity between the interlocutors.

scholarly journals Story Genres in SFL: A More Flexible Taxonomy. Extrapolating a Taxonomy of Story Genres in Spanish to Story Genres in English

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-22
Author(s):  
Grisel Salmaso
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Comparative Study ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Age And Gender ◽  
Generic Structure ◽  
Educational Backgrounds ◽  
Native Speakers Of English ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Gender Groups

The purpose of this article is: (i) to highlight the importance of makingthe generic structure of the story genres proposed by Plum (2004) and Martin and Rose (2008) more flexible within the Systemic Functional Framework (SFL); (ii) to take up a taxonomy proposed for story genres in Spanish (Salmaso 2009, 2010 a, 2010 b, 2012 a , 2014) which grants more flexibility to the generic structure of the five genres of the narrative family (‘recounts’, ‘narratives’, ‘anecdotes’, ‘exempla’ and ‘observations’) (Plum 2004, Martin and Rose 2008); (iii) to engage in a comparative study of the generic structure of one of the story genres: ‘anecdote’.To this end, nine instances of ‘anecdotes’ wereanalyzed. All of the ‘anecdotes’ are written by native speakers of English belonging to different age and gender groups but with similar educational backgrounds (higher education). The examples are analyzed following Salmaso (2010, 2014) and comparisons are drawn between some aspects of the analysis presented herein withthe analyses done following Plum’s (2004) and Martin and Rose’s (2008) taxonomies. Results show that it is possible to extrapolate the taxonomy of story genres in Spanish to English, in particular with respect to the genre ‘anecdote’ which is the focus of this article. Furthermore, this taxonomy enriches the analysis of ‘anecdotes’ andmay be simpler and clearer for applied purposes, such as teaching.

scholarly journals Speech Act of Greeting for American Native Speakers of English and Saudi Native Speakers of Arabic: A Comparative Study

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (7) ◽  
pp. 243
Author(s):  
Rehan Almegren
Keyword(s):  
Social Status ◽  
Social Distance ◽  
Speech Acts ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
American English ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Arabic Speakers ◽  
Native Speakers Of English ◽  
Saudi Arabic

This study focuses on comparing the speech acts of native Arabic speakers of Saudi region and English speakers of America, which help depict the impact of the variables involved, namely status, setting, social distance and situation formality. This paper makes a significant contribution for future researchers, as it is of help to researchers in the speech act area specifically in terms of Saudi Arabic and American English. It will be also of help to those learning Arabic or English and those who teach it in these two countries. Thus, the outcome of this research will contribute to depict the differences and the similarities in the use of greeting strategies between two different groups of respondents from diverse linguistic and cultural domains. Data was collected using the discourse completion test (DCT), developed by Cohen, Olshtain & Rosenstien (1985). Fifty female respondents within the age group of 20-25 years were selected from each group to participate in research procedures. Although the inclusion of male respondents would have made the process complex, it would have provided with comparatively more accurate outcomes if managed properly. The findings showed that linguistic and cultural differences, variables of social distance, social status, settings and situation formality greatly influenced the decision-making of Saudi Native Speakers of Arabic and American Native Speakers of English, pertaining to their usage of greeting strategies as part of their speech acts. For example, differences can be observed between these two speakers in terms of their greeting strategies; American English speakers attach less significance to social and physical distance and hierarchy compared to Saudi Arabic speakers. Similarly, both the groups attach almost equal importance to their initiation words when greeting others. These differences and similarities help determine social status and the relationship between speakers. 

scholarly journals The encounter of two cultural identities: The case of social deixis

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 344-365
Author(s):  
Magdaléna Bilá ◽  
Alena Kačmárová ◽  
Ingrida Vaňková
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Social Distance ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Discursive Practice ◽  
Relationship Type ◽  
Relationship Types ◽  
Native Speakers Of English ◽  
Specific Culture ◽  
Social Deixis ◽  
The Relationship

In contact with foreign environment, the encounter of two (or more) cultures is common in situations with an incompatible cultural aspect. A typical example is T-V distinction. In most languages, mainly European ones, conveying social deixis oscillates between two poles: T and V forms. Present-day English is the only mainstream language with the absence of morphological markers for conveying T/V relationships. The present research examines the concept of expressing social distance in Slovak and in English, languages respectively having and lacking overt T/V markers, in order to specify the distinctiveness of English vs. Slovak lingua-cultural identity and/or discursive practice of the respective culture with regard to expressing social distance. This is done in two steps. Firstly, the underlying concepts (a lingua-cultural identity, social distance, T/V forms) are studied by means of the conceptualizing scheme (Kačmárová, Bilá, Vaňková 2018); its essence lies in accounting for and in aligning four sub-processes: frame establishment, encoding (pre-understanding), contextualization (salience), and code configuration. The conceptualization process utilized a set of principles (adopted from Clyne, Norrby & Warren 2009). Secondly, based on the theoretical results, the questionnaires were designed. The questions for native speakers of Slovak examined the preferences in the usage of T vs. V forms; the questions for native speakers of English examined the preferences in the usage of informal vs. formal ways of communication. The present study indicates that the conceptualizing process may as well be of hierarchical nature. Thus, the mere conceptualization of T vs. V or informal vs. formal may emanate from the conceptualization of social distance in terms of a set of principles, the conceptualization of the specific principle in terms of the relationship types, the conceptualization of the relationship type in terms of a specific culture and the conceptualization of a culture-specific relationship type through language means (T or V).

Apology strategies in English and Vietnamese

IJOHMN ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Thu Lau
Keyword(s):  
Family Member ◽  
Social Distance ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Linguistic Competence ◽  
Native Speakers Of English ◽  
Esl Learners

The paper examined the differences in apology strategies between native speakers of English and advanced Vietnamese ESL learners as well as the factors that might result in those differences through discourse completion tests (DCTs). The data were coded in terms of five apology strategies, and were analyzed according to four situational categories in relation to age, dominance, social distance, and weight of offence. The result indicated that the apologies of the Vietnamese ESL learners showed more politeness and respect for people from higher status, closeness to a friend, less courtesy to an equal and less respect (but greater intimacy) for their kid, a family member. By contrast, the degree of politeness, sincerity and respect of the apologies of the native speakers depended heavily on the weight of offence and the situation itself. The acts of apologizing of the Vietnamese group were significantly influenced by the hierarchical culture of Vietnam, and their restricted linguistic competence as well.

A Comparative Study of Fluoride Containing Chlorhexidine and Non-Chlorhexidine Mouthrinses in a Teenage Group

2012 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Didem Atabek ◽  
Alev Alaçam ◽  
Burcu Çakılcı ◽  
Aysel Berkkan
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Study ◽  
Essential Oils ◽  
Oral Hygiene ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Cetylpyridinium Chloride ◽  
Risk Groups ◽  
Sign Test ◽  
Gingival Index ◽  
Experimental Gingivitis ◽  
Native Speakers Of English

Aim: The study was planned to assess the effect of a mouthrinse containing Chlorhexidine (CHX) and amine/stannous fluoride (AmF) on plaque accumulation, gingivitis and salivary fluoride levels in comparison with two mouthrinses containing either essential oils (EO) or cetylpyridinium chloride (CPC) with sodium fluoride (NaF) in a teenage group. Methodology: For this study 82 healthy teenage between 13 and 16 years were recruited for participation. The experimental gingivitis model consisted of a 2-weeks recruitment phase, followed by a 6-day rinsing period with one of the 4 mouthrinse formulations was used for the study. At the end of the pre-phase period and the rinsing period (Day-0/Day-6), gingival index (GI), plaque index (PI) and salivary fluoride levels were recorded. The statistical analyses were performed using Wilcoxon sign test  and the dependent t test. Results: A reduction in plaque re-growth was seen for the CHX+AmF formulation rinse, although there were no significant differences among all groups (p>0,001). During the experimental periods, the gingivitis indices increased significantly for all formulations (p<0,001), except for the CHX+AmF formulation. The CHX+AmF formulation scored higher levels of salivary fluoride at the end of the rinsing period (p>0,001). Conclusion: It reveals that the adjunctive use of AmF containing CHX mouthrinses to mechanical oral hygiene should be recommended for teenage at risk groups.  How to cite this article: Atabek D, Alaçam A, Çakılcı B, Berkkan A. A Comparative Study of Fluoride Containing Chlorhexidine and Non-Chlorhexidine Mouthrinses in a Teenage Group. Int Dent Res 2012;1:1-7. Linguistic Revision: The English in this manuscript has been checked by at least two professional editors, both native speakers of English.

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