Invitation refusal and politeness strategies among Iraqi Arabic speakers

Studies have shown that an invitation refusal is a sensitive, cultural-specific and socially dispreferred speech act. Coming from different cultures and speaking different languages as mother tongues, Iraqi Arabs and Iraqi Kurds have different styles of realizing refusal speech act which in tum wil...

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Main Author:	Nassar, Arkan Abdul Hasan
Format:	Thesis
Language:	eng eng eng
Published:	2021
Subjects:	PN Literature (General)
Online Access:	https://etd.uum.edu.my/9502/1/depositpermission-not%20allow_s901526.pdf https://etd.uum.edu.my/9502/2/s901526_01.pdf https://etd.uum.edu.my/9502/3/s901526_02.pdf
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id	my-uum-etd.9502
record_format	uketd_dc
spelling	my-uum-etd.95022022-06-14T08:28:03Z Invitation refusal and politeness strategies among Iraqi Arabic speakers 2021 Nassar, Arkan Abdul Hasan Saad, Norma Mohd Nordin, Nur Rasyidah Awang Had Salleh Graduate School of Arts & Sciences Awang Had Salleh Graduate School of Arts & Sciences PN Literature (General) Studies have shown that an invitation refusal is a sensitive, cultural-specific and socially dispreferred speech act. Coming from different cultures and speaking different languages as mother tongues, Iraqi Arabs and Iraqi Kurds have different styles of realizing refusal speech act which in tum will lead to miscommunication. While previous studies focused on multiple speech acts as initiation acts of refusal and had limited scope of social status and distance, this study focuses on refusal invitation speech act only but covering a wider scope of interlocutors' social status (lower, equal and high status) and social distance (close, familiar and distant). Hence, the present study investigates the invitation refusal and politeness strategies of the two groups when refusing in an Iraqi Arabic dialect and delineates the socio-cultural norms that underlie the employment of these strategies. Data were obtained from 50 Iraqi Arabs and 50 Iraqi Kurds through an open-ended Written Discourse Completion Task and a Focus Group Interview. Data from the task were analysed according to Beebe at al. 's (1990) classification of semantic formulas and Brown and Levinson's (1987) theory of politeness while data from the interview were analysed to identify the social and cultural norms that affected their invitation refusal. The findings revealed that both groups preferred indirectness with excuse and regret/apology being the preferred strategies, In terms of directness, Iraqi Kurds' use of directness was more conspicuous as they employed more negative willingness apart from using performative and Hat "no". The two groups also differed in their employment of direct, indirect, and adjuncts strategies as their pre-refusal, head act, or post-refusal in relation to the three levels of social status and social distance. The two groups' politeness strategies showed that positive politeness was more prevalent followed by negative politeness and they also shared similar social and cultural norms which influenced their refusal. The findings can be utilised to raise awareness among the two groups in regard to the differences and similarities in realisations of the speech act of invitation refusal. The findings will also help in reducing misunderstanding or any possible pragmatic failure between Iraqi Arabs and Iraqi Kurds, and thus may assist in enhancing solidarity. 2021 Thesis https://etd.uum.edu.my/9502/ https://etd.uum.edu.my/9502/1/depositpermission-not%20allow_s901526.pdf text eng staffonly https://etd.uum.edu.my/9502/2/s901526_01.pdf text eng staffonly https://etd.uum.edu.my/9502/3/s901526_02.pdf text eng staffonly other doctoral Universiti Utara Malaysia
institution	Universiti Utara Malaysia
collection	UUM ETD
language	eng eng eng
advisor	Saad, Norma Mohd Nordin, Nur Rasyidah
topic	PN Literature (General)
spellingShingle	PN Literature (General) Nassar, Arkan Abdul Hasan Invitation refusal and politeness strategies among Iraqi Arabic speakers
description	Studies have shown that an invitation refusal is a sensitive, cultural-specific and socially dispreferred speech act. Coming from different cultures and speaking different languages as mother tongues, Iraqi Arabs and Iraqi Kurds have different styles of realizing refusal speech act which in tum will lead to miscommunication. While previous studies focused on multiple speech acts as initiation acts of refusal and had limited scope of social status and distance, this study focuses on refusal invitation speech act only but covering a wider scope of interlocutors' social status (lower, equal and high status) and social distance (close, familiar and distant). Hence, the present study investigates the invitation refusal and politeness strategies of the two groups when refusing in an Iraqi Arabic dialect and delineates the socio-cultural norms that underlie the employment of these strategies. Data were obtained from 50 Iraqi Arabs and 50 Iraqi Kurds through an open-ended Written Discourse Completion Task and a Focus Group Interview. Data from the task were analysed according to Beebe at al. 's (1990) classification of semantic formulas and Brown and Levinson's (1987) theory of politeness while data from the interview were analysed to identify the social and cultural norms that affected their invitation refusal. The findings revealed that both groups preferred indirectness with excuse and regret/apology being the preferred strategies, In terms of directness, Iraqi Kurds' use of directness was more conspicuous as they employed more negative willingness apart from using performative and Hat "no". The two groups also differed in their employment of direct, indirect, and adjuncts strategies as their pre-refusal, head act, or post-refusal in relation to the three levels of social status and social distance. The two groups' politeness strategies showed that positive politeness was more prevalent followed by negative politeness and they also shared similar social and cultural norms which influenced their refusal. The findings can be utilised to raise awareness among the two groups in regard to the differences and similarities in realisations of the speech act of invitation refusal. The findings will also help in reducing misunderstanding or any possible pragmatic failure between Iraqi Arabs and Iraqi Kurds, and thus may assist in enhancing solidarity.
format	Thesis
qualification_name	other
qualification_level	Doctorate
author	Nassar, Arkan Abdul Hasan
author_facet	Nassar, Arkan Abdul Hasan
author_sort	Nassar, Arkan Abdul Hasan
title	Invitation refusal and politeness strategies among Iraqi Arabic speakers
title_short	Invitation refusal and politeness strategies among Iraqi Arabic speakers
title_full	Invitation refusal and politeness strategies among Iraqi Arabic speakers
title_fullStr	Invitation refusal and politeness strategies among Iraqi Arabic speakers
title_full_unstemmed	Invitation refusal and politeness strategies among Iraqi Arabic speakers
title_sort	invitation refusal and politeness strategies among iraqi arabic speakers
granting_institution	Universiti Utara Malaysia
granting_department	Awang Had Salleh Graduate School of Arts & Sciences
publishDate	2021
url	https://etd.uum.edu.my/9502/1/depositpermission-not%20allow_s901526.pdf https://etd.uum.edu.my/9502/2/s901526_01.pdf https://etd.uum.edu.my/9502/3/s901526_02.pdf
_version_	1747828609848967168

Invitation refusal and politeness strategies among Iraqi Arabic speakers

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