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Greetings by Arabs and Americans 國立交通大學 英語教學研究所碩士論文 A Master Thesis Presented to Institute of TESOL, National Chiao Tung University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Master of Arts 阿拉伯人與美國人問候用語之探討 “Hello” or “Salaam?” Greetings by Arabs and Americans 研究生：美麗克 Graduate: Malak Ismail Kirdasi 指導教授：鄭維容 Advisor: Dr. Stephanie W. Cheng July, 2013 Abstract Greetings are often people's first impressions of one another; therefore, learning how to greet someone appropriately is important in making a good first impression and avoiding pragmatic failures. Many studies have been conducted on the speech act of greetings, and greetings in different cultures. However, very few numbers have been examined the relationship between the contextual variables (e.g., gender and social distance) and greeting strategies. Moreover, while previous researches have been done on Arabs greeting strategies or Americans greetings strategies, no previous study put Arabs and Americans greetings in comparison. This study aims to compare between greeting strategies used by Arabs and Americans in terms of oral speech and body language. In addition, some contextual variables, such as gender, social distance, and situations have been put into test in order to examine to what extent these variables could influence the use of greeting strategies. Three different data collection methods have been used in the purpose of achieving the goals of the study. The first one was the natural observation of some occasions and gatherings, where people naturally tend to use greeting strategies. The second data collection method was using the DCT questionnaire, which included 6 situations with different variables. A total of 60 participants of both Arabs and Americans group took part in the questionnaire. Afterwards, an interview with 18 participants, from both groups, has been held to understand the participant's perceptions about greeting strategies. The results showed that both Arabs and Americans used oral speech strategies more than body language in greetings. However, Americans tended to use more oral speech than Arabs in general, and Arabs used more body language strategies than Americans. The results also showed i the differences in the greeting’s patterns used by Arabs and Americans in both oral speech and body language. While Arabs mostly used the routine greeting strategies, Americans tended to use variety of strategies and language. However, according to their culture, Arabs used many body language strategies, in which, some of them Americans avoided to use. Overall, the number and the use of greeting strategies differed between Arabs and Americans. Moreover, the contextual variables, such as gender, social distance and situations played an important role in influencing the choice of the greeting strategies in general. ii Acknowledgment Regardless the efforts of a person, the success of any project depends largely on the encouragement and guidelines of many others. I take this opportunity to express my gratitude to the people who have been instrumental in the successful completion of this thesis. First of all, I would like to show my greatest appreciation and deepest gratitude to my advisor Dr. Stephanie W. Cheng. I can’t say thank you enough for her tremendous support and help. I feel motivated and encouraged every time I attend her meeting. Without her encouragement, guidance and persistent help this thesis would not have been possible I would also like to express the deepest appreciation to committee members, Dr. Sheue- Jen Ou, and Dr. Yueh-Ching Chang, for their assistance and guidance. Thanks to all the committee members for the useful comments, remarks and engagement in this thesis. Also, I like to thank the participants in my survey, who have willingly shared their precious time during the process of interviewing. During this journey, many people have also shown their great support and help to me. All the respect and gratitude to my teachers in the TESOL department, Dr. Lin, Lu-Chun, Dr. Chang, Ching-Fen, and Dr. Sun, Yu-Chih, as well as all my classmates who made me feel like having a big loving family. I would like to thank my loved ones, who have supported me throughout entire process, both by keeping me harmonious and helping me putting pieces together. Thanks to my dear friends, Janda, Elma, Maryam, Nadia, Jana and Nicole, who have been always there for me helping, supporting, and cheering me up when feeling really down. I will be grateful forever for your love. iii Last but not least, all thanks and gratitude go to my best friend and beloved husband, Ashraf Milhim, for his love, kindness and support he has shown during the past four years it has taken me to finalize this thesis. Without him, I could never been where I am today in the first place. Furthermore I would also like to thank my parents and the whole family for their endless love and support. iv Table of Contents Abstract .......................................................................................................................................................... i Acknowledgment ......................................................................................................................................... iii List of Tables ............................................................................................................................................. viii List of Figures .............................................................................................................................................. ix Chapter One: Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 1 Background and Rationale ........................................................................................................................ 1 Purpose of the Study ................................................................................................................................. 2 Research Questions ................................................................................................................................... 3 Significance of the Study .......................................................................................................................... 3 Chapter Two: Literature Review................................................................................................................... 4 Conversational Routines and Speech Acts ................................................................................................ 4 What is conversation? ........................................................................................................................... 5 Conversational routine. ......................................................................................................................... 7 What is speech act? ............................................................................................................................... 8 The Speech Act of Greeting ...................................................................................................................... 9 Definition of greetings. ....................................................................................................................... 10 Greetings and body language. ............................................................................................................. 12 Greetings in religious and other occasions.......................................................................................... 17 Greetings in Different Cultures ............................................................................................................... 19 Greetings in American English. .......................................................................................................... 22 Greetings in Arabic culture. ................................................................................................................ 25 Politeness Theory .................................................................................................................................... 27 What is politeness? ............................................................................................................................. 27 Politeness and gender. ......................................................................................................................... 28 Greetings and politeness. .................................................................................................................... 29 Social Distance........................................................................................................................................ 31 Second Language Acquisition and Pragmatic Failure in Greetings ........................................................ 32 Chapter Three: Methodology ...................................................................................................................... 36 Observation ............................................................................................................................................. 36 v Settings. ............................................................................................................................................... 37 Participants. ......................................................................................................................................... 37 DCT Questionnaire ................................................................................................................................
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