A comparative pragmatic study of eastern Algerian Arabic and English speech acts of thanking and greeting and responding to them

Abstract

The present study investigates the problem of the pragmatic failure of third year students of English in the universities of Mila, Constantine, Guelma, Annaba, and Jijel in performing the speech acts of thanking and greeting and responding to them in cross-cultural communication. It contrasts these speech acts when performed by English natives (Engineers), English literate Algerian natives (third year students of English), and English non-literate Algerian natives (lay people) to determine whether culture, gender, social distance and status of interlocutors have an influence on the use of the speech act of thanking and the way they respond to it. It also investigates whether culture, social distance, and rank of imposition of the act have an influence on the use of the speech act of greeting, whether culture and social distance have an influence on the use of the speech act of responding to greeting, and whether Algerian learners of English transfer their Algerian Arabic pragmatic and cultural knowledge into English in cross-cultural communication. The research is based on the hypothesis that the pragmatic failure of the English literate Algerian natives in performing the speech acts of thanking and greeting and responding to both would be mainly due to pragmatic transfer of their first language pragmatic knowledge into English. To collect data and verify this hypothesis, a Discourse Completion Task is used in both Algerian Arabic and English. The obtained findings provide evidence that cultural differences play a role in the pragmatic failure of English literate Algerian natives in cross-cultural communication, in performing the speech acts of thanking and greeting and responding to both. In addition, they transfer negatively some aspects of their pragma-linguistic and socio-pragmatic knowledge into English.