ERIC Number: EJ1374328
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2022
Pages: 14
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: EISSN-2149-1135
The Role of Requestee's Gender in the Choice of Request Strategies by Female Speakers of Saudi Colloquial Arabic
Eurasian Journal of Applied Linguistics, v8 n2 p108-121 2022
This study examined the impact of requestee's gender on the choice of request strategies by female speakers of Saudi Colloquial Arabic. A Discourse Completion Test consisting of twelve situations was used to collect data from two groups of participants. The first group consisted of 40 Saudi females directing their requests to female requestees. The second group consisted of 40 Saudi females directing their requests to male requestees. The collected data from the two groups were compared and analyzed using Blum-Kulka, House, and Kasper's (1989) coding scheme of request head act strategies. Findings suggest that Saudi females varied their request strategies based on the gender of requestee. While they tended to use more direct request strategies with females, they tended to use more indirect request strategies with males. A remarkable finding revealed by this study relates to situations in which the rate of imposition is high. While Saudi females tended to use more indirect request strategies with females in these situations, most of them refused to make a request to males regardless of the power and social distance between interlocuters. This study's findings, however, have to be understood in terms of the specific nature of the cultural norms of Saudi society. Since Saudi Arabia is a gender-segregated society, it is expected that females would keep distance from males who are not first-degree relatives. This would normally entail the use of higher level of indirectness and avoidance of requesting weighty personal favors.
Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Arabic, Dialects, Gender Differences, Females, Language Usage, Context Effect, Cultural Influences, Interpersonal Communication
Eurasian Journal of Applied Linguistics. Canakkale Onsekiz Mart University, Anafartalar Campus Faculty of Education Department of Foreign Language Education, Canakkale 07100, Turkey. e-mail: editor@ejal.info; Website: https://ejal.info/
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research; Tests/Questionnaires
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Saudi Arabia
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A