Advice in English and Arabic television health programs

Abstract

This study deals with advising speech act from a polite point of view. Advising speech act implies that there is an expert who has knowledge of something and tries to share it with others for their own benefit .Since this study is concerned with health advice, it is very important to show the language used in health context which is medical language. The current study investigates the pieces of advice that are presented in TV health programmes 'The Doctors' and 'Green Apple'. This study aims at:(1) showing the difference between 'The Doctors' and 'Green Apple' programmes in presenting advising speech act with its strategies,(2) shedding light on health advice in T.V programmes and (3) showing the difference between English and Arabic health programmes with regard to politeness types and their strategies. To achieve these aims , the study hypothesizes that:(1)all advising speech acts in 'The Doctors' and 'Green Apple' are performed within a framework of politeness,(2)there is a difference between English and Arabic programmes concerning the employment of politeness types as the Arabic programme 'Green Apple' uses negative politeness more than the English program 'The Doctors' and(3)both

Advice-seeking and advice-giving in Arabic computer-mediated communication in the medical context

“…Several studies have been conducted to investigate the speech act of giving health advice in different contexts, including radio advice programs ( DeCapua and Dunham, 1993 ), TV health programs ( Ahmed and Ahmed, 2019 ), Twitter ( El-Dakhs, 2021 ), and online forums ( Morrow, 2006 ; Kouper, 2010 ; Locher, 2013 ; Pung, 2017 ; Bates, 2021 ). For example, in the context of radio advice programs, DeCapua and Dunham (1993) examined the patterns in American English used by speakers (adults) when requesting and giving advice.…”

“…This is because the advice-seeker expects the request to be evident from the description of the problem. On the TV health programs, Ahmed and Ahmed (2019) examined the advice given in Arabic (Green Apple) and English (doctors) programs. The results showed that all pieces of advice in the two programs were used in polite expressions, which reflects the strong relationship between advising speech acts and politeness.…”

“…The models were employed and modified to cover the new discourse patterns and strategies in both advice-seeking and advice-giving in the Arabic online medical context. Earlier studies in Arabic on the discourse realization of speech acts in the medical context focused on the advice that is used in Arabic and English TV health programs ( Ahmed and Ahmed, 2019 ) and what advice-giving strategies the departments of health in Saudi Arabia and Australia provided to the public during the COVID-19 crisis on Twitter ( El-Dakhs, 2021 ) but not on medical websites. Therefore, the current study is distinguished by its focus on advice-seeking by patients and advice-oriented responses by doctors on Arabic medical consulting websites with the aim of answering the following questions:…”