Cultural Values and Norms of Communication: A View From the Middle East

Abstract

Cultural knowledge is an important component of intercultural communicative competence which is fundamental for the second language acquisition. It is essential for the development of sociocultural, pragmatic, and communicative competences of second language learners. Cultural values of any community pilot how people interact with one another. To put it differently, they form understanding of politeness which being a universal phenomenon differs across cultures and shape communicative styles. The present study analyzes three Middle Eastern cultures (Persian, Syrian and Jordanian) and seeks to demonstrate how Muslim values and notions of politeness construct the norms of interpersonal interactions. The paper is limited to the speech act of address in the settings of family, acquaintances and strangers. The data for the study were collected from two questionnaires, serial television drama, YouTube social experiments as well as ethnographic observations. They were examined drawing on (im)politeness theory, speech act theory, discourse analysis, research on identity construction and cultural studies. The paper highlights some communicative specificities of the three Middle Eastern lingua-cultures concerning address forms and their usage and shows how they are predetermined by culture and cultural values. Our findings confirm the fact that communicative styles in collectivistic Muslim cultures are status-oriented, the individuals of these cultures demonstrate a remarkable vertical distance and highly regard status and age. Our results manifest that the principals of identity primarily emerging from Muslims" holy book "Quran" are the basis of politeness norms in Persian, Syrian and Jordanian communicative cultures and indicate that linguistic politeness in these cultural contexts are strongly established on showing respect in addressing older people. The findings of the research may help foster intercultural communications if employed in second language teaching classes and may have significant implications in translation studies and practice.

Indonesian and English Cultural Values in Buku Bahasa Inggris Textbook Grade 8

“…Moreover, code P.56/012 discussed about Yogyakarta traditions and custom where they have to bow when passing in front of the people especially the elderly to show their respect to them. That traditions and custom are also a culture of Islamic culture where young people are expected to show their respect to the elders (Khosh et al, 2020). h) National Marked Days Those data were classified as national marked days in source culture because it contains Indonesia Marked Days.…”

Politeness Strategies in British and Persian Family Discourse: Forms of Addressing

“…Consequently, addressing forms are explained in the framework of (im)politeness theories as the selection of a specific form of addressing which is determined by how polite/ impolite it sounds in a specific circumestance. Meanwhile, P. Brown and S. Levinson [9] state that addressing forms act as significant linguistic mechanisms that shape the interlocutors' evaluation of their relationships as well as their perspectives towards other people in daily communicative encounters [21].…”

“…(father to daughter) (8) Could you please babysit your little brother? (mother to daughter) However, in British family, the strategies of politeness of addressing in bottom-up context between children and parents are conducted by using "Mom/Dad", or their first name as in the following situations, when the son addresses his mother in order to bring him a glass of water (9-10), when the son addresses his father for repairing his bike (11)(12) Meanwhile, in Persian family, the politeness strategies of addressing in top-down context between parents and children are structured by using "my daughter / my son", name and nickname as in the situations below, when the father addresses his daughter for passing him the salt at dinner table (15)(16)(17), when the mother addresses her daughter for babysitting her sibling (18)(19), when the father addresses his son after repairing his bike (20)(21), and when the father addresses his son for cleaning the garage (22)(23) Our analysis reveals that in Persian culture, addressing parents by their first names is an impolite and nonappropriate style of addressing. Whereas in British family, politeness strategies of addressing parents are formulated by using their first names besides "Mom" or "Dad".…”