American English and Syrian Arabic Forms of Address: A Contrastive Analysis

Abstract

The purpose of the study is to conduct a contrastive analysis of American English and Syrian Arabic address forms and account for their pragmatic characteristics within the settings of family and acquaintances. The scientific novelty of the study lies in its new data displaying the influence of social and cultural context on language use, which may lend support to the existing literature that aims at understanding the constructions of social relationships. The findings of the study have shown that the American culture is individualistic, in which the communicative style is oriented toward flattening the hierarchy. By contrast, the Syrian culture is collectivistic, in which the communicative style is age- and status-oriented.

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About this article

Publication history

• Received: October 13, 2021.
• Published: December 28, 2021.

Keywords

• forms of address
• (im)politeness
• kinship terms
• cultural identity
• communicative styles
• формы обращения
• (не)вежливость
• термины родства
• культурное своеобразие
• коммуникативные стили

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© 2021 The Author(s)
© 2021 Gramota Publishing, LLC

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Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)