English Abstract
Abstract:
This present study aimed to investigate the request strategies by Kuwaiti Arabic participants compared to British English dialects. This analysis was conducted in order to uncover the variations that occurred in the use of requests strategies by Kuwaiti Arabic and British English participants in different situations. A mixed method approach of a qualitative and quantitative analysis was used in this study with using the discourse completion test (DCT) and semi- structured interviews. Data was collected from a total of five hundred participants, two hundred and fifty from each group and sixty participants were chosen for the semi-structured interviews. The analysis of the data was based upon Brown and Levinson's (1987) social variables such as power, distance, and ranking. The data was analyzed following Blum-Kulka and Olshtain's (1984) Cross-Cultural Speech Act Realization Project (CCSARP). The outcome of the study revealed that Kuwaiti Arabic and British English participants used The conventional indirect level in the form of query preparatory in most situations. Furthermore, power as a social variable affected Kuwaiti Arabic and British English participants’ flow of a request in conversations. Participants used direct request strategies when the power of the speaker was high. As for the semi-structured interviews, it revealed that there is a sociocultural norm between the Kuwaiti society and the British society, which affected their use of requests.
Keywords: Sociopragmatics, Speech Acts, Request strategies.
