The role of religion in shaping politeness during greeting encounters in Arabic. A matter of conflict or understanding

Bouchara, Abdelaziz; Qorchi, Bouchra

The role of religion in shaping politeness during greeting encounters in Arabic. A matter of conflict or understanding

by Abdelaziz Bouchara (Author) Bouchra Qorchi (Author)

Summary

Politeness is one of the very important issues in the field of sociolinguistics and pragmatics, as it can be seen in almost every type of our interactions. Since the evolving of the politeness theory (Brown and Levinson 1978), cross-cultural pragmatics has gained the attention of many researchers in this field. However, the Arab society has been far less investigated. Therefore, this book widens the scope of cross-cultural pragmatics by investigating politeness in (Moroccan) Arabic and contrasting the behavior of Arab and German speakers with regard to one type of politeness, namely the speech act of greeting. Furthermore, the implications of this study for foreign language teaching and cross-cultural training indicate that politeness and face concerns in different cultures should be part of any learning process. Hopefully, besides being informative, especially to scholars from other fields of intercultural communication research, this study should contribute to raise the awareness of sociolinguists in particular with respect to the role of religion in shaping politeness in Arabic and to serious confusion and misunderstandings that may come into being, when communicators from different cultural backgrounds cannot identify the pragmatic (implicit or indirect) meaning of their interlocutor’s utterance.

Excerpt

List of tables and figures

Figure 1: Hospitality in Arabic-speaking cultures ... 24

Figure 2: Hospitality in British English-speaking cultures. ... 26

Figure 3: Dimensions and Components of ICC in Byram's model ... 68

Table 1: Religious expressions and their context of use in Moroccan (Arabic) with

their translation into English. ... 30

Table 2: Factors involved in intercultural communication ... 66

Table 3: Instructions for working with critical incidents ... 71

1 Introduction

Politeness is one of the very important issues in the field of sociolinguistics and pragmatics,

as it can be seen in almost every type of our interactions, especially in conversational con-

flicts. Since the evolving of politeness theory (Brown and Levinson 1978), cross-cultural

pragmatics has gained the attention of many researchers in this field. They have investigated

and compared politeness behavior in different languages and cultures. However, it has been

remarked that the Arab society has been far less investigated in cross-cultural and contrastive

pragmatics (cf., for example Umar 2004; Al-Khatani 2005). Therefore, this book widens the

scope of cross-cultural pragmatics by investigating politeness in (Moroccan) Arabic. In this

study we will focus on the behavior of Arab and German speakers with regard to one type of

politeness, namely the speech act of greeting. As a community that is claimed to have strong

social ties among its members (Ahlawat and Saghal 2010), speakers of Arabic are expected to

exhibit differences which distinguish them from speakers of other communities. This study

provides one with the opportunity to understand the worldview of Arabic speakers through

their speech behavior which is strongly influenced by the Qur'an. The hypothesis the present

study puts forward is that religion, as a communication resource, provides Moroccans in

particular, and Arabs in general with an opportunity to execute their action without staking

their self-image or their interlocutor's. In addition, this study points out the motivations and

reasons that induce Muslims to invoke the religious lexicon, along with its pragmatic force, in

their communication in everyday life, such as greeting encounters. We consider it appropriate

to place this investigation within a cross-cultural pragmatics framework, though Brown and

Levinson's politeness theory was necessary for our theoretical approach. Moreover, the

findings of this study reveal that Brown and Levinson's theory (1987) can retain its universal-

ity, if its notion of face is revised. Finally, the implications of this study for foreign language

teaching and cross-cultural training indicate that politeness and face concerns in different

cultures should be part of any language teaching and learning process.

Hopefully, besides being informative, especially to scholars from other fields of intercultural

communication research, the study should contribute to raising the awareness of sociolin-

guists in particular with respect to the role which religion plays in shaping politeness in

Arabic and to serious confusion and misunderstandings that may come into being, when

This study is based on a paper published by Bouchara in Journal of Politeness Research 2015; 11(1): 7198.

communicators from different cultural backgrounds cannot identify the pragmatic (implicit or

indirect) meaning of their interlocutor's utterance. It should also, as far as attempting to solve

problems is concerned, emphasize the need to devise cross-cultural trainings more acutely

sensitive to Arab countries, and thus to adopt a more suitable cultural-linguistic approach in

foreign language teaching.

2 Moroccan society and how politeness is carried out among

(Moroccan) Arabic speakers

Two examples of intercultural communication should serve as a starting point for this study.

First scene

Suppose you work as a German guest lecturer at a Moroccan university and your Moroccan

colleague invites you home for dinner. Because you like couscous with meat, you eat so much

that you leave no room for any further course. Unexpectedly the second course comes, which

consists of chicken and French fries. The host offers you a piece of chicken. As you feel you

have had enough to eat, you return the offer by saying: "Oh! No, thank you". However, the

guest smiles and insists that you eat more. You reply, "No, really. I can't", to which the host

responds: "Oh, come on, just a little more". You refuse again, but he still insists that you eat,

handing you heartily a piece of chicken. The situation becomes embarrassing.

Second scene

This time you invite a Moroccan colleague in the afternoon to your apartment. After he has

taken his seat, you ask him whether he would like to take coffee or tea. He answers, "No,

thanks". Because you feel like it, you make yourself a cup of coffee and you ask again if your

guest still does not want a cup. Since he apparently seems to reject your offer, you drink your

coffee while you talk to him. Your guest is surprised because he does not get anything to

drink or eat. He goes home disappointed, but much worse your behavior is interpreted as

strange, if not disrespectful.

What happens in these two situations? Why do the interactions lead to unpleasant feelings and

misunderstandings? In these examples we are dealing with misunderstanding resulting from

cross-cultural misinterpretation. Lack of knowledge about cultural communication conventions

led to such misunderstanding. In the Moroccan context a guest to whom something is offered is

expected not to accept this immediately for fear to appear greedy. On the other hand, the host

should try to bring the guest to accept the offer. In fact, Germans generally seem to feel uncom-

fortable or even angry when the host is so persistent, when they have clearly rejected something.

In contrast, Moroccans are more likely to be disappointed when German hosts do not repeat their

offer and urge their guest to eat because it is considered ill-mannered and impolite to accept the

offer hastily. So when Moroccans transfer such a politeness pattern behavior to a German context,

they may end up getting nothing to eat or to drink.

Since Penelope Brown and Stephen Levinson (1978) first developed a theory of linguistic

politeness, most sociolinguistic studies have looked at politeness in terms of face. Social cohesion

depends upon awareness and consideration of the "face needs" of others. Brown and Levinson

state that every individual has two types of face, positive and negative. They define positive face

as the individual's desire that his/her wants be appreciated in social interaction, and negative face

as the individual's desire for freedom of action and freedom from imposition (Brown and

Levinson 1987: 61). Accordingly, "Positive politeness" attends to a person's positive face needs

and includes such speech acts as compliments, invitations and greetings. It expresses good-will

and solidarity. "Negative politeness" attends to a person's negative face needs and includes

indirectness and apologies. It expresses respect and consideration. The theory assumes that most

speech acts, (for example requests, offers and compliments), inherently threaten either the hearer's

or the speaker's face-wants, and that politeness is involved in redressing those face threatening

acts (FTA). The negative effect of an FTA may be reduced or totally eliminated by a variety of

types of corrective "face work", such as modal verbs, particles or hedges, as in: "Wouldn't you

like to close the window". An FTA may also be mitigated by an apology, as in: "I' m sorry to

bother you, but would you please close the window?".

Here we would like to take a look at the above mentioned two examples of intercultural

communication in the light of Brown and Levinson's politeness model: In the Moroccan

context, the immediate acceptance of an offer presents a face-threatening act for the guest.

Normally the guest does not accept the offer hastily at the first time and possibly at the second

time as well in order to save his/her face and not appear greedy. In contrast, Germans, who

are not familiar with these Moroccan socio-cultural values, seem to find the repeated invita-

tions to eat more an obstruction affecting the interlocutor's freedom of action and thus a threat

to their negative face. Obviously, urging one's foreign guest to eat in a Moroccan context

appears to break one of the most outstanding maxims of politeness, namely "do not impose".

However, Moroccans may even oblige invitees to accept the offer by resorting to oaths or

swearing as a pragmatic device to validate offers. In Morocco "conversational swearing" is an

important clue to validate an offer or an invitation between all kinds of participants. The

There are actually many cases of communicative misunderstanding which result from pragmatic errors related

to politeness in intercultural situations, see for instance Shammas (1995) who discusses the most frequent cases

of misunderstanding in verbal communication between speakers of Arabic and English.

invitee has no chance to refuse an offer when it is conditioned by a swearing expression

simply because the name of God is pronounced. For instance, the host may oblige the guest to

eat more by saying: la walu wa(all)ah ta-tzid takul `not at all, I swear by God, you are going

to eat more'. The conversational swearing phrase `I swear by God' not only reveals the

sincerity of the offer, but also achieves the pragmatic end of offering which is to convince the

guest to accept the offer and to show generosity and hospitality.

According to Brown and Levinson (1987), politeness as a universal phenomenon can be

observed in all languages and cultures. However, as Hamza (2013: 5) claims in his critique of

politeness theory, "not all researchers feel that it is necessary to assume a universality about

the nature of politeness". Politeness works differently and has different emphases due to

different beliefs and values. For example, in Morocco it seems that politeness is tied in with

religion and one's relation to Allah

and the community in a way which it is not true in

Germany or in Britain. Therefore, it is extremely important that we should become aware of

this fact. Otherwise, it would not be possible to understand the conventional linguistic and

non-linguistic practices involved in everyday hospitality situations in Arabic societies, such as

forms of greeting. Hence, a sense of expressing hospitality is inherently embedded in greeting

rituals

For a detailed discussion of "conversational swearing" in Arabic, see Anssari Naim (2011: Ch. 6.5).

Allah is the Arabic name of God.

The term `rituals' such as food-sharing rituals, wedding rituals, funeral rituals etc. is used here in Rook's sense

(1985: 252), who defines it as "a type of expressive, symbolic activity, constructed of multiple behavior that

occur in a fixed, episodic sequence, and that tend to be repeated over time".

3 The influence of culture on the perception of hospitality and

greeting rituals

We first need to clarify the notion of `culture'. But unfortunately a fixed, universal under-

standing of the term `culture' does not exist; there is little consensus within one single, let

alone, across diverse disciplines. Culture is a notoriously difficult term to define (cf., Spencer-

Oatey 2008: 3). Although the term is present in all models of politeness, it has rarely been

explicitly discussed in politeness theories (cf., Watts 2003: 78). In her book Culturally

Speaking: Culture, Communication and Politeness Theory (2008), Spencer-Oatey proposes a

reasonable definition of culture, a definition that has also been adopted in the present study:

Culture is a fuzzy set of basic assumptions and values, orientations to life, beliefs,

policies, procedures and behavioural conventions that are shared by a group of peo-

ple, and that influence (but do not determine) each member's behaviour and his/her

interpretations of the `meaning' of other people's behavior. (Spencer-Oatey 2008: 3)

She then singles out three key issues from the definition: the intrinsic connection between culture

and social groups, co-occurring regularities within them, and the fact that these regularities might

not be manifested in the same extent (if at all) by all of the members of such groups. Therefore,

we may speak, for instance, of Moroccan and Saudi Arabian culture and typical behaviors,

beliefs, etc. of these two social groups. But although we may say that the majority of members of

each of these groups share particular traits, the differences remain unmistakable.

Consequently, a list of specific set of values, beliefs and behaviours cannot be

drawn upon for every cultural group, as very rarely are they identical for all their

members. Nevertheless, we can still notice regularities, analyse them and compare

them to those of other cultural groups. (Klimczak-Pawlak 2014: 47)

Cultures, therefore, vary in the extent to which one is expected to show hospitality to

strangers, friends or members of one's family according to religious values. Religion is

known to affect our understanding of the world and behavior (Lupfer and Wald 1985). This

understanding is especially critical in inter-religious contexts as people from different

religious backgrounds may understand and interpret hospitality differently, which can hinder

or facilitate cross-religious interaction and thus influence the host-guest relationship. Whereas

Islam places great importance on the kind treatment and hospitality of guests and neighbors,

in the West today hospitality is rarely a matter of religion and is more associated with

etiquette and entertainment. As Meehan (2012) argues entertainment of guests is of great

importance to non-Muslims. Their motivations, however, are often based on worldly consid-

erations; that is, their treatment of guests is "not rooted in real hospitality for the sake of

God"; this is perhaps why specific characteristics that distinguish hospitality in Arab and

Western societies should be first identified and illustrated below using Spencer-Oatey's

diagram (see figures 1 and 2) in order to understand how religion informs the constructed

meaning of hospitality and its enactment in different cultures.

3.1 Hospitality in Arab culture

Considering its prominent role within a Muslim context, hospitality involves generosity

towards guests. Such generosity is always offered in the name of God. This means the

hospitality relationship in Islam is triangular, including host, stranger, and God. Sustenance is

a right rather than a gift, and the duty to supply it is primarily a duty to God, not to the

stranger. Hospitality is, accordingly, vital to following the straight path to God. For Muslims,

the essence of hospitality is that when guests arrive there should be no sense of frustration;

rather, whatever best one can arrange should be offered to the guests. True Islamic hospitality

is to serve the guests with cheerfulness, just as the prophet Abraham serves his angel visitors:

To Abraham Our messengers brought good news. They said, `Peace.' He an-

swered, `Peace,' and without delay he brought in a roasted calf. When he saw that

their hands did not reach towards the meal, he found this strange and became

afraid of them. But they said, `Do not be afraid. We have been sent against the

people of Lot.' His wife was standing [nearby] and laughed. We gave her good

news of Isaac and, after him, of Jacob. She said, `Alas for me! How am I to bear a

child when I am an old woman, and my husband here is an old man? That would

be a strange thing!' They said, `Are you astonished at what God ordains? The

grace of God and His blessings be upon you, people of this house! For He is wor-

thy of all praise and glory.' (Chapter hud [Prophet Hood]: verses 69-73)

At first Abraham is unaware that the three travelers are angels of God, yet he welcomes them

as honored guests with a warm and welcoming demeanor. His hospitality shows him accept-

The Qur'an has 114 surahs `chapters' of varying length with each surah consisting of a number of verses

ayaat. The order of the surahs is generally from longest to shortest. Each has a title, usually taken from a word

or name either at the beginning of the surah or somewhere in its text. Some introduce the major themes of the

surah, e.g. suratu-yusuf which deals solely with the story of Joseph.

ing their greetings in the best way: They say to him sala:man ( ), yet he returned the

greeting with a better and stronger one, Sala:mun ( : Peace be upon you!). Grammarians,

such as Zamakhshari (2005: 1/9), point out that when comparing a statement said in al-marfu

(i.e. the nominative) state with one made in a state of al-mansub (i.e. accusative), the al-

marfu

statement (in this case, sala:mun) seems to be much stronger and more eloquent. So

Abraham responded with the best of greetings according to the command of God: "And when

you are greeted with a greeting, greet [in return] with one better than it or [at least] return it

equally." (Chapter al-nisa' [the women]: verse 86). This would have instantly made his guests

feel totally welcome and at ease, even though he didn't know them.

After Abraham had sincerely welcomed his guests and cheerfully invited them in, he rushed

(fara:a / ) to his family and soon came back with a fattened calf. It is clear from the use

of the word `fara:a' in the Arabic language that Abraham did not waste any time to hurry

and prepare the food for his guests: "Then he turned quickly to his household, brought out a

fattened calf." (Chapter Adh-Dhariyat [The Winnowing Winds]: verse 26). The Qur'an thus

urges Muslims to make the guest feel comfortable by identifying his/her possible needs so

that they can be met before the guest makes any request. In reality, it would be immensely ill-

mannered to ask whether the guest requires food and thus to put him or her in an awkward

position, for how can the guest possibly be expected to say, "Yes! Bring me food!". In fact,

the reason for such a behavior is often the sign of a host who will have no intention whatso-

ever of wanting to entertain his/her guest, rather such a host wants to pester the guest and

force him or her to want to leave. The Prophet Abraham sets an example against such an

inhospitable attitude. His diligence is clearly motivated by his wish to satisfy the needs of his

guests.

He prepares and serves a fancy meal for them, nourishing them with both food and kindness.

Another good behavior implied by these verses is that although the Prophet Abraham had

never met his guests before, he tried to serve them in the best possible manner and thus

quickly brought a "fattened calf," a type of meat known to be the most delicious, healthy, and

nutritious. The way in which the Prophet Abraham treats his guests is a good example of

generosity, and this behavior displays an important feature of hospitality in Islam. This event

has been considered a model of hospitality, and it has passed into religious traditions of Islam

in Arab societies.

Likewise, in the hadith

, narrated by Abu Huraira, the prophet used to say: "Anybody who

believes in Allah and the Last Day, should serve his neighbor generously, and anybody who

believes in Allah and the Last Day should serve his guest generously by giving him his

reward". More specifically, the Prophet Muhammad said in relation to the guest's right: He is

to be entertained "generously for a day and a night with high quality food and the guest has

the right to be entertained for three days (with ordinary food) and if he stays longer, what he

will be provided with will be regarded as sadaqa (a charitable gift)". (Al-Bukhari 1999:

Volume 8, Book 73, Number 48: 1340)

Honoring, or treating a guest well is thus coupled with two of the most important beliefs in

Islam, belief in God and belief in the Day of Judgment. Having a guest is an opportunity to

earn Allah's pleasure and display moral excellence. Treating a guest cordially becomes a

religious and a social obligation. A guest should, therefore, be given the best entertainment on

the first day and night. For the next two days, hospitality should be moderate. On the fourth

day, the guest should leave for his destination. Yet if he chooses to stay, hospitality will be in

a sense a form of charity. It is precisely this faith in God that guides the Muslim in his/her

dealings with others in everyday life. This is why believers tend to welcome their guests

cordially, for hospitality to the stranger is indeed equated with welcoming God.

There is also a general consensus among scholars that hospitality and generosity toward

guests is inherent in Arab Bedouin heritage and was also omnipresent among Arab Bedouins

before Islam (Janardhan 2002). Traditionally, a stranger was to be housed and fed without

expectation of reciprocity or even a question about their identity. Protecting guests, entertain-

ing them, and feeding them properly was and is still considered essential in many Arab

societies. Such hospitality is a necessity in order to earn a reputation for generosity. In this

respect, Arabs still proudly mention the tale of the pre-Islamic hero Haatim a-Taai, the

epitome of generosity and munificence in Arabic anecdotal tradition. In one story aatim

receives a royal emissary while his flocks are in pasture, and so he resorts to slaughtering his

own beloved and distinguished horse to honor and feed his guest. While eating the guest

informs Haatim of the real reason for his visit; namely, to acquire Haatim's distinguished

horse. Haatim responds by pointing to the food being eaten as the wanted horse. aatim's

generosity and chivalry have thus become proverbial in Arab culture and his story is used by

Hadith, a saying, refers to narrations that are attributed to the companions of the Prophet Mohammad who

narrate a statement or a story about the Prophet or related to the Prophet. The story is a report about what the

Prophet said, did, approved, and disapproved of, explicitly or implicitly. Indeed, hadith is considered as the main

source of the Sunna (customary behavior of the Prophet), see also footnote (12).

many as an example of how a man can win fame and respect for spending all of his means to

feed his guests.

Arab hospitality is one of the tropes that defines Arab cultures. The tradition of Arab hospital-

ity, particularly the Bedouin, was long a part of the survival rituals that helped to sustain a

nomadic people in a harsh desert environment (Torstrick and Faier 2009). A traveler was not

only fed and housed without question but protected, even if it meant to offer shel-

ter to stranger in exile. The way in which the Prophet Moses, as a refugee from Egypt, was

treated as a guest is a good example of this and displays an important feature of Bedouin

hospitality. The Qur'an portrays this by narrating the following incident: Upon witnessing an

Egyptian unfairly beating a Hebrew slave, Moses strikes down the Egyptian. Moses fled from

the Egyptian authorities after he was warned by a man that he was being sought for the

murder of an enemy of "one from his own people" (Chapter Al-Qasas [the stories]: verse 15).

Here the goodness of God manifests itself to Moses, a stranger who is also a fugitive:

As he made his way towards Median, he was saying, `May my Lord guide me to the

right way.' When he arrived at Median's waters, he found a group of men watering

[their flocks], and beside them two women keeping their flocks back, so he said,

`What is the matter with you two?' They said, `we cannot water [our flocks] until the

shepherds take their sheep away: our father is a very old man.' He watered their

flocks for them, withdrew into the shade, and prayed, `My Lord, I am in dire need of

whatever good thing You may send me,' and then one of the two women approached

him, walking shyly, and said, `My father is asking for you: he wants to reward you

for watering our flocks for us.' When Moses came to him and told him his story, the

old man said, do not be afraid, you are safe now from people who do wrong.' One of

the women said, `Father, hire him: a strong, trustworthy man is the best to hire.' The

father said, `I would like to marry you to one of these daughters of mine, on condition

that you serve me for eight years: if you complete ten, it will be of your own free

will. I do not intend to make things difficult for you: God willing, you will find I am a

fair man.' Moses said, `Let that be the agreement between us whichever of the two

terms I fulfill, let there be no injustice to me may God be witness to what we

say.' (Chapter Al-Qasas [the stories]: verses 22-28)

At this point, hospitality towards the stranger goes beyond mere assistance to a needy person.

Moses becomes an integral part of the old man's family by marrying one of his daughters. He

was threatened with death, but now, in Median, he is offered security and the opposite of

death, namely life and fellowship in a new home. He is safe from the persecution of Pharaoh

and blessed abundantly.

Yet today, most of the Bedouin Arabs are urbanized residents. There is no longer any survival

imperative underwriting hospitality in a harsh desert environment. Nevertheless, hospitality

still persists and it is, therefore, very important to understand why hospitality rituals have

continued and grown in importance in Arab cultures when it is no longer strictly necessary.

First, hospitality is, as noted above, inherent in Arab Bedouin heritage, and this has been

reinforced due to its special status in Islam, where it is equated with welcoming God and

handed down from generation to generation. It is precisely this faith in God that guides the

Muslim in his/her dealings with others in everyday life. Therefore, believers welcome their

guests cordially, for hospitality to the stranger is a way to obey one of God's commands as

well as an opportunity to display high morality. In addition to wanting to be hospitable, the

host also has a reputation at stake when inviting over a guest. If a guest has an unpleasant

experience, such as one including insufficient food or a feeling of being rushed off, then he or

she could tarnish the reputation of the host in their shared community.

It is, therefore, no surprise that the tradition of hospitality is not only deeply engrained in the

Arab culture and mind, but also in the Arabic language as well. Karam `', an Arabic

word usually translated as "generosity" or "hospitality", also signifies "nobility" and "grace".

In fact, the many different variations found of the root verb ka-ra-ma all imply excellence and

other praiseworthy characteristics. In this respect, al-kareem is one of the ninety-nine names

of Allah known to Muslims, and it is one of the Beautiful Names of Allah: "[...] your Lord,

the Generous (al-kareem)." (Chapter al-Infita:r [The Cleaving]: verse 6). To quote Shryock, it

is "this karam that is both a genealogical endowment and a moral obligation akin to piety, and

it is often a compliment to say of a man who neglects his prayer but then is gracious to his

guests that hospitality is his religion" (Shryock 2009: 34). Karam al-arab `Arab hospitality' is

a traditional virtue of which Arabs are deliberately proud (Shryock 2004: 37) because it

reflects polite behavior toward others, including hospitality, and this characteristic is inherent

in the semantic meanings of the word `polite' (). Although the word adab is sometimes

used for translating English words such as "politeness", "courtesy", "respect" and "literature"

based on the context, it used to mean basically `invitation' in the pre-Islamic period. Follow-

ing Idrees (1985: 13), Al-Oqaily and Tawalbeh (2012) point out:

that the first meaning of the word `adab' () in the ancient Arabic environment

was meant to be generosity and hospitability. For example, Arabs used to say

(Fulan adaba al-qawm) ( ) meaning that someone invited

people to feast; thus, the meaning of the word `adab' () was concerned with the

behavioral aspect of a person's relationships with others. That is to say, a greater

emphasis was placed on positive aspects of face and connectedness with others.

Then the use of the word () has expanded in the Islamic era to refer to morality,

generosity, tolerance, and virtue. All these meanings have been numerously re-

ported by many sayings of Prophet Muhammed (PBUH) [peace be upon him]. Af-

ter that, in the late Umayyad and early Abbasid era, the word has also been used

to refer to education and literature. On the other hand, Watts (2003: 35) men-

tioned `considerate', `thoughtful', `well-mannered', as synonyms of the English

`polite'. (Al-Oqaily and Tawalbeh 2012: 86)

So, what the semantic meanings of the words karam `' and adab () share is a combina-

tion of generosity and virtue in the context of social invitations, and all these meanings feature

in the many sayings of the Prophet Muhammad. With this in mind, we can now understand

why generosity and hospitality are usually regarded as the most fundamental elements of

Arabic politeness (cf., Grainger et. al. 2015: 49). This is felt even by walking around the

streets in the Arab world where greeting expressions such as ahlan wa sahlan ( )

`welcome' and marhaba () `welcome' are heard nearly everywhere a person goes. This

tradition is called karam in Arabic and can be translated as honoring the guest and being

generous not only to family members but also to strangers.

Nevertheless, honoring the guest and the tendency of inviting permanently among Arabs is

not to be taken as valid for all situational contexts and suitable for any interlocutor; neither all

invitations are intended to be taken as genuine. That is, it may happen that Muslims make

empty promises to their friends, either in person, or by phone, and then when their guest turns

up, eagerly looking forward to meeting again, he or she is faced with a miserable face and

excuses. How embarrassing and disappointing it is when this happens especially without good

excuse. Morally speaking, such people fall into the worst of categories, i.e. those who break

their promises and disappoint their guests, which is the exact opposite of karam.

To avoid falling into such embarrassing situations, people in Arab societies have developed a

special pattern of inviting/offering. When two people engage in an encounter, the one who

offers should insist on offering and the one who is being invited should bashfully reject the

offer but in reality intends to accept it later. Al-Khatib (2001:190), for example, has

reported that "to invite without insistence means that the concerned person is not serious

about the invitation, and offers it as a mere remark of courtesy; and to accept the offer without

reluctance means that the recipient is gluttonous, and may be described as an ill-behaved

person". In this respect, Grainger et. al. (2015: 51) argue that "[i]n terms of linguistic behav-

ior, this tends to translate into sequences of offering, refusing and insisting. These rituals are

fairly predictable and only moderately negotiable". The socio-pragmatic constraints govern-

ing the use of such rituals could be understood and appreciated only by people sharing the

same cultural background. Otherwise, misunderstandings may arise as the two introductory

examples of intercultural communication clearly demonstrate. The cultural background

underlying Arabic politeness behavior in general and hospitality in particular are presented in

figure 1 below, which is an adaptation of that used by Spencer-Oatey (2000).

Invitations that are not intended to be taken seriously are called `ostensible invitations' as opposed to `genuine

invitations'. For a detailed discussion of the notion of invitations in general, and in (Moroccan) Arabic in

particular, see Anssari Naim (2011: Ch. 6).

Figure 1: Hospitality in Arabic-speaking cultures (cited in Grainger et. al. 2015: 50).

What this diagram represents is that the underlying ideological cultural assumptions

in Arab societies focus on the interdependence and loyalty to one's extended family

and the larger "in-group". These assumptions, rooted in Arabic traditions and

shaped by Islamic teachings, are the foundation of beliefs about the importance of

generosity. These beliefs and attitudes tend to be constructed and evaluated as cor-

rect by the dominant Arab culture and are played out and perpetuated through vari-

ous social and religious institutions. (Grainger et. al. 2015: 50-51)

3.2 Hospitality in Western culture

Although enough examples of the enactment of hospitality can also be found in the Old

Testament, for instance, Genesis 18: 1, which talks about Abraham's hospitality toward three

visitors, religion is no longer an important factor in the host-guest relationships in the West,

even when both host and guest are of the same religious background. In the modern Western

world, hospitality has taken on different connotations. As religious traditions became up-

rooted from the Middle East, the primacy of this virtue or at least its association with the

compassionate treatment of strangers was lost, although hospitality still involves showing

respect for one's guests. Indeed, Westerners tend to see receiving guests as part of creating

relationships. So, people seem to entertain family and friends and those whom they wish to

cultivate as friends rather than opening their homes to strangers. The moral and generous

centrality inherent in the tradition of Arabic hospitality has virtually disappeared from

contemporary Western culture, where religion does no longer influence the construction of

the meaning of hospitality, although this may not apply in all Western countries, or at least

not the same extent. Thus, the performance of hospitality according to Arabic politeness

norms would seem for Westerners not only to be imposing in the sense that inviters oblige

their potential invitees to perform the act, but "rude" as well (Félix-Brasdefer 2008). Such

attitudes and their underlying bases are represented in figure 2 below, which is also an

adaptation of that used by Spencer-Oatey (2000).

Figure 2: Hospitality in British English-speaking cultures (cited in Grainger et al. 2015: 52).

In the British context, within the middle class dominant cultural values, behaviour

could be said to be underpinned by a basic assumption that freedom of action and

the independence of the individual are paramount. In hospitality situations, then,

this translates into a belief that the host is both obliged to be generous and simulta-

neously obliged to respect the independence of the guest by not imposing too much.

The guest, for their part, might feel obliged to accept a certain amount of generosity

from the host (as is the case in Arabic-speaking communities) but would have to

weigh this up against the desire of both guest and host to not be imposed upon.

Such beliefs and attitudes can be seen in most social institutions but perhaps with

less influence from religion than in Arab culture. (Grainger et al. 2015: 52)

It is true that the process of modernization in terms of industrialization, urbanization, mobili-

zation, improvement of living conditions has an impact on the role of religion in Western

societies where institutional forms of religion have lost their social significance. But this does

not necessarily mean that religion itself has lost its importance for the individual. Religion has

changed its shape. It has become a more private concern, and this tendency varies immensely

in different societies in the West. That is why, we need, as van der Veer (1995) rightly

observes, to pay attention to the important process of state formation in order to understand

the shifting place of religious institutions:

[...] we need to look at a process at the turn of the century in which the state ex-

pands its activities of welfare and education precisely in those areas which were

previously dominated by religious organizations. It is this expanded activity of the

state which gradually alters the social significance of religious organizations in

the Twentieth century. The gradual intrusion of an activist state in all spheres of

social life fundamentally transforms an earlier dependence on religious institu-

tions into one on state institutions. (van der Veer 1995: 8)

So, it would be inadequate to speak of an overall decline or decay of religion within Western

culture. However, it should be noted that we are not suggesting here that all countries in the

West are homogeneous and thus share the same culture. Because of different history, geogra-

phy, ideology, economics, politics, culture, language, life style, social customs and classes,

etc., people in different parts of the West, especially those in the North (Britain and Germany,

for instance) and those in the South (Spain and Greece, for instance) do differ profoundly in

their cultural patterns and orientations.

As discussed above with respect to the definition of

the term culture, even within particular Western cultures there are great national and ethnic

cultural differences. Nevertheless, the two diagrams above represent and compare the two

ideologies of ways of behaving in Arabic and Western cultures that are relevant to this study.

We should make clear that the focus of Grainger et. al's article (2015) is largely on English-speaking cultures,

and it would be therefore very difficult to make generalizations about all Western cultures. However, some of the

ideologies associated with people's behavior in the West may be shared within Western Communities, see, in

this regard, the discussion at the end of this chapter.

For an analysis of the cultural disparities between the Mediterranean and the Northern European countries, see

Petrakis (2011).

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Type of Edition

Erstausgabe

Publication Year

2016

ISBN (PDF)

9783960675556

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9783960670551

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2.2 MB

Language

English

Publication date

2016 (July)

Keywords

Speech act Religious expression Greeting Strategy of politeness Indirectness vs. Directness Pragmatic function Intercultural communication Cross-cultural pragmatics Sociolinguistics

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Anchor Academic Publishing

Authors

Abdelaziz Bouchara (Author)

Bouchra Qorchi (Author)

The role of religion in shaping politeness during greeting encounters in Arabic. A matter of conflict or understanding

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Authors

Abdelaziz Bouchara (Author)

Bouchra Qorchi (Author)