POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE POLITENESS IN EGYPTIAN AND AMERICAN MEDIA DISCOURSE (A CONTRASTIVE STUDY)

Abstract

The current study attempted to examine the use of positive and negative politeness strategies by the American and Egyptian participants talk shows. A contrastive analysis of both spoken Egyptian Arabic and spoken American English was done. Brown and Levinson‟s (1987) theory of politeness formed the pragmatic framework of the study. The pragmatic functions of negative and positive politeness strategies utilised by the participants was the main focus of the study. The study results revealed significant similarities between both groups; however, there were certain differences too. Egyptian host used more positive politeness strategies while the American hosts used more negative ones. In addition, the use of hedges, avoid disagreement apologies was done by the Egyptian hosts exclusively. While the American hosts used assert or presuppose the guest's knowledge of and concern for host's wants exclusively.