Aspects of polite behaviour in French and Syrian service encounters: A data-based comparative study
Résumé
This paper presents a data-based comparative study of polite behaviour in
French and Arabic (Syrian) service encounters. It focuses on the use of
conversational routines and rituals, which are not only an important com-
ponent of interactions in any service encounter, but also a prominent char-
acteristic of Arabic interaction. The first part of the paper is devoted to a
presentation of these two notions. The methodological problems raised by
contrastive data analysis are then discussed, especially that of choosing
comparable situations for conducting fieldwork, and of establishing a lin-
guistic grid of reference for the contrastive analysis. The results of the
study presented in part four lead to a discussion of what appear to be
specific features of polite behaviour in the French and Syrian corpora. The
corpora are composed of interactions audio-recorded in small shops.
French and Arabic (Syrian) service encounters. It focuses on the use of
conversational routines and rituals, which are not only an important com-
ponent of interactions in any service encounter, but also a prominent char-
acteristic of Arabic interaction. The first part of the paper is devoted to a
presentation of these two notions. The methodological problems raised by
contrastive data analysis are then discussed, especially that of choosing
comparable situations for conducting fieldwork, and of establishing a lin-
guistic grid of reference for the contrastive analysis. The results of the
study presented in part four lead to a discussion of what appear to be
specific features of polite behaviour in the French and Syrian corpora. The
corpora are composed of interactions audio-recorded in small shops.