Mind What You Say in the United Arab Emirates: Swear Words Will Land You in Jail
Keywords:
Swear words/expressions, pragmatic analysis, inferential path, cross-cultural communication, Law in UAEAbstract
Linguists and forensic linguists have tried to shed light on the sensitivity and offensiveness of words and/or language expressions from various linguistic theories such as speech act theory, semantics, discourse analysis, and pragmatics. With the wide spread intercultural communication and the global use of English as a lingua franca, it is important to know that some language expressions might be understood as compliments in a specific culture, whereas others might view them as offensive. An instance of this is the English expression: “You have a beautiful mum”. Although this could be a positive compliment, it could also be misunderstood and interpreted as an insult in some Arabic cultures, since in some cultural contexts it could imply that the utterer is hinting at some sexual act. The data for this research is collected from participants of various Arabic nationalities and different genders from different age groups by presenting them with four situations and requesting them to indicate their reactions to the compliments uttered by others through selecting from four options offered on the survey. Findings indicate that all participants accept such compliments from either relatives, close friends, or strangers based on the gender of the utterer. In other words, the compliment is appreciated if said by a female. Nevertheless, the compliment is less appreciated if it is on a feature inherent in the personality of the receiver than when it is on something that the receiver is wearing.
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