Читать книгу The Politeness/Impoliteness Divide. English-Based Theories and Speech Acts Practice in Moroccan Arabic онлайн

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CARLOS HERNÁNDEZ Y ANTONIA SÁNCHEZ

University of Valencia

Introduction

The aim of this book is to illustrate the way in which a theoretical discourse on politeness, based on a specific linguistic-cultural framework, can challenge the practice of politeness in a language and culture with a different tradition. Certainly, this kind of contrast is common in the academic literature dealing with the intercultural dimension of pragmatics. The theoretical discourse on politeness should be understood in close relation to the linguistic and cultural context in which it is historically conceived, i.e. the English language and the associated Anglo-Saxon culture, with all the nuances that this generalization entails. Assigning such a discourse the role of a universal framework brings with it interpretative biases, as well as the danger of overlooking meaningful facets in the description of other cultural and linguistic domains. This interpretative bias is inevitable, considering that the interest and quality of a theoretical discourse lies not simply in the fact that it can be mechanically applied to the description of events, but also in its ability to establish an open dialogue with these. Such an open dialogue always involves negotiating and thus modifying some initial assumptions.