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The interface of politeness strategies and power relations in disagreements among Egyptian students
Disagreement is generally done in opposition to a speaker's claim, in an educational context it can be defined as a student's verbal or non-verbal opposition to classmates' or the teacher's stance that emerge through different instructional and non-instructional situations. The purpose of the study...
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| Format: | Thesis |
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AUC Knowledge Fountain
2015
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| _version_ | 1867613408356990976 |
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| access_status_str | Open Access |
| author | Bakry, Hend Tarek |
| author_browse | Bakry, Hend Tarek |
| author_facet | Bakry, Hend Tarek |
| author_sort | Bakry, Hend Tarek |
| collection | Thesis |
| dc_rights_str_mv | The author retains all rights with regard to copyright. The author certifies that written permission from the owner(s) of third-party copyrighted matter included in the thesis, dissertation, paper, or record of study has been obtained. The author further certifies that IRB approval has been obtained for this thesis, or that IRB approval is not necessary for this thesis. Insofar as this thesis, dissertation, paper, or record of study is an educational record as defined in the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) (20 USC 1232g), the author has granted consent to disclosure of it to anyone who requests a copy. |
| description | Disagreement is generally done in opposition to a speaker's claim, in an educational context it can be defined as a student's verbal or non-verbal opposition to classmates' or the teacher's stance that emerge through different instructional and non-instructional situations. The purpose of the study is to qualitatively examine Egyptian undergraduates' disagreements with participants of different power relations in EFL classrooms from a politeness theory perspective. The study introduces Egyptian EFL classrooms as a new context for studying the interface of power and politeness in disagreements in general and for exploring the impact of other variables such as context, social distance and type of interactional activities on the realization of disagreements. Data were collected through videotaping two classes of business-English, with a total of 18 hours of observation. In addition, interviews were conducted with a sub-set of the participants to gather in-depth information about the students’ pragmatic choices and a questionnaire evaluating social distance between peers was administered to all participants. In the 18 hours of data collected, 34 students expressed 90 turns of disagreement; 35 of these were directed to the teacher, while 55 were to peers. Spontaneous disagreements were coded and categorized according to the Brown and Levinson (1987) politeness theory using Rees-Miller’s (2000) taxonomy, adapted here to include strategies from Muntigl and Turnbull's (1998) taxonomy. Analysis of the data showed that although students employed various positive and negative politeness strategies to soften disagreements when addressing power superiors, students employed many aggravated disagreements when discussing the teachers' language input .The use of different negative politeness strategies and aggravated disagreements between peers were attributed to social distance and the type of interactional activities. The findings of this study might help provide some insight into the aspects that should be incorporated into the teaching of pragmatics in EFL classrooms. |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oai:fount.aucegypt.edu:etds-1213 |
| institution | American University in Cairo (Egypt) |
| last_indexed | 2026-06-10T12:35:39.635Z |
| license_str | Other — see source repository |
| provenance_str_mv | Harvested via OAI-PMH from AUC Knowledge Fountain — bepress |
| publishDate | 2015 |
| publishDateRange | 2015 |
| publishDateSort | 2015 |
| publisher | AUC Knowledge Fountain |
| publisherStr | AUC Knowledge Fountain |
| record_format | dspace |
| source_str | AUC Knowledge Fountain — bepress |
| spelling | oai:fount.aucegypt.edu:etds-1213 The interface of politeness strategies and power relations in disagreements among Egyptian students Bakry, Hend Tarek Disagreement is generally done in opposition to a speaker's claim, in an educational context it can be defined as a student's verbal or non-verbal opposition to classmates' or the teacher's stance that emerge through different instructional and non-instructional situations. The purpose of the study is to qualitatively examine Egyptian undergraduates' disagreements with participants of different power relations in EFL classrooms from a politeness theory perspective. The study introduces Egyptian EFL classrooms as a new context for studying the interface of power and politeness in disagreements in general and for exploring the impact of other variables such as context, social distance and type of interactional activities on the realization of disagreements. Data were collected through videotaping two classes of business-English, with a total of 18 hours of observation. In addition, interviews were conducted with a sub-set of the participants to gather in-depth information about the students’ pragmatic choices and a questionnaire evaluating social distance between peers was administered to all participants. In the 18 hours of data collected, 34 students expressed 90 turns of disagreement; 35 of these were directed to the teacher, while 55 were to peers. Spontaneous disagreements were coded and categorized according to the Brown and Levinson (1987) politeness theory using Rees-Miller’s (2000) taxonomy, adapted here to include strategies from Muntigl and Turnbull's (1998) taxonomy. Analysis of the data showed that although students employed various positive and negative politeness strategies to soften disagreements when addressing power superiors, students employed many aggravated disagreements when discussing the teachers' language input .The use of different negative politeness strategies and aggravated disagreements between peers were attributed to social distance and the type of interactional activities. The findings of this study might help provide some insight into the aspects that should be incorporated into the teaching of pragmatics in EFL classrooms. 2015-02-01T08:00:00Z thesis application/pdf https://fount.aucegypt.edu/etds/214 https://fount.aucegypt.edu/context/etds/article/1213/viewcontent/thesis_20post_20defense_20draft.pdf The author retains all rights with regard to copyright. The author certifies that written permission from the owner(s) of third-party copyrighted matter included in the thesis, dissertation, paper, or record of study has been obtained. The author further certifies that IRB approval has been obtained for this thesis, or that IRB approval is not necessary for this thesis. Insofar as this thesis, dissertation, paper, or record of study is an educational record as defined in the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) (20 USC 1232g), the author has granted consent to disclosure of it to anyone who requests a copy. Theses and Dissertations AUC Knowledge Fountain Politeness strategies Disagreement |
| spellingShingle | Politeness strategies Disagreement Bakry, Hend Tarek The interface of politeness strategies and power relations in disagreements among Egyptian students |
| title | The interface of politeness strategies and power relations in disagreements among Egyptian students |
| title_full | The interface of politeness strategies and power relations in disagreements among Egyptian students |
| title_fullStr | The interface of politeness strategies and power relations in disagreements among Egyptian students |
| title_full_unstemmed | The interface of politeness strategies and power relations in disagreements among Egyptian students |
| title_short | The interface of politeness strategies and power relations in disagreements among Egyptian students |
| title_sort | interface of politeness strategies and power relations in disagreements among egyptian students |
| topic | Politeness strategies Disagreement |
| url | https://fount.aucegypt.edu/etds/214 https://fount.aucegypt.edu/context/etds/article/1213/viewcontent/thesis_20post_20defense_20draft.pdf |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT bakryhendtarek theinterfaceofpolitenessstrategiesandpowerrelationsindisagreementsamongegyptianstudents AT bakryhendtarek interfaceofpolitenessstrategiesandpowerrelationsindisagreementsamongegyptianstudents |