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Article published In:
Pragmatics and Society
Vol. 13:1 (2022) ► pp.67–84

The Ethnopragmatics of Jish Arabic-speaking culture

| Tel-Hai College

The aim of this paper is to describe five speech practices employed by Jish Arabic speakers: greeting a passerby, forms of address, necessary expressions when talking about death, necessary expressions when praising someone, and necessary expressions when mentioning entities of “low” value. These five speech practices are described using the Cultural Scripts Approach, which employs simple, universal language, thus enhancing descriptive accuracy and reducing ethnocentrism.

Keywords: ethnopragmatics, Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM), cultural scripts, forms of address, Jish Arabic
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Jish Arabic
  • 3.NSM and the cultural scripts approach
    • 3.1NSM
    • 3.2The cultural scripts approach
  • 4.Some cultural norms in Jish
    • 4.1Greeting a passer-by
    • 4.2Forms of address
    • 4.3Necessary expressions when talking about death
    • 4.4Necessary expressions when praising someone
    • 4.5Necessary expressions when mentioning entities of “low” value
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgments
  • Note
  • References
Published online: 21 March 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.20066.hab
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