Publications

Publication details [#66667]

Abdel Salam El-Dakhs, Dina, Jawaher Nasser Al-Haqbani, Manal A. Althaqafi and Shorouq Al-Fouzan. 2019. How do Saudis complain? A dialogue-analytic analysis of the Najdi dialect. Language and Dialogue 9 (2) : 264–293.
Publication type
Article in journal
Publication language
English
Language as a subject
Place, Publisher
John Benjamins
Journal DOI
10.1075/ld

Annotation

The current study adopts a dialogue-analytic approach to the examination of complaint behavior in Saudi Arabic as spoken in the Najd region, the central region of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. To this end, role-plays with 120 Saudi nationals who are Najdi-speakers were recorded and transcribed. Statistical comparisons revealed that Najdis used a variety of complaint strategies with requests for repair, expressing annoyance and providing modified blame being the most frequent. Najdis also produced a large number of initiators and internal and external modifiers, mainly to mitigate the negative force of complaints. Although a small influence was found for gender, the variables of age, social distance and social dominance showed a strong influence on the Najdis’ complaint behavior. The results are discussed in light of relevant theoretical models and the existing literature.