Directness vs. indirectness: Egyptian Arabic and US English communication style

Abstract

This study investigated the similarities and differences between Egyptian Arabic and US English communication style by focusing on the speech act of making refusals. A modified version of the 12-item discourse completion test (DCT) developed by Beebe, Takahashi, and Uliss-Weltz (in: R. Scarcella, E. Anderson, S. Krashen (Eds.), Developing Communicative Competence in a Second Language, Newbury House, New York, 1990, p. 55) was used to elicit data. The DCT consisted of three requests, three invitations, three offers, and three suggestions. Each situation type included one refusal to a person of higher status, one to a person of equal status, and one to a person of lower status. To more closely simulate real-life communication and because Arabic is a diglossic language, an interviewer read the situation aloud and the participants responded verbally on audiotape, Egyptians in Arabic and Americans in English. Audiotapes were transcribed, the Egyptian tapes into Arabic and the American tapes into English. Thirty US interviews resulted in 358 refusals and 25 Egyptian interviews resulted in 300 refusals. The refusals were divided into strategies. Using a modified version of the coding categories developed by Beebe et al., two trained coders categorized the strategies. Intercoder reliability was 89% for the US data and 85% for the Arabic data. Data were analyzed according to frequency types of strategies, the direct/indirect dimension of communication style, gender, and status. Results suggest that both groups use similar strategies with similar frequency in making refusals. They differ, however, in the frequency of indirect strategies with Egyptian males using less indirection than Americans.