EXAMENSARBETE I ARABISKA: POLITENESS AND PERCEPTION The competence of Lebanese Arabic heritage speakers in the Swedish diaspora

Abstract

Using an elicitation-based quantitative approach, the competence and self-perception were studied among five Swedish Lebanese heritage speakers when using Lebanese Arabic politeness formu las. The informants were given the task, during structured study segments, to provide perceived appropriate formulas to twenty different politeness exchange situations and to give subsequent self ratings on their own certainty about the appropriateness of each one. Their answers were rated by two native Lebanese reference speakers so that a discrepancy value between self-perception and reference ratings could be established. Using Wilcoxon signed ranks tests to secure significancy, it was shown that there were no significant differences between three of the informants and the references while the remaining two rated themselves higher than the references, suggesting an overall variation in the perception of appropriateness. The reasons to the significant differences were not determined but possible explanations include cognitive transfer effects from the dominant language, interpretation errors of the politeness situation, lack of exposure to Arabic as well as the use of French phrases with vague awareness of illocutionary force. The study underscores the im portance of including the pragmatic domain in heritage language instruction as an expression of cultural belonging