Abstract
Politeness is culture specific and the degree of politeness can be observed well through the use of speech acts which are governed by social conventions. Thepresent study aims to explore the cross-cultural differences and similarities in the use of politeness strategies as manifested in the literary works of two female writers from Urdu and English backgrounds. To achieve this purpose two Urdu short stories by Hajra Masroor and two English short stories by Katherine Mansfield are chosen.In this study the descriptive qualitative method is applied and the data is analyzed according to Searle’s five categories of Speech Acts. Since politeness is studied through the use of speech acts in the given stories, it reveals that speech acts there are no marked differences between Urdu and English short stories. Nonetheless, it is the analysis of functions/illocutionary forces of those speech acts which offers a contrastive perspective to look into cultural and social orientations. The study concludes that there are differences in cultural norms, attitudes and cultural assumptions that bring in the specific differences in the observance of politeness between different languages, and also the use of speech acts reflect the degree of politeness which varies in quantity and type from one writer to another and hence from one language to another giving deeper insights into their cultures
Nagina Kanwal, Malik Ajmal Gulzar, , Sabina Shah. (2018) Cross-Cultural Study of Speech Acts and Politeness in Urdu and English Short Stories, The ELF Annual Research Journal, Volume 20, Issue 1.
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