Variation in Ways of Asking About Health:
A case Study of Assuit University College Students.
By: Safe Al-Nasr Saleh Zanquoor
Associate Professor at Dept. of English
The New Valley Faculty of Arts, Assiut University.
Dr_safe42@yahoo.com
2017
Variation in Ways of Asking About Health:
A case Study of Assuit University College Students.
prepared by:
Safe Al-Nasr Saleh Zanquoor1
1 Associate Professor at Dept. of English, The New Valley Faculty of Arts, Assiut Univers
List of Phonemic Symbols
The IPA symbols are used in transcribing the data collected
Vowels:
/a/ front open
/i/ front, mid to half-close spread
/e/ front, mid to half-close spread
/u/ back half-close rounded
/o/ back mid to half-close rounded
Consonants:
/ ? / a low voiceless glottal stop
/b/ a voiced bilabial stop
/t/ a voiced alveo-dental stop
/ʤ/a voiced alveo-palatal affricate
/ħ/a voiceless pharyngeal fricative
/ χ / a voiceless uvular fricative
/d/ a voiced alveo-dental stop
/r/ a voiced alveolar trill
/z/ a voiced alveolar fricative
/s/ a voiceless alveolar fricative
/ʃ/ a voiceless alveo-palatal fricative
/s/ a voiceless emphatic alveolar fricative
/đ/ a voiced emphatic alveolar fricative
/t/ a voiceless emphatic dental plosive
/d/ a voiced emphatic denti-alveolar
/?/ a voiced pharyngeal fricative
/γ/ a voiced uvular fricative
/f/ a voiceless labio-dental fricative
/q/ a voiceless uvular stop
/g/ a voiced velar stop
/k/ a voiceless velar stop
/l/ a voiced alveolar lateral
/m/ a voiced bilabial nasal
/n/ a voiced alveolar nasal
/h/ a voiceless glottal fricative
/w/ a voiced bilabial round glide
/y/ a voiced palatal glide
Abstract:
The linguistic forms and strategies of inquiring about health exist in all languages and cultures. They vary from language to another and from one culture to another. The main theme of this study is to investigate variation in the use of forms and strategies of inquiring about health as used among a sample of undergraduate students in Assiut University faculties and to investigate the crucial factors, which determine the use of these forms and strategies. The sample used in this study included (100 males and females) a 100 of spontaneous and real conversations were recorded for those students in real situations in which they were inquiring about other people's health. The findings of this study showed that:
1) The linguistic forms and strategies used in inquiring about health among the informants of this study vary from official forms to non-official forms according to the variation of situations.
2) This study revealed that there is a strong relationship between the use of these strategies and forms and age, gender, social status of the speakers and their intimacy.
3) The female speakers of participated in this study used less tender and courteous forms in their inquiry about health comparing of those used by the male informants on this study.
4) And the use of the religious and social forms in the inquiry about health is commonly used among the informants (males and females of this study) this could be related to the fundamental impact of Islamic teachings and culture in the area of question.
Variation in Ways of Inquiring About Health:
A case Study of Assuit University College Students.
Introduction:
Language is a vehicle through which people communicate and define situations. Language reflects cultural and social inheritance and concerns. The linguistic features of any language exhibit the dominant social and cultural values and beliefs. Those values and beliefs are the basis for such variation in the use of words and expressions. It is well known that language is an essential part of our existence as human beings.
A lot of studies examined the importance of speech act of greeting and its ritual in different cultures.
Goffman (1992:79) stated that greeting exchanges consist of two types, passing greetings and engaging greetings. Coffman stated that greeting exchanges serve to reestablish social relation, acknowledge status, and guarantee for sake passage when performed between strangers. fasold (1997) stated that greetings are ritual which consist of verbal and non-verbal forms. Verbal forms may be one of three linguistic units: question (How are you?) interjection (Hello) or affirmation (Good morning).
Laver (1991) proposed that greeting exchanges have three components: formulaic phrases, address forms, and phatic communion, He views that greeting exchanges as a whole are routine ritual which serve to preserve face.
Generally speaking, in the Aral world the speakers usually start their inquiries about health with the inquiry about the hearer's children's and relations' health in order to establish social contact and to show sincere concern for the well-being of the addressee's whole family in most situations.
However, they are prone to using some euphemistic terms or use indirect expressions to avoid offense to the asked person.
The Question of this Study:
Speech acts such as greetings, thanks, apology, and invitation have been claimed by some linguists to operate by universal pragmatic principles (Awsten 1962, Searle 1969, 1975), (Brown and levinson 1978). Other linguists have shown them to vary in conceptualization and verbalization across cultures and languages (Wong 2004). With all this in mind, the main purpose of this study is to explore how the informants of this study apply one of their daily speech acts (i.e. inquiring about each others' health) in different situations? In addition, this study seeks to answer the following questions.
1) What are the main interactional strategies of inquiring about health employed among a sample of Assuit University college students (males and females)?
2) Do those speakers (males and females) employ the same strategies in all situations in which they inquire about health?
3) What are the crucial conventions which govern employing the strategies of inquiring about health among the informants of the study?
Review of Related Literature:
As mentioned earlier, the main theme of the current study is to explore the preferred strategies employed by a sample of college students in Assiut university when the inquiry about each others' health. To the best of the researches of this study. Few researches have attempted to investigate the importance of greetings as a speech act in different cultures.
Drameshie (2002) studied Ewe greetings and pointed out three kinds of greetings: temporal greetings which he calls "Time-of-day" greetings; the inquiries which he calls How-are-you greetings; and the valedictory greetings which Akindele (2007) refers to "Ways of parting/ Leave-taking". Akindele (2007) studies Sesotho greetings pointing out that greetings are "extremely important strategies for the negotiation and control of social identity and social relationships between participants in a conversation"
Emery (2000: 201) investigated the phenomenon of greeting, congratulating and commiserating in Omani Arabic .He viewed that greetings are used to establish identity and affirm solidarity. Greetings comprise an indispensable phase on the direction to interpersonal access where information can be sought and shared.
On the whole, although this review of related literature indicates that greetings as a speech act has been looked at by few researches, no one has yet investigated this speech act (i.e. greetings) as practiced by Assiut university students to the best knowledge of the researches of this study.
Data Sources and Methodology:
The data of this study were obtained forms a sample of one hundred educated informants in Assiut university. They are all college students. They range in age from 19 to 22 years old, Data of this study were conducted in October, November, and December 2016. The gender of the informants of this study was equally split (50 males, and 50 females). About one hundred natural spontaneous conversation casual visits were collected.
Conversations were recorded in three cortex to single sex settings (male and male or female and female), and mixed sex settings (female and male ) in a variety of settings such as family settings, and other real settings of everyday communication between intimates ( at school ,home……etc.) .In the earlier stage of recording in some settings , it was not easy task for the researcher of this study to make the female informants take part in the procedure of recording their conversations , This could be caused by their feeling of suspicion of having their conversation recorded by someone with whom they are not acquainted or have known before .Luckily, all of them agreed to share at last. However, two points are noteworthy mentioning:
First: In an attempt to have some recorded natural, the information of this study were unaware that their conversations are mentioned.
Second: the results of this study cannot be generalized to groups other than its current sample, that is, people other than the concerned ones may respond differently at different thing and settings when they are in different moods. Moreover, the sample of this study is rather small and taken from one sectors of the concerned society (i.e. Assiut university college students).
Table (1): Major Findings:
Strategies used by the informants of this study in inquiring about health.
Strategy Group 1
(50 males) Group 2
(50 females) Total number of frequencies % Examples
1-Formal strategies 42 38 80% • (keef ill hall)
"How are you?"
• (keef ahwaalak)
"How are your affairs?"
2- Informal strategies 34 41 75% • (Keefek ya Çammona)
"How are you uncle?"
• (Keef ?l?ẋbar)
"How is the news?"
3- Terms associated with religion and social beliefs 44 46 90% • (?nʃallah tukunu bi xir)
"May Allah you are ok)
4- Using terms of address with the inquiry. 45 47 92% • (keef haalak ostazna)
"How are you sir?)
5- Kin terms 39 44 83% • (Çamla ?eih ya mama?)
"How are you dear?"
6-Using euphemistic strategies 45 43 88% • (keef sihit ?lmadam)
"How are your wife?"
• Il hamdulillah bixir.
"praise to Allah, fine"
The main theme of this study is to explore the preferred strategies used by a sample of 100 University students in Assiut University to inquire about health in different situations. Moreover, the current study seeks to answer the questions raised by this study.
Throughout the analysis of the collected data of this study, the following patterns can be established:
1. As for the preferred strategies used by the informants of this study to inquire about health, as is seen in table (1), these strategies can be categorized into:
a) Formal strategies. The percentage for these strategies recorded 80% (42% for male, and 38% for female group) consider these example:
"keef ill hal?". Translation (How are you?).
b) Informal strategies. These strategies recorded 75% (34% for male group, and 41% for female group) consider the examples:
• )Keefek ya Çammona). Translation "How are you uncle?"
• )Keef ?l?ẋbar(. Translation ""How is the news?"
c) Terms associated with religious and social beliefs. This strategy recorded 90% (44% for male group and 46% for female group). Consider this example :
(?nʃallah tukunu bi xir(. Translation "May Allah you are OK?"
d) Using terms of address with the inquiry. The percentage of this strategy is 92% (45% for male group and 47% for female group respectively consider:
(keef haalak ostazna). Translation:"How are you sir?"
e) Kin terms. This strategy recorded 83% (39% for male group, and 44% for female group). Consider this example:
(Çamla ?eih ya mama?). Translation: "How are you dear?"
f) Using euphemistic strategies. These strategies recorded 88% (45% for male group, and 43% for female group. Consider these examples:
(keef sihit ?lmadam). Translation: "How are your wife?"
Il hamdulillah bixir. Translation: "praise to Allah, fine"
Discussion:
In addition, it has been found that, most of the male informants of this study are prone to using the formal and traditional forms of inquiries about other people health consider these examples:
a) Keef ilHaal?. Translation (How are you?)
b) Keef aHwaalak?. Translation (How are you?)
These forms are considered the most polite and common ones among young males. Also, the results of this study manifest that, the educated young females are prone to using the urban dialect due to the fact that it is more prestigious. Consider the following example:
Keef Haalak u keef ilmadaam?. Translation "How are you? And how is your wife?"
It has been argued that, age and sex are influential factors in the social interaction of any society, for example: age is often determines superiority of the interlocutors. Throughout the analysis of the data collected for this study, it has been noticed that, the younger speakers "the inferiors" ought to initiate inquiries about the older addresses' "old speakers" health as a sign of showing respect to them, and the old speakers usually ask about the youngers family health than about the younger himself. The reason may be that, superiors want to show a concern for the well-being of the inferior's family. Consider the following two examples:
– (izzayi hallak wi awladak?). "How are you and your sons?"
– (izzayi haal elhag wi ilhagga?) "How are your father and mother?"
Also, it has been noticed throughout the analysis of the data collected for this study that there are similarity in using the same forms of inquiries about other people's health between male and female speakers in the sample of this study. Holmes (2002:176) states: "women and men don not use completely different forms. They use different quantities or frequencies of the same forms". Women ask questions about the health of the addresses families as a part of conversational maintenance but men may ask just to get information. Consider:
(il-issihah tamam) "is your health good?"
(mashallaah wishak mnawwir) "God bless you, your face is radiant today".
On the above-mentioned example (mashallaah) the speaker uses religious expressions accompanying the remarks, this expression is more polite than the first one socially.
The results of this study also revealed that, in some cases, the informants of this study do not use the direct terms in their asking about other people's health. They avoid talking in a direct way, to be able not to embarrass the addresses. They usually use euphemistic terms in order to avoid mentioning of matters pertaining to parts of the body or bodily function. Yankah (2002:45) states that:
Euphemistic acts are "rhetorical filter that aims at decorum and politeness", for example asking about a sick female health is necessary but it may threaten the addressee's face, therefore, the speaker must use very proper terms in asking about this, otherwise, he may be considered socially incompetent. Consider the following example:
(izzai ssihat elmadaam, inshallah ilguruh ihassan) "How is your wife? I wish it got better".
In addition it has been noticed that, the informants of the current study use some terms of address in their inquiries about other people's health, the use of these address terms are either relational (depend upon the relationship between the speakers such as "Çammuho –uncle-" or absolute such as -reserved for authorized recipients- such as "ustaaz". In addition, the informants of this study are found to use these address terms to show intimacy or respect to the hearer in addition to show that he is a cultured and polite person. Other social titles such as "hagg –pilgrim-" is used when the hearer is superior in terms of age even when the level of intimacy and rapport is high consider the following example: "keef halak wi hagg" –how are you pilgrim?-.
Using such kind of address terms may cause awkwardness to non-native speakers because in some cases mothers' address their sons, and their sons address them with the same term "uammah – mother-", this term is used to show closeness and solidarity between the addressors and addresses.
Conclusion:
In the current study, an attempt has been made to shed light on the main strategies and the linguistic forms used by a 100 of educated informants (undergraduate students) in Assiut University faculties.
In addition, an attempt has been made in this study to explore the crucial conventions, which determine the use of these strategies in this concerned society. The results of this study show that there are varieties of formal and informal linguistic forms and strategies used by the informants participated in this study such as: (Terms associated with religion and social beliefs, terms of address with the inquiry, euphemistic strategies, and Kin terms). The results of this study also show the fundamental impact of some social as well as religious factors, which determine the choice of the strategies of inquiring about health among the informants of this study such as age, gender of the speakers and their solidarity.
It is worth mentioning t that the results of this study cannot be generalized because of the sociolinguistic nature of the area in question. Moreover, the sample of this study is small and taken from one sector of the concerned society i.e. the undergraduate students of some faculties in Assiut university.
التباين في استخدام صيغ الاستفسار عن الأحوال الصحية
بين عينة من طلاب وطالبات جامعة أسيوط
ملخص الدراسة:
إن الصيغ والاستراتيجيات اللغوية للاستفسار عن الأحوال الصحية هي من الظواهر اللغوية الموجودة في كل اللغات والثقافات، وتختلف تبعا لاختلاف هذه اللغات والثقافات أسلوبا وأداءً.
إن الهدف الرئيسي لهذه هو محاولة استجلاء التباين في استخدام صيغ واستراتيجيات الاستفسار عن الأحوال الصحية بين عينة من طالبات وطلاب جامعة أسيوط بمصر، وعن الأسباب الكامنة وراء استخدام هذه الصيغ والاستراتيجيات.
لقد أجريت هذه الدراسة على عينة مكونة من مائة طالب وطالبة (50 لكل نوع) من طلاب جامعة أسيوط، وتم تسجيل مائة من المحادثات الحقيقية والتلقائية للمشاركين في هذه الدراسة والذين كانوا يستفسرون فيها عن الأحوال الصحية لبعضهم البعض ولغيرهم.
ولقد تمخضت هذه الدراسة عن نتائج من بينها:
1-تباينت الصيغ والاستراتيجيات اللغوية المستخدمة للاستفسار عن الأحوال الصحية بين أفراد عينة هذه الدراسة بين الصيغ الرسمية والصيغ غير الرسمية طبقا لنوع المواقف.
2-اظهرت هذه الدراسة أن هناك ارتباطا وثيقا بين استخدام هذه الصيغ والاستراتيجيات اللغوية وبين المرحلة العمرية، والنوع، والمكانة الاجتماعية للمتحدثين، وكذلك بمستوى درجة القرابة بينهم.
3-إن المشاركات من الإناث في هذه الدراسة قد استخدمن صيغا واستراتيجيات لغوية للتساؤل عن الأحوال الصحية مع بعضهن البعض ومع الآخرين أقل لطفا ومجاملة مقارنة بما استخدمه المشاركين من الذكور في عينة هذه الدراسة.
4-إن استخدام الصيغ اللغوية للاستفسار عن الأحوال الصحية المرتبطة بالمصطلحات الدينية والاجتماعية في الردود على الآخرين هو من الأمور الشائعة بين أفراد العينة المشاركين في هذه الدراسة.
References:-
Akindele, D.F (2007)."A-socia-Linguistic Analysis of YorKuka greetings." Journal of African Languages and cultures". 3(1) pp98-113.
Austen, J.L (1962). "How to do things with words". Oxford: oxford university press.
Brown, P. and Levinson, s. (1987). "Universals in Language usage: politeness phenomena ". In E.N Goody (ed.), Questions and politeness: Strategies in social interactions. (pp.256-289) Cambridge, Cambridge university press.
Dzameshie, A.K (2002), "The Forms, Functions and social values of greetings among the Ewes".
Emery (2004) : greeting ,congrztukhing and comniserehing in omani Arabic Language culture and curriculum 13(2) : P.196.216 July 2000.
Fasold, Ralph, 1997. The Sociolinguistics of Language. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
First Raymond 1972: verbal and bodily rituals of greeting and pzrhing
Goffman, E., 1991. Relations in Public: Micro-studies of the Public Order. New York: Basic Books.
Goffman, E., 1992. "On face work: On analysis of ritual elements in social interaction". In: J Lever and S. Hutchison, eds., Communication in face-to-face interaction, 319-46. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
In Ameka, F.K and Osam, E.K. (eds.) New Directions in Ghanaian Linguistics. Accra: Black Masks.
Laver1991: The gift of speech .Edin burgh. Edin burg university press.
Searle, J. (1975). "I direct speech Acts". In P.cole and J.Margam (eds.), Syntax and semantics, vol.3: speech acts (pp.59-82).New York.
Wong, S.M.L (2004). "Imperatives in Requests Direct or impolite- observation from Chinese" Pragmatics (4), 491-515
Yankah, K., 2002. "Oratory in Akan Society." Discourse and Society 2:47-64.