A Pragmatic Investigation of the Speech Act of Compliment in Contemporary Persian and Arabic Narrative Texts Based on Dell Hymes Model

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

MohammadAli Ameri ¹

Ali Zeighami ²

¹ Postdoctoral Candidate in Arabic Language and Literature, Semnan University, Semnan, Iran

² Associate Professor of Arabic Language and Literature, Semnan University, Semnan, Iran

https://doi.org/10.22067/jall.2026.94679.1567

Abstract

Complimenting constitutes a pivotal speech act whose proficient execution is central to facilitating successful interpersonal communication. The pragmatic efficacy of this speech act extends beyond lexical selection, being fundamentally contingent upon extralinguistic variables such as cultural and pragmatic norms, situational contexts, interlocutors' socio-relational status, and communicative objectives. Adopting a descriptive-analytical framework, the present study examines the speech act of complimenting by extracting and analyzing empirical data from 16 Arabic and Persian narrative texts through the lens of Hymes’ SPEAKING model. This investigation aims to elucidate the operational mechanisms of compliments in Arabic and Persian, thereby underscoring the critical role of pragmatic and cultural factors in the communicative process.The findings reveal that compliments in both languages predominate within informal contexts. Notably, a convergence of data across various cohorts of Persian interlocutors—contrasted with the marked variance observed in the Arabic data—indicates that social status and social distance exert a negligible influence on the speech act of complimenting in Persian, whereas they remain highly determinative in Arabic. Furthermore, the high frequency of praise as a primary communicative function, coupled with the subtle presence of underlying negative intentions, points to deep-seated cultural commonalities between the two speech communities. Regarding emotional posture, an admiring tone was most prevalent in Persian, whereas a joyful tone predominated in Arabic. Discourse rules in both languages favor explicit compliments, with personal character and physical appearance emerging as the most frequent thematic topics. Finally, from a morphosyntactic perspective, adjectival constructions represent the primary linguistic strategy for compliment formulation in both languages, with religious concepts extensively modulating the enactment of this speech act across both cohorts.
 

Keywords

Pragmatics of the Arabic Language

Speech Acts

Compliment

  Narrative  Texts

Dell Hymes Model

Subjects

• Linguistics

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