Situation Arab version American version Social distance Gender
1 Christmas party Eid party Close friend (-) Male
2 Thanksgiving party Ramadan Iftar Close friend (-) Female
3 School’s welcome party School’s welcome party Classmate (+) Male
4 New Year’s party New Year’s party Classmate (+) Female
5 Restaurant Restaurant Neighbours (+) Male + Female
6 Chinese New Year’s party Chinese New Year’s party Close friends (-) Male + Female
The six situations for greetings are as follows:
Situation 1
a. Arab version:
Your close friend Jack invites you to a Christmas party at his house. You enter the house and you see him talking to a group of people.
1) You walk towards him and
say: ………..
and/or do: ……….
2) You wait for Jack to come over and welcome you 3) You ignore him and walk away
4) Other: ………
b. American version:
Your close friend Ahmed invites you to Eid party (a religious day for Muslims) at his house. You enter the house and you see him talking to a group of people.
1) You walk towards him and
say: ………..
and/or do: ……….
2) You wait for Ahmed to come over and welcome you 3) You ignore him and walk away
4) Other: ………
Situation 2
a. Arab version:
Your close friend Maria invites you to a Thanksgiving party at her house. You enter the house and you see her putting some food on the table for dinner.
b. American version:
Your close friend Hala invites you to Ramadan Iftar dinner at her house. You enter the house you and see her putting some food on the table for dinner.
Situation 3
a. Arab version:
You meet Mike, a classmate with whom you are not very familiar, at the school welcome party.
You see him having a drink.
a. American version:
You meet Omar, a classmate with whom you are not very familiar, at the school welcome party.
You see him having a drink.
Situation 4
a. Arab version:
You meet Mariam, a classmate with whom you are not very familiar, at the school New Year’s party. You see her having some food from the buffet.
a. American version:
You meet Salma, a classmate with whom you are not very familiar, at the school New Year’s party; you see her having some food from the buffet.
Situation 5
a. Arab version:
You are at a restaurant having dinner with a friend. You see your neighbors David and Elaine, whom you haven’t seen for quite a while, come through the door and sit near you.
b. American version:
You are at a restaurant having dinner with a friend. You see your neighbors Ali and Maha, whom you haven’t seen for quite a while, come through the door and sit near you.
Situation 6
a. Arab version:
Your school is holding a Chinese New Year’s dinner. You come in and see Sara and Martin, a couple with whom you are close friends, talking to another couple with whom you are not familiar with.
a. American version:
Your school is holding a Chinese New Year’s dinner. You come in and see Jana and Samer, a couple with whom you are close friends, talking to another couple with whom you are not familiar with.
Interviews
After the analysis of DCT, 18 participants, including 10 Arabs (5 males and 5 females) and 8 Americans (5 males and 3 females) were randomly selected and invited for the interview.
The length of the interview was approximately 30 minutes for each participant and the interview was tape-recorded for the data analysis. The purpose of the interview was basically to know participants’ perceptions of greetings and to elaborate on their DCT questionnaire answers.
Therefore, the selected interviewees were asked to comment on their previous answers of the questionnaire and illustrate their behaviour and perceptions of intercultural greetings (see Appendix D).
Data Collection Procedures
The data collection procedures are in the following order: Natural settings observation, discourse completion task questionnaire (DCT) and interviews. Observation was taken from different settings and occasions where people naturally exchange greetings. After the analysis of observation data, selected people were invited to participate in DCT questionnaire and interview.
In order to avoid any confusions or misunderstanding of the DCT scenarios, I met with my participants and explained the study to them in person, instead of sending the electronic questionnaire. As the participants were located in different cities, I scheduled one week for meeting with each group.
After the analysis of the DCT data, the selected interviewees were asked to explain their answers on the DCT questionnaire, as well as some other questions regarding their perceptions and experiences on greeting rituals.
Data Analysis
The data from video-taped natural observation were transcribed and analysed to find general patterns of greetings in various occasions by Arabs and Americans. These findings then aided to design the DCT questionnaire and to create the coding scheme. The descriptive statistics were employed in the presentation of the results. The analyses were conducted for several
purposes: (a) to find the most common greeting strategies used by Arabs and Americans in terms of oral speech and body language, and (b) to examine the influence of different variable such as, gender, social distance or situations on greeting strategies.
Examples from the present study are taken from actual data in observation, DCT, and interview. All the examples are shown as presented in the DCT, any errors-other than spelling- are not corrected.
The DCT data were first analysed and categorised into three major categories: Oral speech, body language, and others, as well as various subcategories (see Table 3.3). In addition, the data were analysed according to the number of strategies, gender, social distance and
situations to examine how Arabs and Americans perform greetings. In this study, the number of oral speech strategies used by participants represents the length of their speech. That is because, according to the coding scheme, the more oral speech strategies they use, the more words they produce. The DCT main categories and subcategories are as follow:
Oral speech: the strategy of using spoken language to perform greetings. Following are the
subcategories:
(a) Initiation words: The words or phrases used to open a conversation (e.g., Hello, Hey,
Good evening)
(b) Terms of address: A word or phrase used to address or refer to someone or something (e.g., My dear, guys, everyone)
(c) Declarative sentences: Is a sentence in the form of a statement (e.g., I miss you, It’s
nice to see you)
(d) Interrogative sentences: Is a sentence that asks a question (e.g., How are you doing?) (e) Occasion phrases : phrases that used to exchange greetings in special occasions (e.g.,