Arabic Jordanian Compliment (Mujamaleh) and Politeness Online Expressions Versus Their Counterparts in American English

Abstract

This research paper aims at examining Arabic Jordanian compliment (Mujamaleh) and politeness online expressions versus their counterparts in American English. the paper relies heavily on relevant literature, previous studies included.It is obvious that there is a wide variety of compliments within one culture in terms of their roles and usage. Responding to a compliment poses a dilemma for speakers since they have to balance two diametrically conflicting conversational principles: to agree with one's conversational participants and to avoid self-praise as much as they can Scholars mention that “compliment is a speech act which explicitly or implicitly attributes credit to someone other than the speaker, usually the person addressed, for some “good‟ (possession, characteristic, skill, etc.) which is positively valued by the speaker and the hearer as greeting expects greeting in response”, Thus, this research paper aims at examining politeness and compliment expressions in Jordanian Arabic and American English used by modern generations in internet era, mainly in informal manner. This makes such expressions to be less serious and tends to be humorous and close to resemble jokes that are far away from traditional terms and expressions.Results and conclusion are expressed

Keywords: politeness, compliment/compliment responses, humorous expressions, Jordanian Arabic American English