Politeness and Expressing Gratitude in English among Igbo Native Speakers in Nigeria: A Cross-sectional Survey

Abstract

Using Brown and Levinson’s (1987) model of politeness as a framework for the analysis of data collected by means of Discourse Completion Task (DCT) from a total of 2748 respondents purposively drawn from the Igbo English speakers in Nigeria otherwise referred to as Igbo bilinguals, this study positioned itself to explore and analyse how Igbo English speakers express gratitude in the target languagemirroring parameters of social distance, social status and power as the case may be as variables that impel the choice of one strategy or the other.Findings showed that the Igbo routinely expressappreciation not only for acts of kindness, goodwill, favours received, but also for favours anticipated usually characterised by single word utterances such as: dalu/deme/imeela/ndewo/kaanka/anwuna – Thank you, which is simply a way of life for the Igbo. Also, results showed instances of elaborated and genuine show of gratitude which went beyond the usual ‘thank you’ phrase but extended to offer of prayer for acts of kindness largely made manifest by the receiver’s acknowledgment of such acts as uncommon. Results demonstrated that beyond the bounds of distance, status, age, power etc, the Igbo accomplish this interactional goal very seamlessly although not without transfer of the distinctions of the mother tongue to the target language.The study concluded that the culture of the study sample as well as the prevailing contexts in the DCT further affirms that expressing gratitude is an anticipated and acceptable behaviour and neither a face-threatening act for the Igbo.

Keywords: Gratitude, Igbo Native speakers, Conversational English, Bilinguals, Nigeria.

DOI: 10.7176/JLLL/93-02

Publication date: November 30^th 2022