The Speech Act of Invitation: A Contrastive Analysis of Moroccan Arabic and American English

Abstract

The present study has highlighted the similarities and the differences between American English (AE) and Moroccan Arabic (MA) in terms of the speech act of invitation. In fact, several strategies have been used to make, accept, and decline an invitation. The study’s data has been collected via two online questionnaires using Google Forms. In fact, there is one questionnaire which was used to collect data from Americans who speak English as their mother tongue and another one for Moroccan whose mother tongue is Moroccan Arabic. Both questionnaires comprise a number of parts. The first part is where personal information is provided. As a matter of fact, the participants are asked about their region and city as well as their age and sex. They are also asked about their level of education. The second part is composed of four situations for each questionnaire. The participants have to answer in American English when filling out the questionnaire designed in English, whereas others have to answer in Moroccan Arabic when filling out the one in Arabic. The results have shown that there are some similarities between MA and AE in terms of the speech act of invitation. Therefore, it is worthwhile to note that in both AE and MA, there are some indirect and direct strategies which are used to make an invitation. In fact, there are many strategies shared by both MA and AE which indicates that there are similarities. However, there are also some differences given that each language has its own socio-cultural background.