A Socio-Pragmatic Study of Stupidity or Stubbornness Expressions in Jordanian Spoken Arabic

Abstract

The study investigated the impact of age and gender on the use of impoliteness strategies deduced from the use of metaphorical expressions of stupidity and stubbornness in Jordanian Spoken Arabic (JSA). The data has been collected through a Discourse Completion Task (DCT), which consisted of 20 situations related to stupidity and stubbornness. The participants of the study were 200 Jordanian males and females whose ages ranged between 20-65-year-old. The study adopted Culpeper's (1996) model as a theoretical framework to analyze the data.  The findings showed that the most frequently used strategy is positive impoliteness while the least used strategy is sarcasm among male and female speakers. It was also found out that younger speakers outperformed the other age ranges of speakers in the use of impoliteness strategies. Jordanian elderly female speakers used the positive output strategies more than males in JSA, whereas middle age speakers used these strategies the least.