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In a significant study, Kirvonos and Knapp (1975) investigated aspects of the speech act of greeting. The aim of the study was to find out the verbal and non–verbal behaviours related to the communicative interaction. It also aimed to investigate whether those behaviours were altered depending on the relationship of the participants. In order to find answers to these questions, Kirvonos and Knapp gathered data from 64 subjects. Those participants were young men. Their greeting forms were videotaped, and then they were transcribed. This research classified greetings into verbal forms and non–verbal forms. Kirvonos and Knapp also found that, between

strangers, there were less frequent verbal forms of greeting. Previously, in 1973, Halliday had presented his classification of the forms of the speech act of greeting. His proposal was based on the relation of the form of greeting and the time in which that this form was produced. Halliday referred to them as time–free and time–bound forms of greeting.

Other researchers investigated other aspects of greeting forms. Some focused on the sociolinguistics forms of greeting, e.g. the study by Dezhara and Rezaei in 2012, comparing the greeting forms used by male and female native Persian speakers. The results of the study showed that male participants tended to use more informal greeting expressions than females, in order to feel powerful.

A study carried out by Akindele (2007), analysed on the socio–pragmatics of the greeting forms of Sesotho. In his research, he studied the sociolinguistic greeting features in the sociolinguistic community of Basotho in southern Africa. Results of the study revealed that the speech act of greeting in this society is a routine, and that the aim is to establish personal relationships. It is also considered a serious topic for conversational development, as it includes having to ask about the wellbeing of the person, that of his/her family and friends. The results of the study also revealed age, time and context differences. Akindele also added that there were some similarities in greeting structures and types in the Sesotho, Arabic, Shona, Yoruba and Setswana languages.

On the other hand, Gharaghani, Rasekh, Dabaghi and Tohidian (2011) carried out a study which aimed to examine the gender effect on politeness strategies in the speech act of greeting among Persian, English native speakers and EFL learners. It was a cross–cultural study where gender was considered the variable. The researchers

claimed that politeness and formality differed depending on the context of the situation. They also added that findings were considered a Persian phenomenon, that is culture specific; besides, there is an increase in the formality of some gender greetings. The participants of this study included 46 male and female EFL learners who were were divided into two groups. The first group comprised 30 undergraduate EFL learners of between 21 to 24 years old. The second group had eight participants who were Persian EFLs and eight American native English speakers. The method of data collection was through the open–ended DCT and the Dramatic Written DCT. The results of the study revealed the significant effect gender has on the level of formality in Persian greetings. It also revealed some transformations in different situations from the style of Persian greeting to EFL performance. Researchers also add that, as observed in the chi–squared test, there were inappropriate politeness expressions used by the EFL learners when responding in English. The authors stated that “since the social norms of politeness are believed to be universal by EFL learners, L1 pragmatic norms are clearly observed in EFL performances” (Gharaghani, Rasekh, Dabaghi and Tohidian, 2011, p. 93).

Another comparative study by Dezhara, Rezaei, Davoudi and Kafrani (2012) focused on the common greeting forms performed by Persian males and females. This research also aimed to find out if these behaviours differed depending on the relationship to the interlocutor and the speaker’s gender. The participants of the study included 20 female and 20 male university students. The method of data collection was the DCT. The findings showed men’s tendency to use more informal expressions and have more face power. On the contrary, women tended to prefer talking about

private topics and they were more likely to show their feelings or manifest expression while speaking.

The speech act of greeting in Arabic language was also a subject of study. The researchers Rababa`h and Malkawi (2012, p. 18) investigated the Jordanian Arabic linguistic etiquette, including the speech act of greeting. It also aimed to examine what sociolinguistic factors were responsible for their structures. The researchers collected the data from conversations that naturally occurred in different settings. Findings of the study showed that the factors which are responsible for structuring the speech act of greeting were age differences, sex, situation context and time differences. Researchers also added that there are rules related to greeting initiations that are socio–cultural and socio–religious. The greeting phrase assalaamu alaykum, meaning ‘Peace be upon you’, is considered a significant socio–religious, polite and common greeting. The study by Rababa’h and Malkawi (2012, p. 18) is of significance because it examines the same language (but different society) as our research.

The speech act of greeting was also a subject of investigation in the siSwati language which is a language spoken in Swaziland and South Africa. Sithebe (2011) examined the realisation of greetings and requests by native and non–native speakers

of siSwati. The researcher aimed to find differences between the speakers of siSwati

and American English communication. The goal of this research was also to examine how these speech acts (greeting and request) were realised by non–native speakers of siSwati. The participants of this study were 10 American English speakers and 10 Swazis. The methods of data collection were questionnaires and interviews, which were semi–structured. The researcher analysed the data by using the Blumkulka

(1989) Cross–Cultural Speech Act Realisation Project framework. The outcomes of this study suggest differences in how greetings and requests are interrupted and understood by both Swazi and American native English participants. Sithebe relates differences to the different cultural background of both groups. The researcher also adds that this could be a reason for misunderstandings, so we should be aware of culture differences.

In a research carried out by Kirdasi (2013), the greetings of Arabs and Americans were investigated. The goal of this research was to compare greeting strategies in terms of body language and speech performed by Arabs and Americans. Variables such as social distance, gender and situations were investigated to see if they have an influence on the strategies of greeting. The methods of data collection were natural observation and the DCT, which had six situations to test different variables. There were 60 Arab and American participants in this study. The researcher also used interviews in order to understand how greeting strategies are perceived by the participants. Only 18 participants were interviewed. The findings of the study reveal more use of oral speech greeting strategies than body language by both Americans and Arabs. However, Americans used more oral speech than Arabs. In addition, body language was used more by Americans than by Arabs. Moreover, the greeting patterns in oral speech and body language used by both Arabs and Americans were different. The researcher also added that Americans tended to use a variation of strategies of greeting and language, while Arabs used routine ones. On the other hand, Arabs tended to use a variety of body language strategies while Americans did not.

In a cross–gender study, Jan (2013) investigated greetings, politeness expressions and modes of address in the Kashmiri language. The aim of the study was

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to “analyse men’s and women’s talk with regard to some speech practices, such as politeness expressions, greetings and modes of address found in the Kashmiri speaking community” (Jan, 2013, p. 9) and to study the differences in how the Kashmiri speakers practice speech with the opposite gender. The method used to gather the data for this research was through personal observation and interviews. Two–hundred participants were interviewed.

The informants were asked various questions related to their speech practices, keeping in view the nature of the research work. Besides the researcher visited various spots like marriage functions, educational institutions, market etc., and made observations to know different greetings, politeness expressions and the various modes of address employed by people belonging to the same and opposite gender categories in natural settings” (Jan,2013, p. 8–9). […] The results of the study concerning the speech act of greeting revealed that there were verbal and non–verbal expressions of greetings. It also revealed that greetings and related phrases between individuals are different depeding on the spatio–temporal settings (Jan, 2013, p. 78).

The researcher added that the greeting expressions of Kashmiri have a response that is fixed and, unlike the greeting phrases responses, depend on the participants’ age and gender, together with the context of the communication process. (Jan, 2013).

Greetings to strangers in an informal setting has also been subject of

investigation. Prykarpatska (2014) investigated the verbal behaviour difference

between Ukrainians and Americans when greeting a stranger in an informal setting. This study was based on cultural variability, which was presented by Geert Hofstede (1980) and Edward Hall (1963). The model that these scholars presented was used by the researcher for the American culture model. The Ukrainian model of culture, on the other hand, was designed by the researcher. The data collection for this study was

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empirical data that the researcher obtained using a questionnaire. The participants of this study were Ukrainian and American English native speakers from different age groups, places and professions. The cultural outcomes of this study reveal the informality and indirectness of Americans, and the directness and formality of Ukrainians. The researcher added

a highly individualist and egalitarian American culture, where personal freedom, respect for privacy and an equal treatment of all people are the first–order values, make Americans avoid any kind of imposition on their interlocutor’s personality. A small talk serves them as a probing strategy to find out if the interlocutor is interested in getting acquainted with them. Only when his/her reaction is positive they introduce themselves (Prykarpatska, 2014, p. 188).

Moreover, Ukrainians are not as concerned with non–imposition and privacy as Americans, being more direct in their intentions and more formal.

Another study on the speech act of greeting in Arabic was undertaken by Zayed (2014). The researcher studied the performance by Jordanian EFL students and teachers of five speech acts: thanking, greeting, requesting, complimenting and apologising. We will discuss in this section only the speech act of greeting (Zayed, 2014, p. 3). The participants of the study were 30 female teachers of EFL and 1,116 of their students. The instrument of data collection was a checklist in classroom observation. The results of the study revealed that

the greeting forms inside the EFL classroom were practised as clichés that are memorized without recognizing their real functions. Also, students were accustomed to practice them chorally, and when the researcher tried to greet them individually, she had no response from any of the students. In fact, this does not go with the general and specific outcomes that expect that students in the first grade will take part in simple familiar exchanges and participate in simple short exchanges with a peer (e.g., greeting each other) (Zayed, 2014, p. 4).

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The speech act of greeting in Kazakh and English was also a subject of investigation. In 2015, Meiirbekov, Elikbayev, Meirbekov and Temirbaev carried out a study which focused on the sociolinguistic aspects of the speech acts of greeting in Kazakh and English. It also examined the differences in the speech act of greeting in expressing it or producing it. The data collection methods that the researchers used to gather the data included observation, interview, questionnaire, introspection and statistical analysis. The data on the Kazakh language were collected from real–life, while the English language data were collected from the audiovisual materials posted on the Internet. The participants were teachers and students. Findings of the study revealed that the speech act of both languages was affected by the social context. It also showed that both Kazakh and English had their own individualities but that they also shared some similarities.

Moreover, Ahmad undertook research on the speech act of greeting in Urdu (2015), where his goal was to

provide a first useful method of exploring the structure of a social group. Both male and female greet in a different ways. Consequently, it is sine qua non on the part a language teacher teaching a second /foreign language to show to the students in the class the different ways to greet, so that they can have a wider knowledge in the usage of particular vocabulary in a second/foreign language.

It aimed to answer the questions:

1. How do the native speakers of Urdu including both male and female greet other in day today social interactions?

2. What factors influence women and men to choose certain linguistic expressions? (Ahmad, 2015, p. 56–59).

The method of data collection was through naturally occurring data.This

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also discussed the Indian culture that has Urdu speakers. The content of the paper was based on the author’s observations. In this work, the author aimed to point out “some interesting inherent linguistic features in day–to–day social interaction of Urdu speakers” (Ahmad, 2015, p. 47). The findings revealed that Urdu speakers used both verbal and non–verbal types of greeting and the religious norms of the Urdu speech community governed the greeting speech act. This study also noted that the pragmatic meaning of the greeting speech act was affected by culture. An interesting aspect that the researcher pointed to is that:

modes of greeting have a set of syntactic, semantic and pragmatic structures that distinguish its usage in day today social interactions. Therefore, it is not a speech act of 'welcoming' or 'saluting'. These latter acts have their distinctive uses, structures and functions which are different from the greeting. The refusal of Muslim men and women to shake hands with members of the opposite sex is a contentious issue for many people in and around the world because it contradicts the social norms that are prevalent within Western society today. In some cases, this refusal to shake hands is taken as a personal insult, embarrassing both the greeter as well as the greetee. The main reason which can be given is that the greetings among Urdu speakers (Muslims) in India are more governed by religious norms (Ahmad,

2015, p. 115).

Finally, in a study by Enslen (2010), the speech act of greeting was examined, together with other speech acts which are performed by Japanese students, comparing ESL and EFL environments. The study aimed to answer the following questions:

1. Does the study abroad experience expand the learners’ knowledge of speech act production? If so, to what extent?

2. How do study abroad students and those who do not go abroad differ in the acquisition of speech acts?

3. Can pragmatic issues be effectively taught in the classroom? (Enslen, 2010, p. 188)

The participants were 10 students who studied abroad, twenty–two Japanese EFL students and a control class of 24 Japanese who did not receive pragmatic usage

instruction. To gather the data, a Free DCT was used. The results of the study revealed support from earlier studies. Enslen (2010, p. 188) stated that Japanese ESL

learners were closer to native speaker norms than EFL learners. Similarly, House

(1996) found that students who studied abroad had developed greater pragmatically. However, House also showed that pragmatic development can be improved in the EFL setting. Both of these observations were substantiated through this research project. The finding that ESL learners have an advantage developing pragmatic competency was considered by Bardovi–Harlig and Harford (1993), and Kasper (1997), to be based on the amount of input the learners receive. Learners need sufficient input to notice the target features, and then they gain control. Kasper (1997) had also pointed out that classrooms offer only a limited context and, therefore, learners do not develop pragmatic control as rapidly as ESL learners. The results showed that students who studied abroad performed more like native speakers due to the amount of input in the ESL setting. Enslen added that under an EFL setting, effective teaching speech acts need to be acquired. Effective teaching can help acquire speech acts, but it can also help students in their experience while studying abroad.

2.4. Summary

The literature review of this study presented a detailed overview of the research on speech acts. It shed light on important related theories and concepts which are considered the bases of speech act research. It also discussed pragmatic competence and transfer, communicative competence and important politeness theories.

Once we had focused on the theoretical framework for speech acts, we introduced the studies on English speech acts that had been carried out during the past few years. Also, we focused on Arabic speech acts, including from different Arabic speaking countries. All these studies have helped us understand different communication ways in each language.

The speech act of greeting was then discussed in detail, and we presented various definitions, theories and concepts. The strategies of the speech act of greeting were also discussed. This was followed by an overview of previous studies on the speech act of greeting in both languages that we used for our research.

The following chapter will be on methodology. First, it will discuss data collection methods used by scholars to gather the type of data they need. Later, it will present the method used in our study. In addition, it will include detailed information about our participants, procedures and how the data will be analysed.

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