The Lighter and Darker Sides of Thanks

Abstract

This study explores how gratitude is linguistically communicated and cognitively framed in two Arab cultures: Algeria and Jordan. Guided by speech act theory and politeness theory, the study first examines the linguistic realization of gratitude, considering social status, familiarity, and the weight of the benefit/imposition. Eighty participants (40 Algerians, 40 Jordanians) completed an oral discourse completion task (DCT). Data was analyzed using Cheng’s and Al-Khawaldeh’s taxonomy of gratitude, with modifications. Findings revealed significant cultural differences. Algerians used more strategies, while Jordanians exhibited greater variety, employing “appreciation,” “regret,” and “no thanking.” Contrary to the literature, the most frequent Algerian strategy was religious formulae, not direct thanking. Jordanians were more sensitive to higher social status, Algerians to high imposition. The second part, guided by Kövecses’s cognitive-cultural model of emotions and prototype theory, examined gratitude’s conceptualization based on its linguistic manifestation. Positive concepts (prayer, thankfulness, compliment) were central to the prototypical gratitude cognitive model in both Algerian and Jordanian Arabic. However, negative concepts (indebtedness, imposition, apology, embarrassment, regret) also contributed to this conceptualized structure. These findings challenge the notion of gratitude’s solely positive nature and instead suggest that it is a complex emotion with “lighter and darker sides.”