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Abstract:
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Politeness is a universal, interdisciplinary phenomenon. Every culture, every language, has its ways of showing respect and deference, saving face, avoiding, or minimizing, imposition and exercising good manners verbally and non-verbally. The study is an investigation of some aspects of (translating) politeness Emirati Arabic. It starts with a brief theoretical background on politeness. Next, the study reports on the major findings of observing euphemisms, forms of address and non-verbal politeness in the UAE. Then, the study discusses some issues in translating politeness formulas and root-echo responses – e.g., congratulating, thanking, apologizing, in UAE Arabic – by a group of UAE University students. Finally a number of politeness formulas in Emirati Arabic are translated into English and appended to the study.
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