A Sociolinguistic Study of Speech Act Realization Patterns in Jordanians’ Facebook Status Updates

Abstract

The study investigates the types of speech acts in the status updates posted by young Jordanian Facebookers. The data were elicited from 200 students from two Jordanian universities, Irbid National University and Jadara University. To deal with content analysis data, the researchers created a special scheme based on Searel’s taxonomy. Six speech acts were found in students’ status updates on Facebook: expressive, assertive, directives, God’s invocation, quotation and humor. Also the study findings evidently indicate that the cultural norms and religious background profoundly rooted in all participants can strongly affect their linguistic choices in their native language. It is hoped that the results would help those involved in teaching and learning Arabic as a second/foreign language.