Abstract:
This study investigates the speech acts of issuing, accepting, and refusing invitations in
Saudi Arabic, within the concept of speech act theory, formulaicity, and politeness theory,
through syntactic, semantic, and socio-pragmatic analysis, taking into consideration gender, the
social relationship of the interlocutors, and the type of occasion for which the invitation is issued.
The subsequent relevant turns in the entire invitation discourse were also examined.
Invitation exchanges were collected using two natural data-collection methods: observing
and recording via note-taking invitation situations in naturally occurring interactions in Saudi
Arabia, and collecting screenshots of WhatsApp text messaging conversations containing
invitations. The collected data, constituting 170 invitation exchanges, were first qualitatively
coded following grounded theory to uncover the underlying patterns or themes, and then were
divided into different strategies using a classification scheme similar to Blum-Kulka’s (1987) for
invitation issuing, Alkhatib’s (2001) for acceptance, and Beebe et al.’s (1990) for refusal. My
own classification scheme was used for neutral responses and reactions. A quantitative analysis
using SPSS Crosstabs was then conducted to count the frequencies of each strategy and compare
them against the social variables.
The results of the study showed that Saudi Arabic invitation typically appears as an
exchange with three distinct stages, issuing, response, and reaction, which may be extended in
certain situations. Moreover, Saudi Arabic invitations are not purely direct or indirect, but
instead situation-specific, although with a preference for indirect strategies in refusals. Regarding
the influence of the social factors, gender did not influence the employment of specific strategies,
while type of event and social relationship did. The data also showed that there are certain
common features that characterize invitation in Saudi Arabic, including specific religious
expressions and honorific markers, echoing, and the use of particular address terms. Frequent use
of certain expressions also showed that Saudi invitation was extensively formulaic, as with most
speech acts.
