Advice in English and Arabic television health programs

Abstract

This study deals with advising speech act from a polite point of view. Advising speech act implies that there is an expert who has knowledge of something and tries to share it with others for their own benefit .Since this study is concerned with health advice, it is very important to show the language used in health context which is medical language. The current study investigates the pieces of advice that are presented in TV health programmes 'The Doctors' and 'Green Apple'. This study aims at:(1) showing the difference between 'The Doctors' and 'Green Apple' programmes in presenting advising speech act with its strategies,(2) shedding light on health advice in T.V programmes and (3) showing the difference between English and Arabic health programmes with regard to politeness types and their strategies. To achieve these aims , the study hypothesizes that:(1)all advising speech acts in 'The Doctors' and 'Green Apple' are performed within a framework of politeness,(2)there is a difference between English and Arabic programmes concerning the employment of politeness types as the Arabic programme 'Green Apple' uses negative politeness more than the English program 'The Doctors' and(3)both