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The Expression of Gratitude in English and Arabic Doctoral Dissertation Acknowledgements Cover

The Expression of Gratitude in English and Arabic Doctoral Dissertation Acknowledgements

By: Affef Ghai and  Sharif Alghazo  
Open Access
|Sep 2024

Figures & Tables

Distribution of the total number of words in the corpus/acknowledgements

Sub-corporaNo. of DasNo. of words
English 4024,898
Arabic407,077
Total8031,975

Results of gender differences in gratitude expression patterns in the English corpus

FormFrequency χ 2 Sig
FemaleMale
NoPer 1,000 wordsNoPer 1,000 words
Nominalisation 272.39564.115.4440.020*
Performative verb12911.431359.911.3730.241
Adjective 433.81503.670.0430.835
Passive 20.1820.140.0001.000
Bare mention 443.90292.136.5410.011*
Total 24521.7227219.970.9420.332
Number of words11,279 13,619

Results of gender differences in gratitude expression patterns in the Arabic corpus

FormFrequency χ 2 Sig
FemaleMale
NoPer 1,000 wordsNoPer 1,000 words
Nominalisation 9824.8311135.466.4880.011*
Performative verb246.08175.430.1000.752
Adjective00000.0001.000
Passive00000.0001.000
Bare mention 92.2830.962.2730.132
Total 13133.1913141.853.4350.064
Number of words3,947 3,130

Patterns expressing gratitude

FormExamples
Nominalisation“My sincere thanks to…” “The author’s gratitude goes to…”
Performative verb“I thank…” “The author appreciates…”
Adjective“I am grateful to…” “The author is thankful for…”
Passive“Y is thanked for…” “Appreciation is given to…”
Bare mention“I cannot go without mentioning…” “X has been helpful in…”

Patterns expressing gratitude in English and Arabic acknowledgements

From\patternEnglishArabic χ 2 Sig
FrequencyFrequency per 1,000 wordsFrequencyFrequency per 1,000 words
Nominalisation 833.3320929.53229.1270.000*
Performative verb 26410.60415.7915.0220.000*
Adjective 933.740082.0000.000*
Passive 40.16002.1050.147
Bare mention 732.93121.693.3140.069
Total51720.7626237.0250.3000.000*
Language: English
Submitted on: May 25, 2024
Accepted on: Jun 13, 2024
Published on: Sep 16, 2024
Published by: Sciendo
In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services

© 2024 Affef Ghai, Sharif Alghazo, published by Sciendo
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.