Research Paper

Religiosity in Marrakeshi Compliments

The first thing that deserves attention while dealing with the expressions of complimenting in our society is their reference to religious concepts. Most of the expressions or formulas used involve a reference to God and reflects the cultural and religious dimensions of the Moroccan society. These expressions are most of the time cherished by the older generation more than it is by the younger one. Young people tend generally to use short expressions such as /bssaa wrraa/ or /zatk zwina/. Old people, on the other hand, usually accompany these compliments with formulas of the sort /tbark llah/, /tbark llah wasla anbi lik/, /llah jtik ssaa/,/llah jdaxxalha lik mbarka masuda/ and so on.

The striking thing about these formulas is that they are not fixed, they are used frequently in different contexts. For example, the formula /sla anbi lik/ is used to fulfill different functions: it express praise on apparel or physical appearance and it can also be used to protect people from the evil eye in a wide range of contexts. However, these formulas keep their religious meaning in whatever context they are used.

One of the frequent formula which is widely used in our society is /tbark llah/ may God bless you. It is used with the majority of compliments. People believe that this formula can protect the recipient of a compliment from the evil eye as praise is generally considered to bring harm to people.

A research paper submitted to the department of English of Cadi Ayyad University
in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Licence-es-Letters in English
Year : 1998 - 1999 / Major : Linguistics / Seminar Title :Pragmatics
Supervisor : Dr. GAJJOUT Hassan