Draft: this lesson was written with AI help and has not yet been read by a human editor.
1 What your class asks
This lesson asks you to identify, from texts you hear, social conventions of language, among them greetings, expressions of courtesy and ways of expressing gratitude. The museum offers two: how a greeting is returned, and what thanks is. The Arabic expressions themselves, formal and informal address, and body language, your class brings. 1
Curriculum expectations, with their official codes
- A3.2 using information from oral texts in the target language, identify and demonstrate an understanding of sociolinguistic conventions used in a variety of situations in diverse communities where the target language is spoken […]
2 Before you start
A thought to carry into the lesson.
3 The lesson
How does the speaker answer?
Listen to a short dialogue and notice who begins and who answers, and the words that acknowledge a kindness. What do they tell you about the social setting?
Go deeper
Two records give the meaning of a word, both from the Kuwaiti encyclopaedia of jurisprudence. In the record on greeting with peace, among the senses of taslim in the language is conveying, taslim is the salam, and the jurists' usage does not depart from these senses 2. In the record on shukr, shukr in language is the acknowledgement of a kindness received, its spreading and praise of its doer, and it is said only in return for a kindness or favour 3 4. Praise stands beside it: praise (madh) is good speech about a person, and may come before or after a kindness, while gratitude comes only after a kindness 4.
How do we know?
The encyclopaedia explains the words as the language uses them and as the jurists use them 2. It is not a recording of what people say when they greet and thank one another in a conversation, so the dialogues your class hears are the evidence for that.
Think about it
The encyclopaedia says gratitude comes only after a kindness, while praise may come before or after one 4. Give a reason from a dialogue you hear: when a speaker thanks someone, how can you tell that a kindness has already been done?
Into the museum
- Greeting with peace: the meaning of taslim in the language and in the jurists' usage.
- Shukr: the definition of gratitude, and how the encyclopaedia separates it from praise and commendation.
Try this
Read the records on greeting with peace and on shukr. Note the greetings and thanks you hear in a dialogue, and compare them with what the two records say.
4 Check yourself
Nothing here is marked or sent anywhere. It is for you.
In your own words: what does Greeting with peace (salam) have to do with this lesson?
Compare with the card
Returning a greeting. The record on greeting with peace gives the etiquette of the greeting on meeting. In his commentary on the Surat al-Nisa passage about greetings, Sha'rawi says a greeting is returned with its like or something better, and sets out who begins and who answers. Listen: how is a greeting answered in the dialogues you hear?
In your own words: what does Shukr (gratitude to God and to people: its meaning, its rulings, its virtue and its opposite) have to do with this lesson?
Compare with the card
Gratitude. Shukr, in language, as the Kuwaiti Encyclopaedia of Fiqh defines it, is the acknowledgement of a kindness received, its spreading and praise of its doer. It shows in the tongue, the heart and the limbs; by the tongue, it is acknowledgement and praise. After you listen to a dialogue, which words did you hear that acknowledge a kindness?
I can now
Notes
- 1. Ontario Ministry of Education, The Ontario Curriculum: Classical Studies and International Languages
- 2. al-Mawsu'a al-Fiqhiyya al-Kuwaitiyya, Noor-Book copy (file named v3), p.5084
- 3. al-Mawsu'a al-Fiqhiyya al-Kuwaitiyya, Noor-Book copy (file named v3), p.10145
- 4. al-Mawsu'a al-Fiqhiyya al-Kuwaitiyya, Noor-Book copy (file named v3), p.10146