In this study we are going to present a contrastive analysis of the
verbal acts that deal with the image of the immigrant in both Colombian and
Egyptian society. The analysis is delimited to the Colombian novel Crónica
de una muerte anunciada (1981) by García Márquez and the novel
khammaret El Qutt El Aswed: the barman or La taberna del gato negro: el
tabernero (1969) by Naguib Mahfuz. Both texts belong to two authors who
have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. The study aims to highlight
the public image of the immigrant. Throughout the analysis we are going to
investigate the linguistic strategies of Politeness that both authors use to
designate the public image of the immigrant. On the other hand, we are going
to underline and analyze the acts that designate the public image of the native
character, in this case, the Colombian and the Egyptian. The image of both
the immigrant and the native will be analyzed in both novels from the
concept of “public image" according to Brown and Levinson's Principle of
Linguistic Politeness (1987).