This article compares formulaic expressions for the offering of good wishes, part of the verbal rituals of politeness, in Turkish and French. Situated within a sociology of language framework, the study focuses on the analysis of verbal interaction in relation to three dimensions: syntax, semantics and pragmatics. To this end, a number of the most widespread formulaic expressions currently in use in Turkish society were identified and, through the provision of literal translations, compared with their French equivalents. The corpus consisted of 23 formulaic expressions for the offering of good wishes and their responses. Analysis revealed numerous differences between the Turkish and French equivalents at the semantic and pragmatic levels; indeed, only one expression showed a perfect match. As for all formulaic expressions, it is important to take such differences into account when engaging in the teaching of a foreign language, especially in the case of more distant cultures and languages.