The Persian system of politeness and the concept of ...

The Persian system of politeness and the concept of face in Iranian culture

Sofia A. Koutlaki

(based on the writer’s Doctoral thesis at the University of Wales, College of Cardiff, 1997)

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Preface to the Iranian edition When this thesis was defended at the University of Wales, College of Cardiff in 1997, Persian politeness and face were largely uncharted territory. Since then, and not necessarily because of it but possibly in synchronicity, a number of papers on various aspects of Persian politeness have appeared, some of which I have had the good fortune to peer-review. The publication of the original thesis along with its Persian translation is presented in the hope that they will provide the inspiration for more research into the fascinating area that is Persian politeness and face. Acknowledgments I would like to thank Dr Negar Davari Ardakani for conceiving the idea of translating this thesis and for introducing me the two able and hardworking translators, Zahra Farrokhnezhad and Azardokht Jalilian, MA graduates of the Linguistics Department at Shahid Beheshti University, who put in a lot of hard work into this translation. It has been a long haul, but their thoroughness and determination has finally brought this project into fruition. My thanks also go to Dr Zohrehsadat Naji for translating this page, Zohreh Hedayati Bidhendi for preparing the publication proposal and tidying up the preliminaries, and Akram Majnoonian for putting the final touches into the Persian text. Once again, the responsibility for any errors, omissions and slips rests solely on my shoulders. Sofia A Koutlaki Tehran, June 2014/Khordad 1393

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Original Thesis Acknowledgments This thesis, undertaken at a very busy time in my life, has taken a lot of time (and heartache) to complete. I would like to thank the following people for all the help they have given me. My warmest thanks go, first of all, to my supervisor Dr Adam Jaworski for the inspiring discussions we have had and for reading first (and second and umpteenth!) drafts of every chapter, making constructive comments and generally for being so encouraging and so prompt in his feedback. I owe him a lot. Dr Justine Coupland from the Centre for Language and Communication is to be thanked for her valuable comments on the interim versions of the thesis and especially on the final one. I am also grateful to Professor Maria Sifianou of my alma mater, the Department of English Studies, University of Athens for her input on the final version. Both these contributions have greatly improved the final product. Thank you both for everything. I am indebted to the management of Birkbeck Library, who, although only a former student, they extended to me full borrowing rights for the whole of my study at Cardiff. Without this help, my work would have been immensely difficult. I would like to thank Ms L Tamaddon from Tehran University, Ms T Jamshidian from Tarbiat-e-Modarres University, Tehran, Mr Ghazieh from Simin Language Institute, Tehran, and Dr Vosoughi from Tarbiat-e-Mo`allem University, Tehran for permitting me to work with their classes. Many thanks are due to all the students of these classes who responded as best as they could to the task I set them, and allowed me to record their responses. I am indebted to all my informants, who also agreed to be recorded and shared with me their views and ideas about politeness in Persian. Dr Mohammad Hossein Keshavarz, from Tarbiat-e-Mo’allem University, Tehran has been kind enough to share his inspiring insights into Persian socioliguistic usage and to offer me his highly valued help. For all this, I am truly thankful. Dr Guy Cook from the Institute of Education, University of London, and Dr Abdorreza Rafiee from the University of Westminster have both managed to slot me in their busy schedules and to provide me the former with some useful references and the latter with his insights into Persian sociolinguistics and Iranian society from the dual vantage point of a native speaker and a sociolinguist. I am very grateful to them both. I would like to express my warmest thanks to my two sisters-in-law Mansoureh and Mahboubeh for looking after baby Athena while I was conducting the fieldwork in Tehran during March-April 1994. My mother-in-law Tahereh Zarabiha selflessly took on so much at home during the last revisions; without her invaluable help it would have been impossible to finish within the timeframe I had set myself. I will never forget 3

how much you have done for me. A debt of gratitude is due to my parents who, even from so far, have always believed in me (even when I didn’t) and who have always willed me to complete this thesis. The one person I am eternally grateful to is my husband Hossein Fakhri Moghaddam for his unfailing moral and practical support and constant encouragement. He has very often lifted my spirits when they were down (which was rather too often) and has always managed a smile in the face of adversity. I am sure that without him this thesis would certainly never have seen the light of day: thank you for being who you are. My children Athena (now almost four years old) and Yusef (just two) for making it as difficult as possible, strengthening thus my determination, and for providing a sense of balance and perspective at times when I thought I could not go on. Of course, all responsibility for any errors and inaccuracies, of which there must be many, lies with me. S A Koutlaki London, June 1997

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ABSTRACT

Given that politeness in Persian, as understood by native speakers, has a very strong normative aspect, Fraser’s (1975) and Fraser and Nolen’s (1981) formulation of a Conversational Contract (CC) among speakers has been adopted. According to the Persian Conversational Contract (PCC), participants in an interaction will direct their verbal and non-verbal behaviour towards maintaining and enhancing each other’s face. Strategies of face maintenance and enhancement are classified under the maxims of Deference, Humility and Cordiality (adapted from Leech 1981) and realised through specific ritual courtesy strategies, which are labelled ta’arof in Persian folk terminology. The concept of face in Persian consists of two folk notions, shaxsiat (‘personality’, ‘character’, ‘honour’, ‘self-respect’, ‘social standing’) and ehteram (‘honour’, ‘respect’, ‘esteem’, ‘dignity’). The thesis argues that an individual adopts politeness strategies in Persian in order to manifest his/her ehteram and at the same time to maintain and enhance all interlocutors’ shaxsiat. In other words, facework in Persian is said to have a strong phatic aspect (Malinowski 1923 [1972], Laver 1975). Drawing on the work of Brown and Levinson, this thesis argues that their model of politeness (1978, 1987) cannot account satisfactorily for the Persian data, and that a more wide-ranging framework utilising the work of Fraser (1975, 1990), Fraser and Nolen (1981), Leech (1983) and Mao (1994) needs to be introduced here to present a more complete picture of Persian notions of face and politeness.

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LIST OF CONTENTS New Preface and Acknowledgments Thesis Acknowledgments Abstract List of Contents

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION AND AIMS 1.1. Introduction 1.2. Assumptions of the thesis 1.3. Aims of the thesis 1.4. Thesis outline CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Phatic communion and phaticity 2.2 Interactional sociolinguistics 2.3 The Concept of politeness 2.4 Politeness ‘rules’ or ‘maxims’ 2.4.1. Grice’s Cooperative Principle (CP) (1975) 2.4.2 Lakoff’s rules and sub-rules of Pragmatic Competence (1973) 2.4.3 Leech’s Maxims of Politeness (1983) 2.5 Goffman’s (1959, 1967) notion of face in interaction 2.6 Politeness as a social contract (Fraser 1975; Fraser and Nolen 1981) 2.7. Politeness and face considerations (Brown and Levinson 1978,1987) 2.8. Politeness in non-Western and non-Anglo cultures 2.9 Persian pragmatics 2.10 Summary CHAPTER 3: METHOD 3.1. Review of various methods 3.1.1 The ethnographic approach 3.1.2 Participant observation 3.1.3 Native speakers’ metalinguistic comments and analysts’ intuitions 3.1.4 Written questionnaires/Discourse completion tests (DCTs) 3.2 The methods used in this study 3.2.1 Recordings of naturally occurring conversations 3.2.2 Field notes 3.2.3 Informal interviews and intuitions 6

3.2.4 Oral Discourse Completion Tests 3.3 Summary CHAPTER 4: TA’AROF, PERCEPTIONS OF POLITENESS AND VALUES IN IRANIAN SOCIETY 4.1 Dictionary definition 4.2 Folk views on ta’arof 4.3 Functions of ta’arof 4.4 Setting the Iranian scene 4.5 Native speakers’ perceptions of politeness 4.5.1 Politeness, culture and society 4.5.2 Politeness and social manners 4.5.3 Politeness and the individual 4.5.4 Politeness and impoliteness in speaking 4.5.5 Politeness and formality 4.6 Societal values 4.7 Summary CHAPTER 5: A FRAMEWORK FOR ANALYSIS: POLITENESS AND TA’AROF STRATEGIES 5.1 The superordinate maxim of Manners and the three maxims 5.2 Deference Maxim: Show deference and approbation 5.2.1 Other-raising forms of verbs and other-raising formulaic expressions 5.2.2 Other-raising terms of address and reference 5.2.3 Other-raising general conversation, including compliments 5.3 Humility Maxim: Show humility 5.3.1 Self-lowering forms of verbs and formulaic expressions 5.3.2 Self-lowering reference terms 5.3.3 Self-lowering general conversation, including apologies 5.4 Cordiality Maxim: Show cordiality 5.4.1 Make offers of food and drink, offers of putting up for the night and invitations 5.4.2 Show interest in and concern for other through: Openings and health inquiries Apologies, showing concern for other’s needs and wishes Expressions of thanks and gratitude, showing appreciation of other’s efforts Gift offers and responses Closings 5.4.3 Practise ritual (ta’arof ) refusal 5.4.4 Establish rapport through the use of terms of address

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CHAPTER 6: THE NOTION OF FACE IN IRANIAN SOCIETY 6.1 Introduction 6.2 Face in Persian culture 6.3 Brown and Levinson’s model (1978, 1987) applied to Persian 6.4 Negative face, the notion of imposition and formality 6.5 Some examples 6.6 Summary CHAPTER 7: DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION 7.1 The main politeness theories applied to Persian 7.2 The present framework and modifications to the theories 7.3 Future research 7.4 Conclusion Bibliography Appendix I: Note on transcription and translation conventions Appendix II: Lists of questions for ethnographic interviews

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CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION AND AIMS

1.1 INTRODUCTION A pause in the wrong place, an intonation misunderstood, and a whole conversation went awry. Why can't we be friends now?’ said the other, holding him affectionately. ‘It's what I want. It's what you want.’ But the horses didn't want it-they swerved apart; the earth didn't want it, sending up rocks through which riders must pass single-file; the temples, the tank, the jail, the palace, the birds, the carrion, the Guest House, that came into view as they issued from the gap and saw Mau beneath: they didn't want it, they said in their hundred voices, ‘No, not yet,’ and the sky said, ‘No, not there.’

E M FORSTER, A Passage to India The subject of this thesis is the largely terra incognita of linguistic politeness in Persian, examined both intra- and inter-culturally. The first sparks of interest in cross-cultural communication were lighted in me when years ago I was working for an Iranian company, employing Iranian and English workers. As I observed their behaviour and listened to their comments, views like ‘Iranians are all empty talk and so superficial’, ‘English people only care about themselves and no-one else’, ‘Iranians are not straight and they never tell you what they really think’, ‘English people are rude and have no regard for other people's feelings’ would often crop up. Some speakers would even go as far as asserting their belief in the other group’s intrinsic impoliteness! Being a ‘foreigner’ to both groups I had a partial understanding of their difficulties and a gut feeling that it is implausible to assume that one group of people is more polite than any other and that there must be an explanation for what appeared to be a chain of misunderstandings. This explanation, so simple and yet so complex, is a locus communis in the literature: grammatical inadequacies in a foreigner’s speech are understood and allowed for by native speakers but sociopragmatic failure (see Chapter 2), stemming from different cultural values and perceptions of the world, ‘reflects badly on [the non-native] as a person’ because it is not recognisable as such by the non-linguist (Thomas 1983:96-97). Examples of cross-cultural misunderstanding abound in the literature (Craig 1979, Christopher 1982, Rubin 1983, Thomas 1983, Takahashi and Beebe 1987, Wolfson 1989:14-33 among others); I will now focus on some of them. Wolfson (1989:17) reports that when Americans invite Japanese students or 9

immigrants to a social gathering, mentioning time and place and adding come if you want to, the effect on the Japanese is ‘strange and rather offensive’, since in Japanese an invitation must be repeated with insistence. Likewise, Arabic speakers of English in the US are reported to have gone hungry and thirsty during social gatherings, because according to their native cultural rules they refused invitations to help themselves to refreshments at least twice but expected the offers to be repeated. American hosts on the other hand, gathering that the guests were neither thirsty nor hungry, did not repeat their offers, and may even have been annoyed that their efforts were unappreciated. (Rubin 1983:14; Wolfson 1989:18). Other possible sources of cross-cultural misunderstanding refer to the knowledge of conversationally restricted topics, what are possible objects of requests in English, how far and how strongly one can disagree with an interlocutor and the topics that one can discuss with a new acquaintance. For example, while questions like How much do you earn? or How much did that cost? may be perfectly acceptable in an Asian, Arab or Persian setting, are usually taboo with English speakers (Richards 1980:424; Wolfson 1989:19). Thomas (1983:97) adds that: Misunderstandings of this nature are almost certainly at the root of unhelpful and offensive national stereotyping: ‘the abrasive Russian/German’, ‘the obsequious Indian/Japanese’, ‘the insincere American’, and ‘the standoffish Briton’. Negative stereotyping and prejudice is more widespread than generally acknowledged. The sociopragmatic differences are just too many, and ‘...if there is anything universal about rules of speaking, it is the tendency of members of one speech community to judge the speech behavior of others by their own standards’ (Wolfson 1989:15). Sociolinguistic violations are not received with tolerance because sociolinguistic rules lie below the level of conscious awareness; native speakers are largely unaware of them until they are broken by a non-native speaker (Wolfson 1989:25). Researchers increasingly demonstrate how different principles and patterns of interaction are at work across different cultures. One of the objectives of such work is the eradication of negative stereotypes and the fostering of greater cross-cultural understanding. Both of these concerns tend to be addressed mainly in foreign language teaching. It is therefore of paramount importance that more research be undertaken with the aim of equipping the language learner with the sociolinguistic knowledge necessary for her functioning adequately in the target culture (see also Wolfson 1983c:61; Wolfson, D’Amico-Reisner and Huber 1983:116). Within the field of cross-cultural communication, politeness has attracted a great deal of researchers' interest, which seems quite justifiable. Ours is an age in which increasing numbers of people from various cultures come into contact 10

with one another through the revolution in communications, international travel, business contacts and intermarriage. Smooth interaction between speakers of different cultural backgrounds largely depends on their polite intentions being understood correctly by an interlocutor, ‘polite’ referring both to ‘first-order’ politeness’(‘the various ways in which polite behaviour is perceived and talked about by members of socio-cultural groups’, including ‘commonsense notions of politeness’) and to ‘second-order’ politeness, which is a theoretical construct, a term within a theory of social behaviour and language usage. (Watts, Ide and Ehlich 1992). If speakers’ polite intentions are misunderstood, the outcome of the interaction can range from unsatisfactory to disastrous. Each participant will go away with a negative impression of the other, based on the politeness rules that each of them has internalised as part of her sociocultural make-up. The problem here is not only that each participant functions according to a different set of pragmatic rules, but that she does so unawares (Sifianou 1992:204) which may result in negative value judgements, misunderstanding, amusement, contempt, disappointment, serious insult (Wolfson 1989:15) and sometimes even communication breakdown. As an example of a conversational strategy that can be open to cross-cultural misunderstanding, in Persian it is customary for new acquaintances to ask and answer ‘personal’ questions in order to demonstrate their interest in and involvement with each other. In England, however, the range of question one could ‘safely’ ask a new (or an old) acquaintance is more limited. Rafiee (1992:137-138) has described the concept of ‘personalness’ or what information is considered personal in English and Persian cultures. He lists the following types of information from the least to the most personal: 1. Family name 2. Job 3. First name 4. Marital status 5. How much did you pay for it? 6. Telephone number 7. Age 8. Political persuasion 9. Religion 10.Income Rafiee maintains that, other thigs being equal, in England one could safely go up to question number 4 without running any serious risk of being characterised as presumptuous, whereas in Iran the ‘free goods’ safety limit can be as high as number 10, ‘free goods’ being everything that can be given for free in a given culture, such as matches, cigarettes, information or a lift (Lakoff 1974:27). 11

As the quality and the amount of free information are different in the two societies, it is possible to hypothesise about the outcome of an interaction between an English speaker and an Iranian one, both unfamiliar with each other's threshold of privacy and polite conventions: the English speaker may form an impression of Iranians as impertinent, interfering nosy-parkers with no sense of privacy, whereas the Iranian participant will characterise her interlocutor as cold, unforthcoming and lacking in friendliness and goodwill. Nevertheless, they both may engage in the interaction with the best of intentions, the Iranian party showing involvement and rapprochement, and the English one granting and expecting independence as the politeness rules of each participant’s culture prescribe. As already mentioned, problems of this nature can, in theory, be addressed through language teaching. Thomas (1983:96) argues that it should be possible for the language teacher to explain pragmatic rules with the same precision as grammatical ones: ...it is the teacher's job to equip the student to express her/himself in exactly the way s/he chooses to do so-rudely, tactfully, or in an elaborately polite manner. What we want to prevent is her/his being unintentionally rude or subservient. It may, of course, behove the teacher to point out the likely consequences of certain types of linguistic behaviour. However, one of the practical problems that exacerbates teachers’ difficulties is that pragmatic principles have not as yet been described for any language to any considerable extent as grammatical rules have (Thomas 1983:97), and the responsibility rests therefore with the individual teacher to draw from her personal experiences of the mother and target languages in order to give the students useful insights. The lack of systematic description of sociolinguistic rules is not the only hurdle on the way to successful cross-cultural communication. As Thomas mentions, in some cases, even though learners may be aware of the different rules operating in the target culture, they are not willing to conform to them, or take them into consideration. A reason for this may be unwillingness to deviate from their own culturally internalised norms of what constitutes polite behaviour or sincere expression of feelings or intentions. As Wierzbicka (1991:61) rightly points out, the problem is not just different ways of encoding politeness, but different cultural values prevailing in the two cultures. Linked to the differing cultural values between speakers of different languages is the concept of sociopragmatic failure (Thomas 1983, after Leech 1983:10-11), which is used by the author to refer to the social conditions placed upon language in use. She (1983:104) argues that ...correcting pragmatic failure stemming from sociopragmatic 12

miscalculation is a far more delicate matter for the language teacher than correcting pragmalinguistic failure. Sociopragmatic decisions are social before they are linguistic, and while foreign learners are fairly amenable to corrections which they regard as linguistic, they are justifiably sensitive about having their social (or even political, religious or moral) judgement called into question. The various types of sociopragmatic failure listed by Thomas are the size of imposition, taboos, cross-culturally different assessments of relative power and social distance, value judgements and cross-culturally different ‘pragmatic ground rules’, such as joking formulas and the conventions of white lies. Anyone familiar with Iranian culture will be able to think of numerous examples of likely candidates for sociopragmatic failure in Iranian speakers of English. For example, the almost total absence of the notion of imposition among family members and close friends in Iranian society (see Chapter 4); the reciprocal use of Title + Family name between students and staff at Iranian universities; the notions of politeness and face which differ greatly between English and Persian (see Chapters 4 and 6); and what is perceived as insincerity by non-Iranians in the practice of ta’arof (‘ritual courtesy’- see Chapter 4). 1.2 ASSUMPTIONS OF THE THESIS In my scheme, first-order (or ‘commonsense’) politeness, as mentioned previously, feeds into second-order (or theoretical) politeness, the latter reflecting the cultural insights provided by the former. In other words, the point of departure for the formulation of my framework has been native speakers’ beliefs about and perceptions of politeness. Given that politeness in Persian, as understood by native speakers, has a very strong normative aspect, I found Fraser’s formulation of a Conversational Contract (CC) among speakers especially apt and postulated a Persian Conversational Contract (PCC- after Fraser’s CC). The PCC includes the undertaking that all participants in an interaction will direct their verbal and non-verbal behaviour towards maintaining and enhancing each other’s face. Face considerations are all-pervading in Persian even in the most transactional types of interaction (e.g. trade exchanges, see Chapters 5 and 6), while the Persian concept of face is very different from Brown and Levinson’s (1978, 1987) positive and negative face, and consists of two folk notions in common usage in Iranian society, shaxsiat (‘personality’, ‘character’, ‘honour’, ‘selfrespect’, ‘social standing’) and ehteram (‘honour’, ‘respect’, ‘esteem’, ‘dignity’). The analysis that follows demonstrates that politeness strategies in Persian are employed in order to show ehteram and consequently to maintain and enhance all interlocutors’ shaxsiat.

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1.3. AIMS OF THE THESIS Patterns of Iranian interaction seem to attach importance to involvement, assertion of goodwill and mutual dependence, expressed through ritual politeness strategies. Whereas Brown and Levinson’s (1978, 1987) politeness model details that speech acts have the potential of threatening speakers’ faces and that politeness strategies aim at redressing face threats, in Persian it seems that ritual politeness strategies very often maintain and enhance both interlocutors’ faces rather than redress threats to either's face. Consequently, some of the speech acts that Brown and Levinson characterised as Face Threatening Acts (FTAs) function as Face Enhancing Acts (FEAs) in Persian (e.g. invitations, offers, compliments). These fundamental differences between Brown and Levinson’s model and the Iranian reality lead me on to propose further development of the politeness theory. This study aims to promote an understanding of contemporary Iranian culture, largely unknown to the West, pragmatic/ sociolinguistic studies of Persian being very sparse. On a more practical level, the aim of promoting an increased understanding between Iranian and English speakers can be pursued by the application of the thesis results in the design and production of new EFL teaching materials for Iranian EFL students, incorporating the information on the cultural differences between English and Persian with regards to politeness. It is hoped that the long-term result of the application of these materials will be an increased sociolinguistic competence of Iranian EFL speakers, which will be a clear gain for all concerned. 1.4 THESIS OUTLINE This thesis is organised in the following way: In Chapter 1 I focus on some examples of cross-cultural communication in the literature and elaborate on the notion of sociopragmatic failure (Thomas 1983), as one of the major causes of problems in cross-cultural communication. The assumptions and the aims of the thesis are detailed and a thesis outline provided. Chapter 2 overviews relevant literature, starting from Malinowski, Gumperz and Grice, examining Goffman’s concept of face and moving on to Fraser’s view of a Conversational Contract. It then focuses on the basic theories about politeness, i.e. Leech and Brown and Levinson and on the writings of some researchers on non-Western or non-Anglo politeness (Chen, Ide, Hill et al., Gu, Matsumoto, Nwoye, Sifianou, Wierzbicka). The chapter concludes with a section on Persian pragmatics, including what scarce information on Persian politeness is available in old grammar books and moving on to Beeman’s (1986) more recent account of social structures and interaction in Iranian society. Chapter 3 focuses on different methods employed in sociolinguistic research (ethnographic fieldwork, native speakers' metalinguistic comments and 14

analysts' introspection, written questionnaires, Discourse Completion Tests (DCTs), participant observation) and offers a critique of those methods. It also outlines the main methodological base of this study, which included taperecording of natural conversations, fieldwork notes, ethnographic interviews with native speakers, and my own intuitions. Chapter 4 discusses the concept of ta’arof (‘ritual courtesy’), and demonstrates its importance for the study of Iranian interaction. The chapter focuses on the phatic and face-enhancing role of ta’arof as the central issues in Persian politeness. It then analyses Persian politeness by examining native speakers' perceptions of what constitutes politeness and polite behaviour in Persian. A general theme that emerges from this discussion is that in Iranian society group values associated with family loyalty, helpfulness and hospitality predominate over individual ones, such as independence and freedom from imposition. Against this background, Chapter 5 offers a formulation of the maxims of Persian politeness (Deference, Humility and Cordiality) and describes in detail how these are realised in interaction, providing examples from the ethnographically collected data. Chapter 6 provides a description of the constituents of Persian face (shaxsiat and ehteram) and an explanation of how the concept of face underlies all polite communication, using extracts from the tape-recorded data as illustrations. Chapter 7 contains a critique of the main theories in the field of politeness. In particular, I argue that Brown and Levinson’s model (1978, 1987) does not apply to Persian for several reasons. Brown and Levinson’s view of negative face has very limited relevance, if any, to the Persian reality. Given that in Iranian society involvement rather than independence is a prevalent orientation in communication, some of the speech acts that Brown and Levinson characterised as FTAs in fact function as Face Enhancing Acts, because they are meant to enhance rather than threaten interactants’ face. This chapter also recapitulates the use I have made of other ideas on politeness, mainly Fraser and Nolen’s and Leech’s and summarises my thesis, as I have already detailed it in section 1.2 above. It also contains a section on directions for future research, both in the study of Persian pragmatics, still in its infancy, and in the field of politeness. Two notes about language usage are in order at this point. Firstly, I have used the adjective Iranian to refer to the nationality, culture and society of Iran, since Iran has been the official name of the country for over twenty years. On the other hand, Persian, refers to the major language of the country (and to carpets, which do not concern us here), in contradistinction to other Iranian languages, like Kurdish and Pashto. Secondly, everyone writing in English has to make a decision on the use of ‘generic’ pronouns; the use of generic he being rejected for ideological reasons (Jaworski 1986, Wolfson 1989:164-187, among many others), I decided to do away with the stylistic awkwardness of he or she and his or her, which, while 15

acceptable in a shorter piece of writing, become, I find, tiresomely repetitive in the course of a book (AND he and him still come first!). I have therefore adopted the use of both he and she as generic pronouns in alternate chapters, starting (for a change) with she in Chapter 1.

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CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter outlines the linguistic and pragmatic tradition that forms a backdrop for this study. I start with Malinowski’s notion of phatic communion and the tradition of research that followed Malinowski’s work. Then I discuss Gumperz’s work in interactional sociolinguistics and finally move on to the concepts of face and politeness The rich literature on face and politeness is discussed in the following sections: first, I present the notion of politeness regulated by rules or maxims, then consider politeness as part of a broader system of socially instituted behaviour and finally summarise the most popular model of politeness proposed by Brown and Levinson (1978, 1987) based on Goffman’s (1959, 1967, 1972) work on face. The last section of the chapter looks at the scarce information available on Persian pragmatics. 2.1 PHATIC COMMUNION AND PHATICITY According to Malinowski (1923, [1975]), phatic communion is ‘a type of speech in which ties of union are created by a mere exchange of words’ (Malinowski 1972:151- this and all subsequent references are to the 1972 reprint) and as ‘language used in free, aimless social intercourse’ (ibid. 142). Malinowski perceived phatic talk as qualitatively different from ‘purposive activities’ talk, such as agricultural and aggressive activities in the non-Western (‘primitive’, as he characterised them) societies he studied, and argued that ‘...language functions as a link in concerted human activity, as a piece of human behaviour. It is a mode of action and not an instrument of reflection.’ (148) Even though Malinowski characterised phatic communion as ‘aimless[ly] gossip’ (151), he conceded that speech is the prime manifestation of the human need for other humans’ presence (150) and argued that phatic talk is found in greeting and parting formulas and ‘purposeless expressions of preference or aversions, accounts of irrelevant happenings’ (150) or ‘inquiries about health, comments on the weather, affirmations of some supremely obvious state of things’(151). Words in phatic communion are not used primarily to convey the meaning that is symbolically theirs; they fulfil a social function, which is their primary aim. (151) On the whole, Malinowski’s formulation characterises phatic communion in contradictory terms: even though it is ‘empty’ of meaning, redundant or irrelevant, it manifests a very basic human characteristic, that of humans’ being ‘social animals’ and having the need to belong with other human beings. Later writings have focused on the negative aspect of phaticity, characterising it as ‘dull’ (Leech 1974) and semantically ‘empty’ (Turner 1973), while underrating its positive (i.e. phatic) side. On the other hand, Laver, whose 17

work is the most extensive re-working of Malinowski’s ideas (1974, 1975, 1981) placed the emphasis on conversational openings and closings as par excellence phatic. According to him, phatic communion serves to dispel tension or the possibility of hostility at the beginning of an interaction and functions as a softener for the blow of separation and a strengthener of a relationship at a conversational closing. As a result of these functions, he argued that phatic communion tends to be absent from transactional settings, thereby implying that phatic communion and serious business do not go together. Similarly, Leech (1983:141-142) recognises the importance of phaticity in relation to politeness and subsumes a Phatic maxim along with the other six paired maxims (see section 2.4.3) under his Politeness Principle. He ‘provisionally’ formulates the Phatic maxim as ‘Avoid silence’ or, more positively ‘Keep talking’ about ‘trivial’ and ‘uninformative’ subjects, such as the weather or an interlocutor's new haircut. He does however recognise that it is inadequate to describe phatic communion as avoidance of silence. All these writings implicitly assume that every piece of interaction/discourse is unifunctional, i.e. that openings and closings have predominantly phatic value, while medial sections, where ‘serious business’ is carried out and information is imparted are transactionally functional, and therefore of low phatic value. More recent work has however recognised that discourse, no matter how transactional, can have multiple aims and that phatic aims are not peripheral in speech (Tracy 1991; Tracy and Coupland 1991). Coupland, Coupland and Robinson argue that ‘[p]haticity may be best seen as a constellation of interactional goals that are potentially relevant to all contexts of human interchange.’ (1992:211, emphasis in the original) and therefore ‘we should expect to find instances where a relationally designed and perhaps phatic mode of talk surfaces whenever phatic goals become salient-even within sequences of transactional, instrumental, or task-oriented talk.’ (ibid.213). This is an insightful view that will prove relevant to my analysis and will be referred to often in this thesis. 2.2 INTERACTIONAL SOCIOLINGUISTICS Gumperz’s work focused on interethnic and interracial interaction, codeswitching and linguistic convergence between people of different backgrounds. His work is based on the assumption that language use is socially and culturally relative and that meaning is contextually situated. Gumperz argues that ‘what we perceive and retain in our mind is a function of our culturally determined predisposition to perceive and assimilate’ (1982a:12); in other words, the way we understand the world is directly related to our cultural and social background. Gumperz specifically had in mind the social and demographic conditions prevailing in most modern cities, where people from diverse cultural, racial, religious and ethnic backgrounds come into contact with each other in various settings and engage in gatekeeping 18

encounters. As Gumperz remarks, even though syntactic, phonological and semantic differences are the easiest to note, the so-called ‘marginal’ features of language, such as intonation, speech rhythm, and choice among lexical, phonetic and syntactic options (Gumperz 1982a:16) can also affect the perception of messages to the same, if not to a greater extent, resulting in misunderstandings and, ultimately, in negative judgements against people of different background from the host community. For example, a native speaker of an Asian language, who, when speaking English, follows the conventions of his native language in deixis and referencing (Gumperz, Aulakh and Kaltmann 1982), or prosodic patterns, time sequencing and cohesive devices (Mishra 1982) may be perceived as disorganised, chaotic, difficult to follow, and may even have his personal integrity, competence and good character called into question. It becomes therefore obvious how miscommunication in professional and gatekeeping encounters (e.g. interviews) may easily result in covert discrimination and limited access to resources and facilities (see e.g Gumperz 1992a; Roberts, Davies and Jupp 1992). In one of his articles (1992b), Gumperz demonstrates how signalling devices (‘contextualization cues’- see also Gumperz 1977, 1982, 1992a, 1992b) in conversation inform interpretations in the speakers’ minds and how the conversation between a native English speaker and an Indian English speaker may be plagued by misunderstandings which prevent each speaker from recognising the other’s perspective and responding co-operatively. Contextualization cues are verbal or non-verbal signs that help conversationalists make inferences like the cultural background and social expectations necessary for the interpretation of speech. Contextualization cues may include stress and intonation, tempo, pausing and laughter, choice of lexical forms or formulas and many others. Gumperz (1992b) demonstrates how the interactants’ use of different contextualization cues leads to misunderstanding. For example, the Indian English speaker (D) foregrounds new information in low pitch, which results in the native English speaker’s (L) missing D’s main point. In addition, L often interrupts D before he has had the chance to develop his point fully, because she wrongly assumes that D’s use of final fall intonation, where she would expect more-is-to-come slight fall intonation, marks the end of his utterance. Pitch and intonation are only two sources of misunderstandings between the two speakers. Gumperz plausibly argues that speakers’ subsequent attempts to clarify previous misunderstandings only serve to exacerbate them, thus placing the speakers in a kind of maze, where the more they attempt to find their way out, the more they distance themselves from the exit. As already mentioned, Gumperz’s concerns about cross-cultural misunderstanding stemming from differing conventions in verbal behaviour and conversational strategies are central to this study. Chapter 6 identifies specific 19

differences in perceptions of politeness and face and the ways of encoding those differences in English and Persian which may lead to cross-cultural miscommunication and provides some suggestions for raising language learners’ awareness of those differences. 2.3 THE CONCEPT OF POLITENESS In the vast amount of publications in the field of politeness, very few academic definitions of the concept exist: it is generally assumed that researchers have more or less identical notions of what constitutes politeness (Fraser 1990:219-220). However, as I will argue later in this chapter, work on non-Western politeness reveals often striking or, as Watts, Ide and Ehlich (1992a:15) put it, ‘alarming’ differences in conceptualising and expressing politeness in speakers of different cultures. It may therefore be the case that researchers of different cultural backgrounds themselves visualise politeness in different ways. For example, one of Lakoff’s allegedly universal rules of politeness (see below) classifies formality/aloofness under politeness, while Sifanou (1992:22) argues that aloofness and politeness do not coincide in Greek society, as ‘...an aloof, very distant person is not usually regarded as polite’. Similarly, Duranti (1985:222) argues that the notions of ‘formality’ and ‘informality’ are not only culture specific but also ‘influenced by the range of linguistic resources and channels available within a given speech community’. From the existing definitions of politeness, I will focus on three that complement each other and converge on three basic aspects of politeness. Lakoff’s (1979:64) definition focuses on the phatic aspect of politeness couched in rather negative terms, as she defines politeness as ‘a device used in order to reduce friction in personal interaction’ (my emphasis). Hill et al.’s (1986:349) definition also focuses on the phatic aims of politeness in more detail, describing it as ‘...one of the constraints on human interaction, whose purpose is to consider others’ feelings, establish levels of mutual comfort, and promote rapport.’ In common with Lakoff’s definition, the idea of promoting smooth communication is present in Ide’s (1989:225) definition. According to her, linguistic politeness is: ...the language usage associated with smooth communication, realized through the speaker's use of intentional strategies to allow his or her message to be received favorably by the addressee and through the speaker's choice of expressions to conform to the expected and/or prescribed norms of speech appropriate to the contextual situation in individual speech communities. Although the interpersonal/phatic aspects of politeness are not given 20

prominence in this definition, Ide focuses on two other very important politeness facets. First, the success of transactional goals is achieved through adherence to politeness principles and secondly, politeness is linked to conformity to socially and contextually prescribed norms. 2.4 POLITENESS ‘RULES’ OR ‘MAXIMS’ 2.4.1 Grice's (1967, 1975) Cooperative Principle (CP) Grice (1967, 1975), whose work influenced the maxim-based approach to politeness, was interested in how a hearer moves from the understanding of the literal to the understanding of implied meaning. He dinstinguished two kinds of implicature, conventional and conversational, both conveying an additional level of meaning beyond the literal meaning of the words. Conventional implicature is conveyed through the use of the words but, even, therefore and yet (Levinson 1983:127) and, as Thomas (1995:57) adds, through some uses of the word for (as in: She plays chess well, for a girl). For example, in ‘She was poor but honest’ there is an implication that females living in penury may be inclined to engage in dishonest or immoral acts. The use of the word but and the other words always carry the same implicature, irrespective of context. (For conversational implicature, see below). The basis of Grice’s theory is that interactants in conversation strive to achieve common goals, which pre-supposes their co-operative behaviour, expressed in terms of the Cooperative Principle (CP): Make your conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of talk exchange in which you are engaged (Grice 1975:45). The CP comprises four maxims, which are as follows:  Quantity: Make your contribution as informative as required (for the current purposes of the exchange); do not make your contribution more informative than is required  B. Quality: Try to make your contribution one that is true; do not say what you believe to be false; do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence 

C. Relation: Be relevant

 D. Manner: Be perspicuous: avoid obscurity of expression; avoid ambiguity; be brief (avoid necessary prolixity); be orderly

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Grice recognised that other (unspecified by him) maxims, such as aesthetic, social or moral, are also at work in real conversation, the maxim ‘Be polite’ being given as a casual example (ibid.47). Grice details that non-observance of the maxims can be categorised as flouting, violation, infringment, opting out and suspension of a maxim (Thomas 1995:64). According to Thomas (ibid.), flouting a maxim is the most important category of maxim non-observance, because it is mostly cases of flouting that give rise to implicature. Assuming that speakers normally observe the Cooperative Principle, i.e. that they are being co-operative in interaction, an overt failure to observe a maxim (a flout) at the literal level aims at generating an implicature. It behoves then the hearer to infer the implicit meaning of the utterance and the possible reasons why the speaker committed a flout. Unlike conventional implicature, conversational implicature depends heavily on the context, as in the following example, taken from Thomas (1995:55): Late on Christmas Eve 1993 an ambulance is sent to pick up a man who has collapsed in Newcastle city centre. The man is drunk and vomits all over the ambulanceman who goes to help him. The ambulanceman says: ‘Great, that’s really great! That’s made my Christmas!’ In another context, e.g. during the opening of Christmas presents, an identical utterance by a recipient of an agreeable gift would be interpreted very differently (Thomas 1995:58). In this example, however, the deductive process a hearer would go through would roughly follows these steps (as reconstructed by Thomas 1995:67): (i) The ambulanceman has expressed pleasure at having someone vomit over him. (ii) There is no example in recorded history of people being delighted at having someone vomit over them. (iii) I have no reason to believe that the ambulanceman is trying to deceive us in any way. (iv) Unless the ambulanceman’s utterance is entirely pointless, he must be trying to put across some other proposition. (v) This must be some obviously related proposition. (vi) The most obviously related proposition is the exact opposite of the one 22

he has expressed. (vii)The ambulanceman is extremely annoyed at having the drunk vomit over him. Although Grice was interested in how speakers process implicatures, he also argued that ‘it is just a well-recognized empirical fact that people DO behave in these ways’ (1975:48). This statement has often left his view of communication in terms of conversational maxims open to criticism of ethnocentricity, because Grice did not clarify whether he referred to people in his own society only or whether he visualised his statement to have universal applicability (Sifianou 1992:17). It must be borne in mind that at the time of the publication of Grice’s work, information on conversational practices in non-Western cultures was almost non-existent. Grice should probably be excused for presenting a model of communication which may sound ‘reasonable’ and ‘rational’ (both positive qualities) in an Anglo-American context but which may be perceived quite negatively in the setting of another culture. For example, Keenan, in her wellknown study of Malagasy conversation (1976) details how in Malagasy society information, being scarce, is treated as a precious commodity conferring power upon its possessor and how a speaker will often withhold information from a conversational partner. This study amply demonstrates that the maxim of quality is regularly violated in Malagasy society (and possibly in other societies) and that its purported universality must be discounted. Another flaw in Grice’s theory of communication is that it does not attribute any weight to politeness considerations as motives for deviation from his maxims, when politeness considerations seem to be a very potent factor in abiding by Grice’s CP and in deviating from it. Consider the following example quoted in Thomas as an illustration of this situation: a speaker flouts the maxim of Relation (‘Be relevant’) in order to avoid giving offence, i.e. appearing impolite. "Geoffrey is a vicar, trying hard to curry favour with his bishop. The speaker is Susan, his wife, who couldn’t care less about the church, religion (or, for that matter, Geoffrey). The emphasis is mine [Thomas’]: We were discussing the ordination of women. The bishop asked me what I thought. Should women take the services? So long as it doesn’t have to be me, I wanted to say, they can be taken by a trained gorilla. ‘Oh yes,’ Geoffrey chips in, ‘Susan’s all in favour. She’s keener than I am, aren’t you, darling?’ ‘More sprouts anybody?’ I said.” (Alan Bennett’s (1988) Talking Heads, BBC Enterprises, London, p.32, as quoted in Thomas) 23

In the face of it, Susan’s flout of the maxim of Relevance is meant to convey the impression that she is either bored or uninterested and to indicate her willingness to change the subject. Grice’s model of communication does not explain why Susan does not express her boredom or lack of interest directly, the obvious explanation being because she wants to appear polite (Thomas 1995:70). To sum it up, whether and to what extent each maxim applies in any given culture is a question that has not been addressed conclusively to the point that Grice’s proposed model seems a very unlikely candidate for universality. We must, however, not lose sight of the fact that Grice’s framework has been seminal in the study of conversation. It broke new ground in establishing the inferential models of communication and it was his ‘side remark’ (Watts, Ide and Ehlich 1992a:3) about a ‘Be polite’ maxim that sowed the seeds of the study of politeness. 2.4.2 Lakoff's rules and sub-rules of Pragmatic Competence (1973) Following Grice’s ideas and expanding his ‘Be polite’ maxim, Lakoff (1973) postulated two rules of pragmatic competence, with three sub-maxims under the second rule:  Be Clear and  Be Polite Don't impose (Formal politeness) Give options (Informal politeness) Make A feel good (Intimate politeness) In a later article (1975:65) this model was reworded thus: Formality: keep aloof. Deference: give options. Camaraderie: show sympathy. An aspect that neither Grice’s nor Lakoff’s model explicitly address is the interpersonal nature of politeness. Grice and Lakoff imply that their rules apply, if indeed they do, in order to promote the transactional goals of an interaction, i.e. to achieve what the speaker wants to achieve, be it an acceptance of a request, imparting a piece of information, or a refusal of an offer. However, their models do not examine how the proposed rules promote interactants’ relationships in a wider social setting and what role they play in the 24

organisation of society as a whole. As I will show in the course of this thesis, in Iranian society, where interdependence rather than independence is the norm, politeness rules serve to affirm and strengthen relationships; if these rules are not adhered to, relationships break down, resulting in the breakdown of wider social structures. However, we must recognise that Lakoff’s contribution has been a very valuable one for two reasons. She recognised that very often in real conversations, politeness considerations override any other considerations of truthfulness, directness, brevity etc. since it is often the case that conversations aim at reaffirming and strengthening relationships, rather than imparting information (1973:297-298), even though she has not incorporated this idea into her model. In that sense, she has moved the study of politeness one step ahead. Secondly, she recognised that different cultures may feel some rules as more important than others, which is where the usefulness of her model lies. In Iranian society, the third sub-maxim (‘Make A feel good’) would seem to be more important that the others, not only in intimate settings, but also in formal and informal ones. Her recognition of the possibility for cross-cultural variation laid the foundations for the investigation of politeness in a cross-cultural context, and predicted what an arduous task the search for politeness universals would prove to be. 2.4.3 Leech's Maxims of politeness (1983) Leech expanded Grice’s and Lakoff’s ideas considerably. He placed politeness in the area of Interpersonal (vs. Textual) Rhetoric, which includes Cooperative Principle (CP), after Grice, a Politeness Principle (PP) and an Irony Principle (IP). The following six maxims (possibly seven with the Phatic Maxim) comprise the Politeness Principle, each of which in turn consists of two submaxims: TACT MAXIM (in impositives and commissives) Minimize cost to other [(b) Maximize benefit to other] GENEROSITY MAXIM (in impositives and commissives) Minimize benefit to self [(b) Maximize cost to self] (III)APPROBATION MAXIM (in expressives and assertives) Minimize dispraise of other [(b) Maximize praise of other] MODESTY MAXIM (in expressives and assertives) 25

Minimize praise of self [(b) Maximize dispraise of self] AGREEMENT MAXIM (in assertives) Minimize disagreement between self and other [(b) Maximize agreement between self and other] SYMPATHY MAXIM (in assertives) Minimize antipathy between self and other [(b) Maximize sympathy between self and other] The first four maxims are at work in pairs along bipolar scales: the costbenefit and the praise-dispraise scales. This means that in practice there is no need to distinguish between the ‘other-centred’ Tact Maxim from the ‘selfcentred’ Generosity Maxim. Let us consider the following examples: You can lend me your car. (impolite) I can lend you my car. You must come and have dinner with us. We must come and have dinner with you. (impolite) Examples [2] and [3] are polite because they imply benefit to H and secondarily cost to S, whereas [1] and [4] are impolite because the cost and the benefit are reversed (Leech 1981:133-134). On the other hand, the Agreement and the Sympathy maxims operate along unipolar scales, those of agreement and sympathy. Maxims I and II have to do with the cost or benefit of future action to other and to self, while III and IV refer to how favourable or unfavourable to other or to self S’s remarks are. Within each maxim, the bracketed sub-maxim (b) seems to be less important than sub-maxim (a) and ...this again illustrates the more general law that negative politeness (avoidance of discord) is a more weighty consideration than positive politeness (seeking concord). (Leech 1983:133). Leech’s cumbersome model has received some criticism. First, it has been justifiably characterised as too abstract (e.g. Fraser 1990:227) as Leech has not provided specific examples of how each maxim would work in real life and how the maxims would be linked to the pragmatic scales in practice. Secondly, several aspects of Leech’s model have been criticised as exhibiting ethnocentric bias. In particular, in claiming that the avoidance of discord is a more potent consideration that the maintenance of concord, Leech implies a necessarily negative view of interaction. This is reminiscent of Brown and Levinson’s claim that ‘politeness [...] presupposes that potential for aggression as it seeks to 26

disarm it, and makes possible communication between potentially aggressive parties’ (1987:1). However, as I will demonstrate later, this view does not hold true in all societies and that there may be cultures where interaction participants start off with the aim to maintain the (presupposed) concord and not in anticipation of potential conflict. Leech recognises that not all maxims are of equal importance and he assumes that the tact maxim is more powerful than the generosity maxim, which, according to him, is indicative that politeness is focused more on the other than the self, without however explaining why this is the case. The view that the tact maxim is more powerful than the generosity maxim may hold true of British society, but it is doubtful whether this is also the case in other societies. Leech himself mentions that in Mediterranean societies the generosity maxim takes precedence over the tact maxim. Sifianou (1992:28) confirms this view about Greek society. The same, and/or other differences involving other maxims are also likely to exist in other cultures. Another facet of the theory is his construct of relative vs. absolute politeness. According to Leech, relative politeness refers to politeness in a specific situation, while absolute politeness is inherent in specific actions. He therefore claims that some illocutions (orders, for example) are inherently impolite, while others, like offers to be inherently polite. Although this taxonomy may work for the specific examples mentioned by Leech, there are many instances when this is not the case. For example, Fraser quotes the example of a teacher ordering a student to put her prize-winning solution on the board for the class (1990:227), in which case an order loses its ‘inherent’ impolite value. Any assertion of acts being inherently polite stands on precarious ground, because perceptions of politeness can vary enormously across cultures. For instance, in Persian society, asking questions about personal matters like marital status, occupation or income is a polite way of establishing rapport between participants. Other things being equal, in a British English setting such questions are judged as impolite and intrusive. 2.5 GOFFMAN’S (1959, 1967) NOTION OF FACE IN INTERACTION Although Goffman was not concerned with politeness, his 1959 work introduced the notion of face, which was destined to become the basis of perhaps the most influential, and certainly the most comprehensive, theory of politeness, namely that of Brown and Levinson (1978, 1987-subsequent references to the latter edition). Goffman conceptualised ‘face’ as a person’s ‘most personal possession and the center of his security and pleasure’, which, however, ‘is only on loan to him 27

from society’ and ‘it will be withdrawn unless he conducts himself in a way that is worthy of it’ (Goffman, 1972:322). In order to maintain face, a person takes into account his position in society and normally refrains from carrying out actions or taking part in activities that would be awkward to face up to later (1967:7). In other words, once a person takes on a self-image expressed through face, he is expected to live up to it, showing self-respect, refraining from actions that are either above or beneath him and often performing other actions that may be costly to him. Thus, a person must ensure that the flow of events sustains a particular expressive order, so that what is expressed by these events will uphold the face he is projecting (ibid. 9-10). An individual will accept such limitations in behaviour because of pride (‘from duty to himself’ Goffman 1967:9) or honour, which, if related to the way the person handles his body emotions and material things, becomes dignity. According to Goffman (1967:9-10) ‘Approved attributes and their relation to face make every man his own jailer; this is a fundamental social constraint even though each man may like his cell’. However, a person is not only concerned with his own face; apart from his self-respect, he is also expected to show consideration for others’ feelings at the same time and to make earnest and spontaneous efforts to uphold their faces because of emotional identification with the others and with their feelings (ibid). Goffman repeatedly stresses that the two face orientations, the defensive orientation towards saving his own face, and the protective orientation toward saving the others’ face will co-exist in practice, even though at any one time one of them may predominate (1967:14). These face concerns give rise to facework, which Goffman defines as ‘the actions taken by a person to make whatever he is doing consistent with face’; he also maintains that it ‘serves to counteract ‘incidents’- that is, events whose effective symbolic implications threaten face.’ (1967:12). It is against this background that Brown and Levinson formulated their concept of face, upon which their politeness theory rests. 2.6 POLITENESS AS A SOCIAL CONTRACT Fraser (1975, 1990), and Fraser and Nolen (1981) adopt Grice’s notion of the Cooperative Principle ‘in its general sense’ and recognise the importance of Goffman’s (1967) notion of face (1990:232) without however elaborating on these views. According to the view of politeness as a conversational contract (CC), conversation partners are bound by a set of rights and obligations at the beginning of each interaction. In the course of the interaction, this set of rights and obligations may have to be re-adjusted and the contract re-negotiated, resulting in the participants' being bound by the new set. It is when participants do not abide by the rules that they are perceived as rude or impolite. Being polite does not involve making the hearer `feel good', `a la Lakoff or 28

Leech, nor with making the hearer not `feel bad', `a la Brown and Levinson. It simply involves getting on with the task at hand in light of the terms and conditions of the CC. (Fraser 1990:233) Fraser does not clarify why any of these views cannot co-exist, i.e. why ‘the task in hand’ cannot include making the hearer feel good and avoiding making him feel bad. Moreover, even though Fraser and Nolen in principle recognise the importance of the notion of face, they do not make any specific link between it and the CC. In other words, they do not specify what are the interpersonal goals of abiding by the CC. This theory is neither based nor tested on naturally occurring data, which means that questions like why transactional goals cannot co-exist with interpersonal ones must remain unanswered until the theory can be tested out empirically. However, viewing politeness in terms of a conversational contract is a breakthrough from the theories discussed earlier. In particular, politeness practices in some non-Western societies like the Japanese (e.g. Ide 1989 among others), the Chinese (Chen 1993, Mao 1994) and the Igbo of Nigeria (Nwoye 1992) indicate that politeness has a strong normative aspect, which is in keeping with the notion of a conversational contract (see section 2.8 below). 2.7 POLITENESS AND FACE CONSIDERATIONS Brown and Levinson (1978, 1987) postulate that deviations from Grice’s Cooperative Principle conversational maxims stem from politeness considerations, although they also acknowledge other motivations such as humour, irony, sarcasm and so on. As already mentioned, Goffman’s notion of face is central to their model, which postulates that face has two components/aspects: negative face: ‘the want of every `competent adult member'that his actions be unimpeded by others’ (62) ...’[the] want to have his freedom of action unhindered and his attention unimpeded’ (129) positive face: ‘the want of every member that his wants be desirable to at least some others’ (62) ‘ ...[the] perennial desire that his wants (or the actions/ acquisitions/ values resulting from them) should be thought of as desirable’ (101) Face can be threatened, lost or enhanced in interaction and, following on from Goffman’s description of face, every rational person is interested in maintaining or enhancing an interlocutor's face in order to have his face similarly maintained or enhanced. Goffman’s comments on the structured nature of interaction have had an impact on the concept of Face Threatening Acts in Brown and Levinson’s theory (1978, 1987). Goffman observes that the pause between interchanges tends to 29

be greater than the pause between turns at talking in an interchange and he argues that this structural aspect of talk is a result of the fact that when a statement is made or a message is imparted, no matter how unimportant, its originator commits himself and puts his listeners and himself ‘in jeopardy’. This essentially means that the originator of the message renders herself liable to personal affront if its intended recipients do not listen to him or think him forward, foolish, or offensive, which will necessitate face-saving action on his part against them (Goffman 1967:37). This is remarkably similar to Brown and Levinson’s view that all interaction contains instances of talk that carry the possibility of face threat. A similar view is expressed later in the book, where Goffman (1967:41) writes that Greetings provide a way of showing that a relationship is still what it was at the termination of the previous co-participation, and, typically, that this relationship involves sufficient suppression of hostility for the participants temporarily to drop their guards and talk. (my emphasis) Since all interaction, as Brown and Levinson see it, is full of Face Threatening Acts (FTAs), the motive for polite behaviour is the redress of FTAs through either positive or negative politeness strategies aimed at fulfilling positive and negative face wants respectively. The following is Brown and Levinson’s summary of the circumstances determining the choice of strategy to be employed:

DIAGRAM 1 It is assumed that the greater the risk of face loss involved, the higher numbered strategy will be chosen by a speaker, with number 5 strategy being avoidance of committing an FTA, because the risk of face loss is too great. Offrecord strategies are classified as a strategy of doing an FTA, but the whole point of doing an FTA off-record, or indirectly, is that the speaker S cannot be held responsible for doing it. At the same time, an indirect FTA provides the addressee A with an ‘out’, i.e. with the option to disregard it as an FTA (since it was not clearly phrased as one) or to initiate a favourable response to the speaker S, which gives A the opportunity to appear generous (Brown and Levinson 1987:71). On the other hand, on-record FTAs can be done with or without any redressive action. When the risk of face loss is minimal or non-existent an FTA can be done without redressive action, whereas FTAs that may result in face loss are usually accompanied by either redressive action aimed at enhancing either the positive or the negative face of the addressee. It should be noted here that in recent literature the strict ordering of the

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redressive strategies has been questioned. For instance, Sifianou (1995:107) shows that the strategy ‘don’t do the FTA’ is not necessarily the most polite reaction if talk is expected. She also argues that it is not a separate superstrategy, but primarily an off-record politeness strategy, which can be positive or negative. Apart from the ordering of face-redressive strategies, the concept of FTAs is an aspect of their model that has received criticism mainly because, according to Brown and Levinson, ‘some acts are intrinsically threatening to face and thus require `softening' (Brown and Levinson 1987:24, my emphasis). Communication is therefore seen as a minefield plagued by acts potentially dangerous to face and as ‘a fundamentally dangerous and antagonistic endeavor’ (Kasper 1990:195). Schmidt characterises the theory as ‘an overly pessimistic, rather paranoid view of human social interaction’ (1980:104), while Nwoye (1992:311) concludes that if the view of constant potential threat to the interlocutors' faces is always true, ‘[it] could rob social interaction of all elements of pleasure.’ Another component of Brown and Levinson's theory, which has attracted criticism is their concept of face, and especially its negative aspect. Although Brown and Levinson acknowledge that the content of face will vary in different cultures, they postulate that the mutual knowledge of members' public selfimage or face, and the social necessity to orient to it in interaction, are universal (1987:62). Chapter 6 is devoted to an exploration of the concept of Persian face and to an examination of why Brown and Levinson’s model does not apply to Persian. In particular, section 6.3 focuses on how some acts, which are described as face threatening by Brown and Levinson, in Persian enhance rather than threaten the interlocutor's face. Other aspects of the model have also received criticism. For example, the status of the ‘Don't do the FTA’ superstrategy is claimed to be of restricted applicability and different in nature from all the other strategies (Sifianou 1995). In addition, the validity of Brown and Levinson's claim that the face redress strategies are mutually exclusive has been challenged and the view that strategies can be mixed in discourse asserted (Coupland N, K Grainger and J Coupland 1988:255). 2.8 POLITENESS IN NON-WESTERN AND NON-ANGLO CULTURES Brown and Levinson’s view of negative face and the notion of imposition has been the object of criticism by numerous researchers (Ide 1989, Hill et al 1986, Matsumoto 1988, 1989, Wierzbicka 1985, Nwoye 1992, Mao 1994, among others) because ‘it derives directly from the high value placed on individualism in Western culture’ (Kasper 1990:195), even though Brown and Levinson used data from non-Western languages (Tamil of South India, Tzeltal spoken by Mayan Indians in Chiapas, Mexico). As research results from different cultures 31

are continuously published, it will become increasingly clear that ‘face is actually found to wear different cultural faces.’ (Nwoye 1992:328). Hill et al (1986), Matsumoto (1988, 1989) and Ide (1989), in their work on Japanese politeness and Gu (1990) on Chinese have shown that Brown and Levinson's work is based on Western ideals of an individual's value and territorial rights and that therefore this model cannot account for their data in a satisfactory way. In particular, in Japanese society an all-pervading consideration is the recognition of one’s position in relation to the others in the group and his acceptance by those others, whereas a person’s own territory is not of importance (Matsumoto 1988:405). Consequently, loss of face has to do with the perception by others that one has not understood and and acted in accordance with the structure and the hierarchy of the group. Therefore, politeness considerations are related to the recognition and verbalisation of S's position in society in relation to H. Honorifics, for example, are not used to elevate the addressee but to acknowledge position differences (Ide 1989:231). A speaker can enhance H's positive face through an imposition e.g. by (figuratively) asking him to look after somebody, which is seen as an honour rather than as an imposition, because it acknowledges H's higher social standing. There is therefore no contradiction between deference and imposition. At the same time, S enhances his own face in showing competence and acceptability to society. Non-recognition of ranking would be perceived as ignorance or lack of self-control (Matsumoto 1988:410). Studying honorifics has led Japanese researchers to point to the inadequacies of Brown and Levinson’s model. Honorifics, as opposed to plain forms, such as copulas, verbs, nouns, adjectives and adverbs, the use of which is felt to be more polite than the use of plain forms (Ide 1989:231). Because Japanese is an honorific language, it is impossible for its speakers to form a sentence appropriate to all situations. Even a simple sentence like Today is Saturday will reflect the speaker’s and the hearer’s statuses and their relationship (Matsumoto 1989:208-209). The fact that in honorific languages there are no neutral forms obliges the speakers’ to be constantly ‘sensitive to levels of formality in verbalising actions or things’ (Ide 1989:227). In order to accommodate the use of honorifics in Japanese and other languages in the politeness theory, Hill et al. in their study on Japanese and American politeness phenomena (1986:347-8) postulate two universal aspects of politeness: discernment and volition. In discernment, a speaker conforms passively to politeness forms/behaviour in accordance with the situation, statuses, ages of participants etc., whereas volition allows the speaker more choice from a wider range of possibilities in order to make his intentions clear. The authors recognise that the distribution of these two aspects will vary crossculturally, but they maintain that they both exist to a greater or lesser extent in all languages. An example of choice between formal vs. informal register in English would be purchase vs. buy and dine vs. eat (Ide 1989:226). Thus, according to Hill et al., in Japanese, where the choice of honorific is 32

dictated by the status of the participants, the setting and other factors, the component of discernment occupies a much larger ‘chunk’ than in American English. Conversely, in American English, where originality of expression is valued as an expression of sincerity and the use of formulas is perceived as insincere and uninteresting, the aspect of volition predominates. Although both Matsumoto (1989) and Ide (1989) maintain that Brown and Levinson’s framework cannot adequately account for Japanese politeness, they do not explain any connection between discernment and volition and Brown and Levinson’s negative and positive politeness, nor do they propose modifications of the Brown and Levinson model which place the two ‘neglected’ aspects of politeness, discernment and volition within that model. Ide (1989:231) however specifies that, as opposed to Brown and Levinson’s individual face wants, the discernment aspect of politeness is ‘oriented mainly toward the wants to acknowledge the ascribed positions or roles of the participants as well as to accommodate to the prescribed norms of the formality of particular settings’. She (1989:243-244) then goes on to propose the incorporation of discernment and volition in the framework of Weber’s Typology of Actions and its reformulation by Habermas, but this does not seem to have any significant bearing on the ongoing discussion on politeness. Moving on to Chinese, Gu (1990:241-242) rejects Brown and Levinson's model as inapplicable for the study of Chinese politeness on two accounts. Firstly, Brown and Levinson's concept of negative FTAs does not feel intuitively right for Chinese, where normally offering, inviting and promising are not experienced as threatening H's negative face in impeding his freedom (very similarly in Persian). Secondly, according to Gu, the normative aspect of politeness has been completely ignored in Brown and Levinson's framework because this model is based on the interaction between two rational speakers, who are not seen as members of a society bound by its rules. Gu modifies the Tact and the Generosity Maxims and adds others like the Address and the Self-denigration Maxims in order to account for the Chinese data in a satisfactory way. This study shows that Leech’s maxims are useful in principle, especially in societies like the Chinese, where politeness has a normative character, but that they cannot be applicable to specific cultures without modification. Mao (1994) describes the two components of Chinese face from an emic standpoint and demonstrates how different the Chinese concept of face is from Brown and Levinson's construct, therefore challenging its alleged universality. Chinese face consists of mianzi : ‘prestige or reputation achieved through getting on in life or ascribed (or imagined) by other members of one's community’ and lian: ‘the respect of the group for a man with a good moral reputation’; it is ‘both a social sanction for enforcing moral standards and an internalized sanction’ (Hu, 1944:45, quoted in Mao 1994:457). In consequence, Mao argues that the two aspects of Chinese face do not correspond to Brown and Levinson's positive and negative face concept, apart from a limited 33

similarity between lian and positive face. He also examines the Japanese concept of face, in the light of the literature on it, and concludes that the case of Japanese also challenges the alleged universality of Brown and Levinson's construct of face. Mao proposes that in order to account for such differences, another interactional construct must be developed, that of relative force orientation. This is defined as: an underlying direction of face that emulates, though never completely attaining, one of two interactional ideals, that may be salient in a given speech community: the ideal social identity, or the ideal individual autonomy. The specific content of face in a given speech community is determined by one of these two interactional ideals sanctioned by the members of the community (Mao, 1994:472). According to this construct, Chinese and Japanese face (and Persian, as I will argue in Chapter 6) are oriented toward an ideal social identity, i.e. a public image, whereas Brown and Levinson's face construct describes an individual’s self-image. The view of relative force orientation seems like a promising modification to Brown and Levinson's model. However, Mao does not clarify how this face construct fits into Brown and Levinson's model, nor does he provide any specific illustrations. The Igbo of Nigeria apparently fit into the same ideal social orientation group. Nwoye (1992), in his discussion of the concept of face among the Igbo, states that group face is of paramount importance in that society. A person's anti-social act brings shame, dishonour, or embarrassment not only to himself, but also, perhaps more importantly, to the group to which he belongs or with which he is connected (314), with children's unacceptable behaviour reflecting badly on parents. Consequently, he argues that Brown and Levinson's notion of negative face and the notion of imposition, which threatens it, do not seem to apply to the egalitarian Igbo society. In Igbo society, a very important socially sanctioned behaviour is every member’s concern for group interests rather than atomistic individualism (310). Thus, exchange of hospitality, help, food, foodstuffs, loan of tools and other services are part of everyday life, with neither participant experiencing requests for any of the above as impositions (319) (cf. Persian in my discussion). Requests are mostly direct and are not usually considered as impositions. On the other hand, the recipient of the request feels obliged to conform because he does not want the speaker to form an adverse opinion of him, thinking that he has not been socialised properly (318-319). Because of this orientation of Igbo society, Nwoye contends that Fraser’s view of a Conversational Contract is applicable: politeness is seen as a social contract among individual members of 34

the group, in that each member behaves in the way expected of him and in turn expects similar behaviour from the others (310). Nwoye concludes that in the light of recent research into non-Western politeness, Brown and Levinson's model should be revised, but does not propose any modifications himself. Evidence of inadequacies in Brown and Levinson's theory has been forthcoming from European cultures. Wierzbicka (1985) objects to the model's ethnocentric ‘Anglo-Saxon perspective’ citing Polish culture, where warmth, cordiality and interest in others' affairs are linguistically encoded and where the notion of ‘privacy’, which she maintains is an exclusively Anglo value, is nonexistent. Moreover, she maintains that the notion of ‘face’, one of the main conceptual tools on which the Brown and Levinson's model relies has in fact a strong anglocentric bias. (1991:67). Sifianou (1992) does not challenge Brown and Levinson's notion of negative and positive face but clarifies that in Greek society involvement and in-group relations, i.e. positive politeness, are more important than privacy and individuality. She states that: ...the notion of face among Greeks seems to include not only the desire of a person to be appreciated, liked, and approved of by at least some others, but also a strong desire that closely related associates are also appreciated, liked and approved of by the same. The actions of every member of the in-group are most strongly reflected in the others' face. Very often the individual's needs, desires, expectation, and even actions are determined by considering those of the other members of the in-group. Face is not lost, maintained, or enhanced solely on the basis of how each individual behaves. The behaviour of other closely related members of the in-group contributes greatly to the overall picture of every individual's face (Sifianou 1992:41, my emphasis). This view of face is also applicable to Persian, where group considerations may often override individual wishes. Following on from this view, Sifianou concludes that Greek society has a positive politeness orientation, whereas English society is oriented towards negative politeness. In other words, in a Greek setting, interdependent in-group members will exhibit positive politeness towards each other, whereas in English society, where independence and individuality are valued more highly, the in-group/out-group distinction is almost non-existent, resulting in the predominance of negative politeness manifestations. This account of different cultures’ perceptions of politeness and face indicates that the supposed universality of Brown and Levinson's model is very elusive indeed and argues in favour of modifications that will account for politeness in various cultures.

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2.9 PERSIAN PRAGMATICS In the beginning of Chapter 1, I quoted Beeman’s remark (1986) about the absence of any work on Persian interpersonal behaviour in the entirety of Persian literature. Ten years on, existing information is still very scarce indeed, although from a linguistic viewpoint a few publications have appeared. The earliest information on any aspects of the Persian politeness system is found in grammar books. Points covered include the use of plural forms of personal pronouns in the first, second and third person singular (Tisdall 1902:32 and 205, Lazard 1957:99, Lambton 1961:166), indirect address and indirect selfreference through nominal forms like bandeh (‘slave’)(Tisdall 1902:32, Jensen 1931:73 and 214, Lazard 1957:99, Lambton 1961:167), the use of vocative (Jensen 1931:42, Lambton 1961:136) and greetings and farewell forms (Lambton 1961:169-170). The Persian politeness system and ta’arof (‘ritual courtesy’- see below and ch.4) have also been the subject of two older sholarly articles and a conference paper. (Newton et al. n.d., Hodge 1957 and Jazayery 1967). These works are descriptive, focusing mainly on stylistic variation. Hodge distinguishes two styles, formal and informal, which exhibit phonological and morphological variation. According to Hodge, there are four politeness levels: familiar, polite, deferential and royal, mainly characterised through differences in the terms of address used within each. The main difference between the ‘familiar’ and the ‘polite’ lies in the use of the plural for the second person for a single addressee and the third person for a single referent. The ‘polite’ and the ‘deferential/royal’ styles differ in that the latter also feature indirect selfreference, like bandeh (‘slave’) and indirect address, as well as the use of different verbs (see ch.6, under Deference). (On stylistic variation in Persian, see also Jahangiri and Hudson 1982). Assadi’s paper (1980) primarily outlines the same four levels of Persian politeness, but also, for the first time, includes some remarks on the dangers of cross-cultural misunderstanding involving Iranians, chiefly because of the use of ta’arof . (I should mention here that the ‘royal’ level of politeness has now become redundant, after the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979). From Beeman’s numerous works (1974a, 1974b, 1976, 1986, 1988), two have devoted some space to ta’arof and manifestations of politeness. In the course of my analysis, I will mainly refer to his 1986 work, which must be the unique published work of this extent on Iranian interaction, language and behaviour. I will start with his account of ta’arof . Beeman (1986:56-57) defines ta`arof as an extraordinarily difficult [to describe, presumably-SK] concept encompassing a broad complex of behaviors that mark and 36

underscore difference in social status.Indeed, I would maintain that ta`arof is the active, ritualised realisation of differential perceptions of superiority and inferiority in interaction. And: It [ta`arof] provides the tool for the constant assessment of the qualitative nature of the social differences that exist between members of any particular constellation of individuals who find themselves in a particular arena of interaction at any one time.(Beeman 1974a:274) From these views the reader may conclude that ta’arof is in place only between people of different status and that it is directed from an inferior towards a superior. In effect, Beeman suggests that ta`arof is the strategic placement of the person one interacts with in a higher position and the effect of this strategic use of behavior is to make incumbent on one's interaction partner the role expectations attached to a particular relative status. If another person can be led to accept a superior position, it becomes incumbent upon that person to grant favors, give presents or gratuities, practise noblesse oblige, and occasionally issue commands on the behalf of someone. (Beeman 1986:5960) This view essentially presents ta`arof as a mere vehicle furthering the initiator's interests. I maintain that this is an extremely simplified view which, although mentions ta`arof's complexity, does not examine it in any satisfactory way. My main objection to Beeman's view is that he only attributes to ta`arof transactional goals, completely ignoring the phatic ones, which, as I will show, are very potent. Moreover, ta’arof is omnipresent in interaction not only between status unequals but also between status equals, where the fictitious other-raising effect of it serves to pay face to both interlocutors and to reinforce their solidarity. An older study (Bateson, Clinton, Kassarjian, Safavi, Soraya 1977) seems to contain a more accurate account of ta’arof : ...in ordinary social intercourse ta`aruf [sic] is sincere because it depends upon the restraint of the respondent. Thus, the host is allowed to have the pleasure of saying: ‘My house is your house’, by the guest who savors this welcome but knows when to go home; the taxi-driver is allowed to have the pleasure of saying, ‘Be my guest’, by the passenger who thanks him but hands him the fare; and the shopkeeper is given the pleasure of saying, ‘Anything in the store is yours’, by the customer who knows what the price should be and will pay it (Bateson et al. 1977:270)

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Although this view misses out many of ta`arof's functions, it is more in line with the views of native speakers and it hits the nail on the head recognising that Here we have a doubleness which is not experienced as hypocrisy by the individual but as a double system of commitment and purity of intention, enjoyed by both, at a separate level at which practical constraints are observed (ibid., emphasis mine). Two unpublished doctoral theses have dealt with some aspects of the politeness system of Persian. Jahangiri (1980) allots a chapter to it, describing the polite use of pronouns, noun phrases and high, neutral and low forms. He identifies two major aspects of the system, general humility and respect and its relationship to power and solidarity (207) but does not attempt to examine the politeness system in the light of any of the then existing politeness theories. Rafiee (1992) limits ta`arof's application to offers, which must, by convention, be refused. He writes that ta`arof may be regarded as a double-edged sword: a) used by the offerer as a positive politeness strategy; and b) used by the offeree as a negative politeness strategy (Rafiee, 1992:95) Thus, from the offerer's point of view, ta`arof is aimed at assuring H that H's wants take precedence over S's wants. On the other hand, the offeree employs it as a negative politeness strategy aiming to provide the offerer a way out should the latter's offer have been a perfunctory one- thus minimizing the imposition (ibid.:139-140). This outlook also leaves out all interpersonal considerations, tying ta`arof down to Brown and Levinson's procrustean bed. As I will detail in Chapter 6, mutual considerations of face are at work in Persian interaction and therefore describing ta`arof in terms of Brown and Levinson's negative and positive politeness fails to acknowledge this mutuality. (Chapter 4 contains a full account of the concept). Moreover, this view implies that Brown and Levinson's notion of face with its two components of positive and negative applies in Persian without modification. In the course of my thesis, I will demonstrate that the concept of face in Persian is very different from the one Brown and Levinson have presented as universal, and that therefore Brown and Levinson's theory cannot account for Persian polite interaction in a complete and satisfactory way. 2.10 SUMMARY Of the politeness theories described in this chapter, Brown and Levinson’s model of politeness as strategic interaction connected with face wants is the most extensively applied to unrelated languages with the aim of demonstrating 38

its purported universality. However, as new evidence from widely- and lesserknown languages points towards a certain ethnocentric bias, this model seems to be in need of modification in order to be able to account for politeness phenomena in diverse cultures. In proposing modifications to the model, one should bear in mind the different face orientations in various societies: some gravitate towards individual independence, whereas others attach greater importance to an individual’s public and group face. In societies of the latter type, politeness is often perceived as the sum of social norms of behaviour, to which individuals must adhere in order to be accepted as in-group members. Even though the societies on which the theory was based may not have been explicitly characterised as such, Brown and Levinson present a model of interaction in cultures of the first type. In other words, they disregard completely the concept of speakers as members of a social group rather than as individuals. In the light of my analysis of the Persian politeness system I will propose some modifications of the model in an endeavour to account for politeness manifestations in cultures of both types.

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CHAPTER 3 METHOD

The first important step towards validity of research results is felt to be the adoption of an optimal methodology because ‘if data are inadequate, there is always the danger that the theory and conclusions drawn from them could be unreliable and misleading’ (Wolfson 1986:689). In this chapter, I will review some of the methodologies in sociolinguistics and pragmatics employed by various scholars and the views expressed on the advantages and the limitations of each. 3.1 REVIEW OF VARIOUS METHODS OF DATA COLLECTION 3.1.1 The ethnographic approach This approach, initially employed by researchers of anthropology, consists in direct observation of the linguistic practices of a community without any intervention on the part of the researcher. Roberts, Davies and Jupp (1992) sum up the rationale and the methods that ethnography involves:  a respect for those studied based on trying to understand people’s world as they see it;  a focus on the common-sense, the ordinary and the everyday;  the use of common sense methods of investigation to capture how people make sense of the world in a routine way;  a belief that people’s behaviour can be studied only in context;  flexibility: a resistance to preconceived ideas about what will be discovered and a methodology which starts with observation in the field rather than designing a range of fixed methods before the fieldwork begins;  a focus on the detail of people’s everyday lives and an acknowledgement of the complexity of social interaction;  an attempt to see the strange in the ordinary so that no aspect of the routine and detail of everyday lives is overlooked;  the use of a range of elicitation techniques and analysis: observing/listening; audio and video-recording; interviewing; documenting the physical environment; documenting patterns of movement and interaction (Roberts, Davies and Jupp 1992:180) In line with the above, Wolfson (1983:95) has often stressed her view that ‘ethnographic fieldwork is the only reliable method of collecting data about the way speech acts function in interaction’ (see also Manes and Wolfson 1981; Wolfson 1989:54). According to Wolfson, ethnographic fieldwork is the most 40

satisfactory source of reliable and varied data that provide information on how different groups of people realise speech acts in a variety of settings. The disadvantages of this method have included primarily the considerable amount of time needed for sufficient data to be collected and transcribed. Stubbs (1983:222) mentions that a 50-60 minute conversation may take a minimum of 20 hours to transcribe only as normal text (i.e. without special signs) and warns that a more detailed transcription (e.g. phonetic) will probably take considerably longer. Obviously how much detail the transcription should contain depends on the kind of the investigation and the information one hopes to glean from the transcript. In any case, where there are time constraints, transcription time may limit the amount of data to be transcribed. Another drawback of recording if the object of the research is a speech act or feature that does not occur very often, like apologies for instance, it may take several hours, or even several sessions of recording for sufficient instances to be collected. Even then, it is by no means guaranteed that the results will be worthwhile (Olshtain and Cohen 1983:24). Although Labov’s work is not characterised as ‘ethnographic’, his work has been influential in the practice of the ethnographic method. For example, he introduced the notion of the ‘observer's paradox’: ‘how people speak when they are not being observed’ (Labov 1972b:113). Labov (1972b:112) stressed that sociolinguistic study is after the vernacular, which he defined as ‘the style...in which the minimum attention is paid to speech’. He found however, that the presence of a tape recorder or an observer has an undesirable effect (for the purposes of the investigation) on the informants’ speech. In other words, informants perceive the context of observation as formal and adjust their speech style accordingly, or as Wolfson (1986:690) put it, ‘awareness of oneself as an object of study may endanger the validity of the data.’ (Wolfson 1986:690). Labov (1966) reports that he was able to sidestep the observer’s paradox by introducing topics of high involvement to the speaker, e.g. by asking whether an informant has ever been in serious danger of being killed. Such topics override the formal constraints on the subjects’ speech and presumably result in the production of the vernacular, precisely because attention has shifted from form to content. One way of overcoming the observer’s paradox has been to record an interaction surreptitiously and to obtain the subjects' consent to publish the data afterwards. If recording family and friends does not pose major ethical issues, as for example in the studies of Crystal and Davy 1969 and Tannen 1984a, making secret recordings of relative strangers is generally considered unacceptable. Milroy (1987:88-89) draws an apt parallel with photography: just like people reserve the right to refuse to be photographed, they can object to their voices being recorded, as both processes produce permanent records of a person’s projected image to the world. Apart from the ethical objections against candid recording, there are some 41

practical disadvantages to it: any suspicion of a researcher trying to ‘spy’ on a community will not make her job any easier and it will certainly compromise her continued access. Secondly, a well-hidden microphone is not likely to receive sound as well as it otherwise would, which may result in data of doubtful quality and value (Labov 1981:32). 3.1.2 Participant observation As in the ethnographic method, in participant observation the researcher uses naturally occurring interactions as her source of data. The important difference between the two methods is that in participant observation, the researcher is a native member of the society she observes or she has immersed herself in it for a year or more (Saville-Troike 1982:121). Saville-Troike (1982:121) states that ‘[t]he key to successful participantobservation is freeing oneself as much as humanly possible from the filter of one’s own cultural experience’ which ‘requires cultural relativism, knowledge about possible cultural differences, and sensitivity and objectivity in perceiving others.’ It is usually necessary for a researcher to participate in group activities frequently over a period of time in order to acquire the necessary background knowledge and to develop relationships of trust with members of that community. An advantage of this method is the opportunity for the researcher to take part in the interaction she observes in order to test hypotheses about rules for communication. In common with the ethnographic method, a drawback of participant observation is the great length of time needed for the transcription of taperecorded data (see above). 3.1.3 Native speakers' metalinguistic comments and analysts' intuitions In introspection, a researcher draws on her linguistic insights as a speaker of a language and puts these insights to use in the formulation of descriptive rules. In sociolinguistics, native speakers’ insights have been used in the elicitation of linguistic material and in the expression of linguistic judgements. Wolfson (1986:690) argues that this application of native speakers’ insights is not in fact very different from introspection. The differences between native speakers' perceived linguistic behaviour and their actual speech production and consequently the inaccuracy of native speakers’ perceptions of actual speech usage, are well-documented in the literature (see e.g. Labov 1966; Blom and Gumperz 1972; Brouwer, Gerritsen and DeHaan 1979; Wolfson 1983:83; Wolfson-Marmor-Jones 1989:181-182 among others; for a comprehensive review, see Wolfson 1989:35-44). Obviously, native speakers have the competence to use their own language appropriately and also to pass judgement on other speakers’ usage that may 42

break the rules, such as children’s or learners’. However, even though speakers are able to explain whether an utterance or usage is acceptable, they cannot predict reliably the whole range of possible expressions that different speakers will use (Wolfson 1986:693; 1989:54) because the knowledge of the sociolinguistic rules of their language is ‘below the level of conscious awareness’ (Wolfson 1983:83). Among the first studies that pointed towards the inadequacy of native speakers’ intuitions was Brouwer, Gerritsen and DeHaan’s (1979), which investigated sex differences in Dutch. The researchers’ initial hypothesis was that men’s and women’s speech differed with regard to the following traits: the number of words used in dealing with a task, the use of diminutives, polite forms and expressions indicating insecurity such as repetitions, hesitations, self-corrections. The list of these differences was based on the authors’ own intuitions and the existing sociolinguistic literature on sex differences in speech. The authors secretly recorded 309 women and 278 men buying a train ticket in Amsterdam’s Central Station. Contrary to the authors’ expectations, the data revealed that differences in speech had to do with the gender of the addressee rather than with that of the speaker. It is therefore of paramount importance ‘to recognize that academic training in cultural and/or linguistic analysis does not, in itself, put individuals in a position to be objective about their own speech behavior, or about the patterns which obtain even in their own speech communities’ (Wolfson 1989:40). According to Blom and Gumperz’s (1972) informants in a study of codeswitching in a small town in Norway, the strongly favoured use of the native dialect Ranamal signified a positive sense of local pride and represented an acceptance of the community’s common culture and heritage. However, the recording of a friendly gathering showed that speakers code-switched considerably between the local dialect and Bokmal, the standard variety, mainly for stylistic reasons, e.g. when a speaker wanted to validate her status as an intellectual. This study demonstrates how native speakers’ actual linguistic usage can differ widely from their reported and how native speakers may mistakenly believe their ideal to be their actual usage. Nonetheless, native speakers' metalinguistic comments and analysts' accounts have their value, as long as the pitfalls inherent in them are recognised and remedied. They are of practical value in supplementing information or data gathered through any of the other methods (Stubbs 1983:237-8; Sifianou 1992:4-5). The researchers’ intuitions are also of use in the analysis of data that have been collected through fieldwork (Wolfson 1983:95; 1989:54). Stubbs (1981:239) also states that a linguist-researcher who is a native speaker of the society she is studying should make use of her intuitive knowledge of the communicative system because, in principle, it is impossible to induce the systematic significance of isolated instances of behaviour without recourse to the native’s or near-native’s knowledge of the system. 43

3.1.4 Written questionnaires/ Discourse Completion Tests (DCTs) This method, sometimes referred to as the elicitation method, was developed by Blum-Kulka (1982) and has been used since by Olshtain and Cohen (1983), Beebe (1985) and Eisenstein and Bodman (1986) among others, mainly in testing foreign language learners’ competence. Data can be collected in two ways: asking subjects to provide written responses to the ‘prompts’ or tape-recording their spoken reactions. The fact that many subjects respond to the same fictitious situation in terms of context and participants to a large extent ensures that a sizeable and comparable corpus of data is collected in a relatively short time, especially in the written mode. This is the most obvious advantage of this method over the ethnographic one. Beebe (1985:10) in her study of referrals, concluded, among others, that: Discourse Completion Tests are effective means of: (1) gathering a large amount of data quickly; (2) creating an initial classification of semantic formulas and strategies that will occur in natural speech; (3) Studying the stereotypical perceived requirements for a socially appropriate (though not always polite) response; (4) gaining insight into social and psychological factors that are likely to affect speech and performance; and (5) ascertaining the canonical shape of refusals, apologies, partings, etc. in the minds of the speakers of that language. Another advantage of this method is greater comparability of the responses. As many responses are elicited through the same prompt, significant factors like age, sex, status and relationship between the fictional participants and the situation they find themselves in are held constant. In the ethnographic method, such a feat is obviously highly unlikely. On the other hand, a frequently mentioned disadvantage of the elicitation method is the relative unreliability of results. In particular, Beebe discovered differences between written and oral role plays. Among other differences, she found that ‘written role plays bias the response toward less negotiation, less hedging, less repetition, less elaboration, less variety and ultimately less talk’ (1985:3). This finding very clearly points out that researchers using this method should be wary of assuming that a Discourse Completion Test will yield similar or comparable results whether delivered in the written or the oral mode. A point that should also be taken into consideration in using DCTs to measure foreign language learners’ competence or the degree of ‘nativeness’ in the target language is that differences have been detected between native speakers’ and foreign learners’ responses. For instance, Faerch and Kasper 44

(1989) and Rintell and Mitchell (1989) mention second language learners’ proneness to more extensive responses than native speakers. Faerch and Kasper argue that such responses should be considered in a positive light rather than as proof of inadequacy because they indicate that learners are trying to avoid misinterpretation, giving prominence to the maxim of manner (be clearbe brief- be orderly) over that of quantity. Holmes, in her review of Blum-Kulka, House and Kasper 1989, (Holmes 1991:123) mentions that ‘[l]ack of experience in analyzing the socially relevant variables in another culture means learners inevitably draw on formulaic responses, as well as on their mother tongue’. She adds that it is likely that the differences between role plays and natural conversation are greater in native speakers than foreign learners because of this lack of experience. Apart from the DCTs’ being a very effective means of collecting great amounts of data in a short time, DCTs also provide an excellent complement to ethnographic studies by corroborating results (Wolfson, Marmor and Jones 1989:184). Rintell and Mitchell (1989), detailing the advantages of oral DCTs state that ‘the subjects have the opportunity to say what and as much as they would like to say, and their spoken language is thought to be a good indication of their ‘natural’ way of speaking’ (251). They also maintain that although their data appear in two modalities, written dialogue and oral role-play, they do not really reflect the difference between spoken and written language, because the task in both of them was to respond with what the person in each situation would say, and therefore both modes presumably elicit oral responses. A reservation expressed elsewhere is that the extent to which the subjects' responses correspond to what they (or anyone else for that matter) would actually say in real life is a factor that has to be taken into account in the analysis. In addition, subjects, especially foreign language learners, may avoid words they would choose in real life, simply because they cannot spell them, and include words they know how to spell, but would not consider appropriate. It has also been shown that written responses are not as sensitive to interpersonal factors as oral ones. At the end of this study, the authors comment that in the case of nonnatives the differences in length observed between written and oral responses (the oral responses being longer) may be attributed to lack of fluency and certainty about appropriacy. By way of summing up, Wolfson argues that as researchers, we should bear in mind the potential pitfalls inherent in elicitation techniques and that a ‘twopronged approach’ is more likely to yield more reliable results (Wolfson 1986:697). 3.2 THE METHODS OF DATA COLLECTION USED IN THIS STUDY Many researchers have expressed the view that the adoption of any one method to the exclusion of others will inevitably impose its limitations on the 45

study and that therefore the use of more than one method is strongly advocated (see e.g. Brown and Yule 1983:270, Stubbs 1983:237-8, Wolfson 1976). Labov (1972b:119) argues that ‘the most effective way in which convergence can be achieved is to approach a single problem with different methods, with complementary sources of error’. He adds that in order to benefit from the complementary principle, researchers should employ a variety of methods. In this context, the concept of corroborating or cross-checking an account of events against independent accounts is widely used in the social sciences. Stubbs (1983:234) terms this process triangulation, but warns that even though different kinds of evidence may be used, the reader will fill in knowledge and the result will never be validated. An important idea behind the concept of triangulation, and one that I have applied in this work, is that the analyst’s account should be compared with the accounts of the participants (Stubbs 1983:235). In this study, I adopted mainly the ethnographic approach, through recording and careful note-taking. This was supplemented with native speakers' intuitions and metalinguistic comments, as well as with my own intuitions. 3.2.1 Recordings of naturally occurring conversations The main body of data of actual linguistic usage was collected in recordings of naturally-occurring conversations in London and Tehran. Approximately 25 hours of recordings have been made over a period of six months in London and Tehran. The transcribed extracts account for approximately 10 hours of the time of the recordings. In London, I recorded dinner and casual conversations of five mutually acquainted families of professional personnel of an Iranian company, male and female in the mid thirties to mid forties age range, all native speakers of Iranian Persian. All the informants had in advance given their permission to be recorded, which was taken to apply to all subsequent recording sessions. In Tehran, the speakers I recorded represented a wider range of backgrounds and ages. They mainly belonged to my husband’s circle of extended family, old friends and acquaintances, but they also included two people I had just met. They included, among others, two blacksmiths, a primary school teacher, a civil servant, a few self-employed businessmen, homemakers, a secretary, two university lecturers, a journalist and a few recent university graduates who were not employed at the time. Some recordings of interactions in trade settings were also made; these involved my husband and a friend of his, who is a shopkeeper at the Central Tehran Bazaar, and other shopkeepers, most of whom were the latter’s acquaintances, although a few interactions involved total strangers. There were approximately 60 informants recorded in spontaneous conversation in settings ranging from informal dinners, to New Year visits, drop-in visits and a few trade exchanges in the Central Bazaar of 46

Tehran. There was an equal mix of male and female informants from their early twenties until their late sixties. Wolfson (1989:75) states that long-term participant observation of a group to which the researcher belongs is ‘the very best kind of data collection’ and that some of the best information about language use can be gleaned in this way (Wolfson 1989:78). She argues that apart from easy access, this method has the added advantage of preventing self-consciousness in the participants of the interaction under investigation, thus overcoming the observer’s paradox (Labov 1966 and 1972, Wolfson 1986:690). Milroy’s work (1987) is an example of a successful study based on the researcher’s becoming an accepted member of a group as ‘a friend of a friend’. She initially made a contact with an insider of a community, who advised her on who to approach first. In this way, her role was defined as different from that of a researcher, in that the mention of the insider’s name guaranteed her good faith. Group members seemed to feel obliged to help her, while she also acquired some insider rights and obligations (1987:66). In this study, I was not present in the role of the researcher who assumes the guise of a ‘friend’, but the other way round: I was the participants’ excolleague, friend, relative’s or friend’s wife, who also happened to be doing some research on their language and needed to record the conversations that took place during normal (i.e. not especially organised) interactions. The fact that ongoing relationships with the vast majority of the participants had existed for a considerable length of time prior to the recording sessions, has, I believe, rendered the ‘observer’s paradox’ factor practically negligible. Although the focus of my research has not been gender or age differences in politeness patterns, in the presentation of my examples I have systematically supplied demographic information relating to the interlocutors gender and age in an effort to create a complete picture in the reader's mind. 3.2.2 Field notes A small amount of data was collected by compiling detailed field notes. These came about whenever I happened to overhear an interesting instance of usage while I was not recording. I made a written note of it, trying to remember as much as I could. 3.2.3 Informal interviews and my intuitions Open-ended informal interviews with 20 individual informants and 10 university students from three EFL groups, supplemented by many more onthe-spot conversations with more native speakers were used for the collection of information on folk views about politeness. A series of questions (see Appendix II for the original questions and their English translations) served as the basis for the interviews, which were conducted in Persian. While each 47

question was the starting point of a topic, I made sure that informants felt free to add any points, comments or anecdotes they thought appropriate to the topics under discussion. It is important to stress that although I refer to them as ‘interviews’, the format of these conversations did not correspond to the conventional repetition of the Question-Response sequence of formal interviews. The starting point was the questions I asked, but soon the interaction developed into informal conversation, often amongst the participants, myself introducing more topics when I thought the previous one had more or less been covered. I decided to do this in order to ensure that other ramifications of the topics I had included in my questionnaire would be brought to my attention and dealt with as appropriate. As in the recorded conversations, my being an ‘insider’ of most of the groups I used for the interviews was of enormous help in their success, as was the fact that the pairs or groups I interviewed were pre-existing. Thus, I taped interviews with the members of a family after a meal, with some friends while having tea, and the students of an English language class after their lesson. Even though informants were using their own language, some of them expressed their concern about speaking in grammatically correct sentences and I was sometimes asked to switch off the recorder so that they could construct their sentences correctly before recording them. It took some reassurance on my part that these recordings were only for my own use and that I would only extract information, not their actual phrasing. Some informants had difficulty with formulating their thoughts because, as some said, they had never thought about those aspects of their language before. However, once the initial difficulty passed, they were much more at ease and they seemed to be enjoying the activity. Whenever in the course of these interviews an informant quoted an expression she would use in a given situation, I tried to verify it, if not in the recorded data, at least in my everyday interactions with Iranians and I should note that my informants' reporting on actual usage has been remarkably accurate, possibly because Persian polite interaction has a strong formulaic component. However, what I mainly gleaned from these interviews were native speakers' perceptions of politeness and other key concepts in Iranian society, so that I could subsequently arrive at a satisfactory description of them. I think that this method has proved most useful, because it gave informants the scope to expand in any way and at any length they wanted and because it threw up some very interesting insights in the organisation of Iranian society. During the interviews, I used my intuitions in asking appropriate questions meant to probe deeper into what seemed to lead to interesting information. These intuitions have been brought further into play in the analysis of the data and the formulation of the framework, but, being a non-native speaker myself, I have always made a point of corroborating them with native speakers’. 48

In the course of my analysis, whenever there is a mention of native speakers' views or perceptions, these were gleaned in the course of the ethnographic interviews or during some follow-up conversations, which were conducted on an ad hoc basis, after a particularly interesting interaction. I have analysed each example from the dual vantage point of both the analyst and the long-standing member of Iranian society and have in most cases consulted with native speakers about the recorded interactions they took part in or witnessed, as a means of confirming that my perception of each situation was in line with native speakers'. 3.2.4 Oral discourse completion tests The oral discourse completion test method was only used to obtain some qualitative data on presumed pragmatic transfer in Iranian EFL students. I devised six conversational situations which I expected to elicit a t¾`arof (‘ritual courtesy’- see Ch.4) response in Persian and asked four EFL classes to role-play them in pairs in English. I then recorded their responses. 3.3 SUMMARY Sifianou (1992:3-4) has expressed the view that ‘to condemn one approach entirely and present and support another as the only scientifically justifiable one is unrealistic’ and that speech analysts cannot ignore any type of data, be it naturally occurring speech, their own or other speakers’ intuitions, data collected experimentally or literary texts. In this study, the main data collection method has been participant observation: tape-recording natural conversations and making fieldnoteThe corpus of natural data was supplemented by native speakers’ metalinguistic comments and intuitions gleaned from ethnographic interviews. These three sources, together with my intuitions, have fed into the description of ta’arof and of social values and perceptions of politeness in Iranian society (Chapter 4), the classification of the Persian politeness system (Chapter 5) and the analysis of the components of Persian face (Chapter 6).

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CHAPTER 4 TA’AROF, PERCEPTIONS OF POLITENESS AND VALUES IN IRANIAN SOCIETY This chapter focuses on ta’arof , an Iranian cultural category inherently connected with politeness and provides an account of how it is understood by native speakers. The description of politeness in Iranian society, which follows, derives from an inquiry into native speakers’ perceptions of this concept. The fact that perceptions of politeness may differ greatly across cultures has often been mentioned in the literature (see Chapter 2). Ide et al. (1992:281,293) state that politeness needs to be defined in different cultural settings, and Sifianou (1992:215) concludes that politeness is perceived as having a much wider scope in Greece than in England. The views of native speakers expressed in a series of informal interviews along with data from the naturally occurring conversations have been used to generate the account that follows. The reader is presented with a complete picture of the concepts of ta’arof and politeness in the Iranian setting in terms of an emic approach, which Pike (1967:37) describes as ‘studying behaviour relative to context and function within a system of cultural meaning’ as opposed to etic, which is ‘studying...behaviour relative to a system as seen by an outside observer’. Such an approach was adopted, among others, by Katriel and Philipsen (1990) in their description of ‘Communication’ as a cultural category in some American speech.

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4.1 DEFINITION OF TA’AROF There'll be no muddle when you come to see me,’ said Aziz, rather out of his depth. ‘Mrs Moore and everyone-I invite you all-oh, please.’ The old lady accepted: she still thought the young doctor excessively nice;.Miss Quested accepted out of adventure. His invitation gratified her, and she asked him for his address. Aziz thought of his bungalow with horror. It was a detestable shanty near a low bazaar. There was practically only one room in it, and that infested with small black flies. ..................... ‘Ah, in my position I can give you nothing.’I don't know why you say that, when you have so kindly asked us to your house.’ He thought again of his bungalow with horror. Good heavens, the stupid girl had taken him at his word! What was he to do?

E M FORSTER, A Passage to India Although I do not know whether a cultural category similar to ta’arof existed in India at the time of the Raj, this is a classical instance of a ta’arof invitation being understood as a genuine one by outsiders. The two English women take Dr Aziz ‘at his word’ and take up his invitation. Aziz, being ashamed of the state of his lodgings, feels obliged to organise an alternative engagement in the form of an excursion to the famous Marabar Caves, which proves to have grave consequences for him (and others). Etymologically, ta’arof is an Arabic word meaning ‘mutual recognition’, thus indicating that ta’arof functions as a tool for negotiating interactants' relationships. Aryanpour and Aryanpour (1976) define ta’arof as ‘compliment(s), ceremony, offer, gift, flummery, courtesy, flattery, formality, good manners, soft tongue, honeyed phrases, respect’ and renders ta’arof kardan(to do ta’arof) as ‘to use compliments, to stand upon ceremony, to make a present of, to speak with courtesy, to use honeyed phrases (soft tongue)’. The dictionary illustrates the entry with the following examples (translations and glosses as given in the dictionary, emphasis mine): ta’arof bemoq`e xoshayand ast: A timely compliment is pleasing. ta’arof -ra kenar begozarim va sadeh harf bezanim : Let us put ceremonies aside and speak plainly. xeili be u ta’arof kardam : I showed him much courtesy. be jaye ezhare adab ta’arof (charb zabani) kardan: to use flattery in place of politeness.

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ta’arof at-e diplomatik : the diplomatic formalities. u adame ba ta’arof ast: He is a man of good manners. ta’arof qaleban xeili delpazir ast: Soft words (honeyed phrases) are often very pleasing. These examples exemplify positively perceived meanings of the word (e.g. ‘compliment’ as token of goodwill, ‘courtesy’, ‘good manners’) as well as negatively perceived ones (e.g. ‘flummery’, ‘flattery’, ‘ceremonies’ in the sense of empty formalities). From this dictionary entry, one easily realises that ta’arof is a very complex concept, carrying different meanings in the minds of native speakers and baffling anyone endeavouring to describe it. In the absence of a direct lexical equivalent in English, the researchers who have studied ta’arof have glossed it as ‘ritual courtesy’ (Beeman 1986; 56), ‘expressed courtesy’ (Bateson et al. 1977; 270) and ‘polite verbal wrestling’ (Rafiee 1992:96). Hymes writes that ‘one good ethnographic technique for getting at speech events, as at other categories, is through words which name them’ (1972), and Gumperz (1972:17) adds that members of all societies recognize certain communicative routines which they view as distinct wholes separate from other types of discourse, characterized by special rules of speech and nonverbal behavior... these units often carry special names. Ta’arof is one such ‘communicative routine’. From the discussions I have had with native speakers, it transpired that no discussion of Persian politeness can ever hope to be complete without much more than a passing reference to ta’arof , which is a central concept in Iranian interaction and which is felt to be indispensable in all communication by native speakers. In this section, I will describe it from a native speaker’s point of view, basing my description on the information collected from the informal ethnographic interviews and on a few examples from the recorded interactions and my field notes. 4.2 FOLK VIEWS ON TA’AROF Three interrelated ‘themes’ run through the diverse views expressed by native speakers on ta’arof. First, even though still universally practised, ta’arof is a mode of behaviour handed down from the past and related to religious teachings of humility, respect for others, hospitality and self-sacrifice. An informant said that ta’arof is based on religion but it has now changed course, having lost its original meaning and having been ‘degraded’. A few 52

informants traced ta’arof 's origins in the teachings of religion (humility, hospitality, generosity, self-abnegation) although they mentioned that such values may have existed in pre-islamic times. Secondly, linked to these positive qualities, ta’arof generally displays regard and goodwill towards an addressee and is often used to lower one’s self, while elevating one’s interlocutor. In elaborating on the religious aspect of ta’arof , informants emphasised the importance of showing respect and hospitality, offering help, giving to charity, respecting one's parents and showing tavazo` (humility, lowliness, modesty, humbleness, courtesy). Tavazo` is a quality strongly recommended in Islam and it was said that if somebody shows it in his speech, it is pleasing to an interlocutor even if it is clear that the speaker is in fact in some respects superior to the interlocutor. An invitation could thus be phrased as tashrif biarin manzel-e-ma, bad begzarunin (lit. ‘bring honour to our house [i.e. come], to have a bad time’). Of course, the register of this phrase is not as formal as it may sound in its English translation. In fact, this particular expression is used between close relatives or other people who are quite familiar with each other. It was often mentioned that according to an old and established practice Iranians often present themselves as of lower standing than their interlocutors and attribute fictitious higher social standing to them, especially if the latter are older. Thus, as mentioned in the interviews and as I have often heard in public settings, somebody may say to his interlocutor nowkaretam, chakeretam (I am your slave/servant/menial’) but reality may be very different-even oppositefrom this. Even one of the most common phrases in ta’arof xahesh mikonam (‘request I-do’, i.e. ‘please’) is generally used in the sense of ‘I want’ or ‘please’ while it is really phrased as a request from an inferior to a superior and could be rendered as ‘I ask [this as a] favour’. I witnessed a situation where two brothers-in-law exchanged the following conversation: A: kojain, kam peidain (Where you-PL-are? little found-you-PL-are) Where have you been? We don't see much of you B: ma zire paye shomaim (we under feet-of you-PL are) We (i.e. I) are (am) under your feet. When I asked an informant about the meaning and the aim of such exchanges, he told me that they are used to convey the speaker's respect and liking although in reality the speaker may not believe that his expression is true at all. Thus, it can be said that exchanges such as this assert mutual solidarity and deference at the same time. Another aspect of ta’arof, that of offering hospitality (mehmannavazi) is also 53

traced back to older times. It was said that as Iran has always been a rich and prosperous country it was easy to have guests for meals in one's house. People then had more time and more material goods, both essential in entertaining guests, which was how ta’arof was established. The phrase mehman habibe xodast (‘a guest is loved by God’) describes the attitude of Iranians towards guests and indicates how this aspect of Persian communication is partly based on religious precepts. Lastly, ta’arof is mostly realised through formulas perceived by native speakers as expressions of genuine feelings. Many informants expressed the view that one of the most common ta’arof phrases is qorbane shoma (lit. ‘sacrifice-of-you’, an expression of gratitude), which was also confirmed by the recordings of conversations and my observations. This readiness to sacrifice whatever one has may not be so total nowadays but it exists nonetheless in the expression of this intention, as the following example illustrates. A beggar who knocks for charity in a middle class home in Tehran stood by the exterior gate talking with one of the sons of the family (H). The beggar had been carrying a heavy sack and two long pieces of wood and while he was talking, the pieces of wood rested against the wall. After talking for a while, H asked what these pieces were for. The beggar responded with mixai vardar (‘you can have them if you want’) to which H replied with a refusal, thanking him. The beggar, who can barely call anything his own and depends on others for survival, has this almost innate sense of offer and sacrifice: in this case, even if the offer was not meant literally, it could be argued that he was trying to express his gratitude at having received charity. One informant defined ta’arof as set phrases that are used with expressive meanings in addition to the literal ones, e.g.when one says befarma`id (IMPERATIVE: ‘you-PL order’), which may mean a host of things from ‘Here you are’, ‘At your orders’, ‘I'm all yours’, to ‘Go ahead’, ‘After you’, ‘Bon appetit’, apart from a request the speaker also conveys respect, honour and liking towards the addressee. 4.3 FUNCTIONS OF TA`AROF The reader of section 2.9 may have been justifiably perplexed by the three different accounts of ta’arof found in the literature. Beeman (1974, 1986) concentrates on the transactional goals of other-raising formulations, Bateson et al. (1977) focus on the relational/phatic aspect of perfunctory offers (the ‘purity of intention’) and Rafiee (1992) describes offers, perfunctory or not and their ritual refusal in the light of Brown and Levinson's positive/negative politeness strategies. In this section, I will endeavour to put all the above pieces of the puzzle together and to add any missing ones in order to arrive at a more complete picture of ta’arof . In an attempt at a synthesis of the diverse views on ta’arof , 54

it can be said that this complex concept is perceived by native speakers as encompassing the following meanings:  Any genuine offer of food, drink, help, service, hospitality and advance invitation. The reader should note here that by ‘genuine’ I mean an offer that is expected to be taken up or accepted, whereas a perfunctory offer (see below), even though serving phatic purposes and therefore characterised as sincere, is not intended as a ‘genuine’ one  Any verbal behaviour perceived as perfunctory or ritual or generally as not meant to be taken at face value, including offers of food, drink, help, service, hospitality or ad hoc invitation 

Ritual refusal of any of the above offers



Standard formulaic self-lowering or other-raising expressions

 Any non-formulaic sentences, expressions or more extensive discourse that has the same effect (self-lowering or other-raising) The above list suggests that ta’arof manifestations can function as expressions of deference, humility and cordiality. This realisation has led to my classification of Persian politeness strategies in terms of three maxims (Deference, Humility and Cordiality-see Ch.5). In this chapter, I will only adumbrate these three ta’arof functions, as they are treated in full in the next chapter. Although the deference and humility functions of ta’arof lend their names to two distinct politeness maxims, deference and humility often co-exist in practice, i.e. a speaker may humble himself and elevate an interlocutor at the same time. One informant said that ta’arof is ‘to place a person high’ and that its roots lie at the desire to express respect. Elevation of an interlocutor also shows how hospitable (mehmandust) Iranians are. Cordiality, goodwill and warm feelings are exhibited, among other conversational strategies, through compliments and compliment responses. So when a speaker responds to a compliment about a portable possession with qabeli nadare (‘it's not worthy of you’) or pishkeshe shoma (‘you can have it’), he shows his pure intentions and establishes mutual trust, even though the offer is not taken up because, as Bateson writes (1977:270), ‘practical constraints are observed’. Interestingly, the dictionary entry I referred to above did not give ‘offer’ as one of the main meanings of ta’arof, which is how Bateson et al. and Rafiee have described ta’arof. The meaning of ta’arof as ‘offer’ also figured prominently in the interviews with native speakers, from which I will now present some views. 55

A very strong social convention in Iranian society is that any offer or invitation must be refused at least once and often more than once as a matter of course, resulting in the initiator's stronger insistence (cf. Rubin 1983:14). Examples of such refusal have occurred in the conversational data: after a refusal, the person who made the offer may say ta’arof nakon (‘don't do ta’arof ’ i.e. ‘take it’) or ta’arof mikoni? (‘are you doing ta’arof ?’ i.e. ‘do you refuse because it is expected of you?’). In this context, it was mentioned that some speakers are so insistent in their offers that they become tiresome because the guests' refusals may be genuine. In spite of this, such insistence is seen as a sign of consideration for their guests and of concern for the guests' needs. The phrase ye ta’arof e xoshkoxali kard (lit. ‘a ta’arof dry-and-empty did’, i.e. he did ta’arof plainly or made an offer only once) is intended as a criticism of a speaker who did not appear to be insistent enough and consequently, for not exhibiting the expected cordiality and respect. Offers of food and drink are not confined only to entertaining settings. When somebody is eating or drinking something, be it in a family context or a public place in the presence of relatives of acquaintances, he must definitely say befarma` (‘here you are, have some’), offering to share it with whoever is present. It is of course possible that he does not really want or intend to share it, but he must do ta’arof nonetheless, so as to appear polite. The addressee will then also do ta’arof refusing it even if he would like to have it in order to be polite too. As mentioned above ‘In ordinary social intercourse ta'aruf [sic] is sincere because it depends upon the restraint of the respondent’ (Bateson, 1977:270). This, as Rafiee (1992:96) has argued, is a case of the interplay between positive politeness on the part of the speaker and of negative politeness on the part of the addressee. Ta’arof formulations in situations like the one above are perfunctory or ritual (ta’arof zabani: ‘tongue-ta’arof ’) serving the very important phatic purpose of establishing and maintaining interpersonal solidarity and well-being of all parties. Many informants said that people feel that if they do not do ta’arof zabani, their interlocutors will think negatively about them for failing to assert their goodwill and liking towards the addressee- what Bateson has called ‘the purity of intention’. It was said that ta’arof kardan (‘to do ta’arof ’) is different from jeddi goftan (‘to mean something seriously’) and it sometimes has the meaning of saying something without really meaning it. Thus, bita’arof migam (‘without ta’arof I say’) means ‘I speak frankly’. Ritual or perfunctory invitations often function as discourse markers signalling the initiator's desire to draw the interaction to a close, e.g. in telephone exchanges or if somebody has escorted or given a lift to someone else. Genuine invitations normally differ from the above in that they specify the date and the activity and will expect an acceptance or a refusal at the same time or later. I will look at invitations in more detail in section 5.4.1. An idea that cropped up a few times in the ethnographic interviews was that 56

ta’arof can be used to put people in an awkward position and make them do what the speaker wants. This can be true in some settings, such as trade exchanges or taxi rides, where a customer may feel inclined to barter. In line with this, when a customer asks the price of an article, many shopkeepers first respond with qabeli nadare (‘it's not worthy of you’, i.e. ‘you can have it for free’). This shows their good manners and respect for the customer but may also mean that because of this the customer is in the awkward position of feeling less able to bargain in order to buy cheaper. Sometimes, as a response to customers’ bartering, some shopkeepers will go as far as saying ‘You can just take it and go without giving any money’ when they are not willing to drop the price any lower. This exchange functions as a ‘safety valve’: they assure the customer of his worth to them that they are ready to give the merchandise for free, but it is practicalities that prevent them from doing so. This presumably makes the customer pay the price asked, which may be higher than it would be otherwise, and come back again (see also Ch.6). As has been mentioned, Beeman (1986) defined ta’arof as a complex set of verbal behaviours that attribute a higher position to the addressee thus constructing him as a superior and imposing superior-marked behaviour that can be beneficient to the speaker. If, for instance a speaker S wants to make addressee A exercise some influence in favour of S’s business or to issue orders on S’s behalf, he can construe A as superior, which presumably ‘locks’ A in that position and almost forces him to behave accordingly. However, only one informant agreed with the idea that a person practising ta’arof does so only in order to promote his own gain. The rest of my informants said that such a practice is not ta’arof at all: it is flattery (chaplusi). Although the dictionary definition for ta’arof quoted in the beginning of this chapter included flattery, the vast majority of my informants disagreed with this view. In the mind of native speakers, chaplusi (flattery) has negative connotations, whereas ta’arof, which stems from positive feelings like kindness, friendship and respect, is a positive concept to most of them. Keshavarz (pers. comm.) expressed the view that Beeman has described ta’arof in a negative light, because ta’arof is not used with ultimate aims of gain, promotion or self-interest, but as an expression of friendliness and goodwill. As I have already mentioned, Beeman only sees ta’arof as a ‘tool’ of promotion of one's gain, ignoring altogether its (perhaps most important) interpersonal/ phatic function, that of creating and maintaining social relationships. For example, if A invites B in for tea or for dinner, after having been given a lift, A asserts his friendly disposition and registers his willingness for the friendship to flourish further, even though the time may not be convenient. On the other hand, B warms up to A and even though he does not accept the invitation, the impression of warmth and goodwill remains in his mind and may, in time, convert an acquaintance to a friendship and further maintain the good relationship, once established. 57

It appears that the function of ta’arof as a token of goodwill and respect seems to be uppermost in the native speakers’ minds. However, one should bear in mind that an utterance can have more than one function (Tracy and Coupland 1990) and ta’arof expressions can also be sequentially or simultaneously multifunctional (cf. Penman 1990). Thus, along with the ‘goodwill-towards-the-addressee’ function, a ta’arof expression can also function as a strategic move towards the initiator’s aim, be it material gain or compliance to a request. In addition, a number of informants expressed the view that the use of ta’arof apart from conveying respect to an interlocutor also shows the speaker’s good manners and upbringing, i.e. enhances the speaker’s face (see Chapter 6). It has been demonstrated how ta’arof is an all-pervading mode of polite communication; mention of ta’arof was not absent in any of the views about politeness expressed by native speakers. The most central function of ta’arof has been shown to be phatic; in Laver’s words, (1975:216), ...phatic communion [or some ta’arof manifestations- SK] is not a simple phenomenon...its function of creating ties of union, if that is indeed its principal function, is achieved by subtle and intricate means whose complexity does not deserve to be minimized by the use of such phrases as ‘a mere exchange of words’. I will now move on to the account of Iranian politeness, starting from an account of some aspects of social organisation.

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4.4 SETTING THE IRANIAN SCENE The elephant was the one grand feature of the picnic, and God alone knew what he had gone through to obtain her. Semi-official, she was best approached through the Nawab Bahadur, who was best approached through Nureddin, but he never answered letters, but his mother had great influence with his and was a friend of Hamidullah Begum's, who had been excessively kind and had promised to call on her provided the broken shutter of the purdah carriage came back soon enough from Calcutta. That an elephant should depend from so long and so slender a string filled Aziz with content, and with humorous appreciation of the East, where the friends of friends are a reality, where everything gets done some time, and sooner or later everyone gets his share of happiness.

E M FORSTER, A Passage to India The nuclear family is an all-important unit of social organisation in Iranian society, not only as the minute component of the social edifice, but also as a frame of all kinds of support for its members. Thus people are seen as belonging to a family rather than standing as individuals, although this does not by any means entail any loss of their individuality: every individual is known both as a member of a family and as a person in his own right, responsible for maintaining and enhancing his own face and consequently the face of the family/social group he belongs to. In the family setting, duties and obligations are shared by everyone: to help other members emotionally, financially and otherwise in times of need and to maintain the family's (good) reputation. In return, each family member can expect the same commitment from the other family members. Beeman (1986:47) states that family members: must be able to further each other's interests and provide for the survival of the family as a whole. For this reason, it is to the advantage of the family to have great diversity in its membership in terms of occupations, interests, political connections, life styles and so forth. One circle further lies the extended family, with paternal and maternal uncles and aunts, cousins, their spouses and their children and sometimes their in-laws. All these relations provide the basis of the social network that every individual in a given family belongs to. As with the nuclear family, similar rights and obligations, albeit less strong, obtain in the extended family. The network of the extended family is obviously the same for any one member of a nuclear family, but every member is also personally networked with people from their workplace, university or circle of personal friends. An individual is able to call upon the services of any member of the one network (e.g. nuclear or extended family) on behalf of any member of the other one 59

(e.g. colleagues or friends), with the obligation (mennat) falling on himself, the common member of both networks, who is committed to reciprocate the favour in future. Related to this networking is the concept of parti or partibazi, which Beeman (1986:45) defines as ‘the institution of ‘pull’ or inside connections with persons in the position of granting favors or marshalling power on one's behalf. He specifies consequently that for the system to work, individuals must be interconnected as links in a chain and that each of them has some degree of absolute claim on others, either because of their family connection or their friendship (Beeman 1986:48). Since everyone occasionally depends upon others for hospitality in a strange town, services, partibazi and loan of goods that she cannot procure for herself, the notion of mennat (obligation) is a potent one in Persian. (cf. the ‘cardinal principle’ of Balance in Chinese politeness in Gu 1990:239) and it becomes therefore clear that Persian is a debt-sensitive culture, like the Japanese culture (Matsumoto 1988:409). In Iranian society, however, social debt is not felt as a burden on an individual's shoulders, but as a basic ingredient of everyday interaction. (cf. Sifianou 1992:40-43 for a similar description of social relationships amongst Greeks, and Sifianou 1993 on the notion of imposition). 4.5 NATIVE SPEAKERS' PERCEPTIONS OF POLITENESS 4.5.1 Politeness, culture and society Any research on politeness in any language should address the issue of defining what politeness is in the culture (cf. Watts 1989:132). I will start the formulation of such a definition by examining Iranians’ perceptions of politeness, as described by my informants. When asked about polite and impolite behaviour, most informants found it easier to talk about politeness (adab ‘culture of mind’, ‘civility’) and what being polite means rather than about being impolite and impoliteness. Politeness is talked about a lot in Iranian culture and children's socialisation from very early on contains politeness injunctions. The concept of adab is quite complex, encompassing linguistic politeness and ‘etiquette’ matters, and is closely connected to religious injunctions. Seyyed Hossein Nasr (1982:55), an eminent religious scholar, writes: Complementing the emphasis upon the gaining of knowledge for the young, is the acquring of adab, that combination of courtesy, politeness, good manners, virtue and culture which cannot be translated into a single English word. As the Blessed Prophet has said, ‘No father can give a better gift to his children than adab’; also, ‘The teaching of adab by a man to his children is better for him than great acts of charity.’ In a sense, adab at its heart coincides with great aspects of the sunnah [the traditions of the Holy Prophet-SAK] and is 60

not just a passing and transient pattern of behaviour determined by local cultural conditions. Such relative and local elements exist within the wide domain of adab but at its heart lies something of the permanent importance for the training of the body and the soul of the young Muslim. Its significance is second only to the Truth with respect to which it must, however, remain subservient. Within the realm of adab is [sic] included all those virtues with which Muslim youth must adorn themselves. It embraces actions and attitudes which are meant to inculcate within the being of the young humility, generosity, nobility and other virtues found in their fullness in the Blessed Prophet. To sit politely at the table, to greet all people with respect, to discipline one’s body while sitting or walking, to speak not only truthfully but also respectfully, to eat quietly and with dignity and so many other actions and manners included in the traditional Islamic adab produce a profound receptivity in the youth for the acceptance of the truths of the tradition, of al-din [religionSK]. Adab in its essence is the manner whereby the Muslim participates in the teachings of the religion in himself or herself, in his or her daily actions and words. That is why along with the gaining of knowledge, the acquiring of adab was emphasized so much by the Blessed Prophet and why Muslim parents have been so strongly recommended to teach adab to their children. This view describes very aptly the intricate relationship between religious teachings and social conventions. The reader can conclude easily how negligence of adab would have serious consequences on an individual’s and his family’s social standing. As in Japanese culture (Matsumoto 1988:408), commitment to or concern with other members are perceived as signs of maturity and good upbringing, not of incompetence. Informants were generally aware that politeness, like the sense of humour and fun, is culture-specific and that something that is considered ‘polite’ in one culture may be ‘neutral’ or even ‘impolite’ in another. Therefore, according to the informants, it is culture, customs and traditions that determine what is polite and what is not. The vast majority of the informants expressed the view that politeness is strongly linked to maintaining the values of society and that polite behaviour is that which is acceptable to society. In this way, a person who behaves in a way acceptable to society is polite whereas unacceptable behaviour is perceived as impoliteness. It is interesting that the notion of unacceptable behaviour may range from being a drug-addict and a knife-stabber, which presumably damage the fabric of society, to bringing the teapot into the sitting-room, rather than pouring tea out in the kitchen and serving it on a tray. Other examples of impoliteness mentioned by the informants were dishonesty, using bad language, sleeping out at night and not showing proper respect to one's parents. Conversely, a polite person wears clean clothes, is well-behaved, does not engage in any evil activities, looks after his family well, has got aims in life, 61

respects other people, is truthful, inspires confidence and makes people feel they can rely on his word. He also knows how to maintain good relationships with other people, does not abuse other people's rights, does not let others abuse his and does not interfere in others' affairs. A polite person behaves in a disciplined, orderly and solemn way. The above list suggests that politeness in Persian centres around group, rather than individual values. This is in line with the conceptualisation of politeness in other non-Western societies (e.g. Hill et al. 1986, Ide et al. 1992, Matsumoto 1988, 1989 for Japanese, Nwoye 1992 for the Igbo of Nigeria, Chen 1993, Mao 1994 for Chinese). 4.5.2 Politeness and ‘social manners’ ‘Social manners’, or ‘courtesy’, were cited a lot in the interviews about politeness. Informants stated that it is polite to attend to other people's needs, for example by offering one’s seat on a bus to somebody who needs it, and generally in being as helpful to other people as one can. It is also polite to show respect through non-verbal behaviour. For example, when a visitor enters the room, any other people of equal or lower status that happen to be sitting in the room must rise as an acknowledgement of his arrival and as a mark of respect. If somebody does not rise, unless a superior, he is considered impolite and his behaviour may indicate that this person bears a grudge against the newcomer. Informants also described how sitting positions further from the door of a room can be described as bala (i.e. up, high) and nearest to the door as pa`in (i.e. down, low). Bala positions are usually offered to the most honoured or older guests by the host/ess. It was then mentioned that it is impolite to occupy a bala position without being offered it or if there are older people present. Other ways of sitting arrangements, which are usually perceived as impolite, are sitting with one's back turned to someone and stretching one's legs in public. In a public meeting or in the mosque one obviously cannot help the former, so an apology is called for, especially if the people sitting at the back are acquaintances. If one must stretch one's legs for any reason, even in the present of close relatives, one must apologise. Hence, among close relatives or friends the humorous phrase bebaxshid, az in draztar nemishe (‘Sorry, they [i.e. the legs] don't stretch more’) can be used. This phrase achieves its joking effect because it is a tongue-in-cheek apology for failing to stretch one’s legs long enough - the opposite of what is expected!. At dinner it is polite to serve older people first and children last and to wait for the host/ess before starting to eat. It is impolite even for a child to take fruit or sweets before being offered any and this may actually reflect badly on the parents. 4.5.3 Politeness and the individual 62

It is interesting that almost all informants seemed to associate politeness with good character, although they said that politeness has to do with rules imposed by society, thus recognising that the public and the private aspect of politeness are linked: somebody with good upbringing and character is also well-behaved, polite and respectful towards the values of society. Only one informant mentioned that for him the real intention rather than the way of behaviour is important. According to him, somebody may behave and speak in ways acceptable and pleasing to the society around, but may in fact be dishonest and a liar. Many informants felt that politeness is largely dependent on the upbringing (tarbiat) that an individual has received in childhood and also that politeness is an indication of a person's shaxsiat (personality, character- for a fuller treatment of this concept, see Chapter 6). 4.5.4 Politeness and impoliteness in speaking Comments about politeness in speaking formed a large part of all comments, which may indicate the importance attached to appropriate speech in Iranian society. Several informants mentioned that saying salam (‘peace’ - the islamic greeting) first is a sign of politeness and humility and one actually quoted a hadith (a tradition of the Holy Prophet) which says that every salam exchange carries 70 rewards: 69 for the person who initiates it and one for the person who responds. It was said that in rural settings people tend to say salam every time they enter a room, even if they have not been out of the house. It was mentioned that another sign of verbal politeness is to do ta’arof ‘warmly’ and according to established practice and to behave ‘cordially’ and ‘warmly’. Several informants also mentioned that showing the appropriate respect to everyone in behaviour and speaking is part of polite behaviour. This includes respecting everyone's turn to speak and not pre-empting or interrupting their talk. Such respect was said to be due to everyone, irrespective of social position or job, as everyone fulfils his own function in society and all believers are equal in the sight of God. A polite person is distinguished by ‘modesty of speech’ and its ‘good content’. He always thinks before speaking and even if he has to say something impolite or unpleasant, he does not dwell upon it but does so briefly. Impoliteness in speaking was identified as swearing, lying, saying things unsuitable for mixed company and using rude words, especially in front of women. As an illustration, one informant recounted the following incident from his own experience. A car crashed into his car through the other driver's fault. He then got out of the car and approached the other car with the intention of having an argument with the other driver when he saw that the other car had two women 63

passengers. He then told the driver that he should count himself lucky that there were women in his car because my informant was not able to pick an argument in their presence, upon which they parted. The informant assured me that this is a very common occurrence and that men would avoid arguing altogether in the presence of women, lest they become upset. Even though such an attitude might be judged as patronising in a Western context, in Iranian culture it is perceived as a sign of civility and good manners, enhancing the face of the individual who practises restraint. Another informant (F) recounted how an acquaintance of his would often offer to give him a ride out of town in his taxi, even though he knew that this was illegal. He said: ‘It's not that he was impolite; his understanding was limited.’ After the session, when listening to the tape I wondered what, if anything, this had to do with impoliteness. Another native speaker attributed this expression to F’s unwillingness to say directly that the man was impolite because F thought that to do so would be impolite itself. Beeman (1986:27) quotes a similar incident of interpreting what someone else has said in conversation: ‘What he [the young man in the incident he recounts] said was felt to be quite different from what the statement was about.’ (his emphasis) and adds that different listeners can interpret messages in yet different ways and can even offer comments about why other listeners interpreted those messages in a particular way. 4.5.5 Politeness and formality Politeness was linked and sometimes identified with formality. It was said that it is more polite to use the grammatical and the correct formulas rather than the colloquial forms of words. People respond better to appropriately constructed sentences and correct use of words, so people who can speak well and are socially ‘knowledgeable’ are more acceptable to society. However one informant said that if somebody is honest, even if his speech is not polished, other people’s respect for him is in place. Linked to the ways of society key-phrase is adab-o-rusum, which could be rendered as ‘customs and habits’, ‘etiquette’. Adab (with two long ‘a’s) is plural of adab (politeness- with two short ‘a’s) and rusum is plural of rasm (custom, usage, rule, formality, convention). This shows the close connection that exists in people’s minds between politeness and formality. This connection is present in Brown and Levinson’s (1987:70) observation that ‘...negative politeness is characterised by self-effacement, formality and restraint,...Face-threatening acts are redressed ...with linguistic and nonlinguistic deference...’. However, as will become clearer later, formality and deference in Iranian society are not at odds with the maintenance of what Brown and Levinson also refer to as ‘positive face’. As my discussion of ehteram and shaxsiat (Chapter 6) suggests, in Iranian society positive face is also enhanced through mutual deference. I focus on strategies for showing 64

deference in Chapter 5 and a thorough discussion of the concept of face follows in Chapter 6. 4.6 SOCIETAL VALUES In the course of the ethnographic interviews, the frequent mention of some of the principles mentioned in this section indicates the importance of group values in Iranian society. These included mehman-navazi (hospitality), which is almost an obligatory trait in every individual, sometimes reaching the point of self-sacrifice. Mofid-budan (helpfulness) and xoshaxlaq-budan (having good/pleasant manners) were also quoted very often together with xanevadedari (family values/loyalty). Related to the positive concept of keeping up appearances and maintaining group (e.g. family) face is the concept of rudarvasi which could be defined as the characteristic of a rather distant relationship in which participants feel obliged to stand on ceremony, keep some (private) aspects of their life hidden from each other and show themselves at their very best. Aryanpour's Concise Persian Dictionary renders rudarvasi as bashfulness, embarrassment, mauvaise honte: rudarvasi kardan(‘to do rudarvasi’) is explained as standing on ceremony, formality and birudarvasi (‘without-rudarvasi’) as boldly, frankly. Informants explained rudarvasi as a characteristic of a rather distant and/or formal relationship. Such relationship may however exist between relatives, even near ones, if they do not come into social contact very often. It is important to make it clear that rudarvasi is in place with people one respects a lot and it is manifested through preparing good food for them, using one's best utensils, practising more ta’arof and refraining from talking about the private aspects of one's life, like family, marital or financial problems. If the relationship then develops into a closer one, rudarvasi will diminish slowly and will disappear in an intimate relationship. 4.7 SUMMARY An Iranian’s upbringing (tarbiat) aims at producing an individual that will be a helpful family member and a useful member of the social groups he will belong to. His behaviour must follow the prevalent social conventions so as not to be offensive to others. He must display humility, show respect to others, and behave in a warm and friendly manner. This way of conducting oneself results in the person’s being characterised as a respected individual; in other words, the societal approval pays face to him. This means that if A behaves according to the established norms, he enhances B’s and his own face at the same time. 65

In this study, therefore, politeness is defined as a mode of verbal (or nonverbal) communication, which aims at smoothing the course of human interaction and in which interlocutors take into consideration:  

each others' individual and/or group face needs as perceived by the social groups they belong to and the values and conventions prevalent in these social groups

The fact that ta’arof and politeness are inseparable in the mind of Iranians has been central in the formulation of my framework of analysis. The next chapter examines what constitutes appropriate polite behaviour in Persian. I will examine the Persian politeness principles of Deference, Humilty and Cordiality as they are realised through ta’arof strategies. Chapter 6 will then explore the concept of face, the maintenance and enhancement of which is one of the main aims of polite behaviour in Persian.

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CHAPTER 5 A FRAMEWORK FOR ANALYSIS: POLITENESS MAXIMS AND TA’AROF STRATEGIES Truth as truth means nothing to them. They say what you want them to say as a mere matter of politeness. Agatha CHRISTIE, Murder in Mesopotamia

Three very important elements of Persian politeness were identified in the previous discussion (Chapter 4), humility, show of respect and warmth of feeling (cf. Jahangiri 1980:207). These three elements serve as the basis of the framework of analysis presented in this chapter. In my scheme, following Fraser (1975, 1990) and Fraser and Nolen (1981), I postulate a Persian Conversational Contract (CC). As has been stated, Fraser and Nolen’s (1981) CC involves ‘the recognition that upon entering into a given conversation, each party brings an understanding of some initial set of rights and obligations that will determine, at least for the preliminary stages, what the participants can expect from the other(s).’ I postulate that the Persian CC involves an unalterable right and an unalterable obligation of every participant: the right to having her face recognised and enhanced in interaction and the obligation to recognise and enhance the interlocutor’s (and often the bystanders’) face (for a thorough account of the Persian notion of face, see Chapter 6). Thus, the Persian CC consists of the superordinate maxim of ‘Manners’, which subsumes three additional maxims of ‘Deference’, ‘Humility’ and ‘Cordiality’. As Iranian politeness has a lot to do with prescribed behaviour, a framework in terms of maxims seems especially apt. In formulating the maxims, I have taken inspiration from Leech (see Chapter 2), with some differences, which will be stated subsequently. The superordinate maxim of ‘Manners’ is a loose translation of the folk term adab (see Chapter 5) because in Iranian society, when one behaves politely, one is not only conforming to societal and religious norms but also showing one's good breeding, thus giving credit to her family. Consequently, deviations from accepted standards of behaviour are perceived both as impoliteness and as lack of good breeding (both represented as biadab ‘impolite, rude, ill-mannered, impudent’ or bitarbiat ‘impolite, ill-bred, rude’). The Humility maxim closely corresponds to Leech's Modesty maxim but it also includes expressions which nominally place S in an inferior position with respect to H. The Deference maxim, its mirror principle, comprises those Persian strategies whereby a speaker attributes higher standing to an addressee. Fraser and Nolen (1981:98) write that deference is not the same as politeness because deference has to do with the recognition of relative

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status. They add that inappropriate use of deference that conveys higher or lower status than the one understood by the two parties can result in an impolite utterance. This view does not apply to Persian, where it is very often the case that the higher status ascribed to a H is dissimulated and that no rank difference really exists between S and H. This implies that Fraser and Nolen's comment is not entirely valid for Persian, where conferment of higher status than the level understood by S and H usually results in a more polite utterance, rather than an impolite one, as Fraser and Nolen (1981) argue. The Maxim of Deference will also include the Approbation Maxim as postulated by Leech. Other-praising and other-raising are very common verbal activities in Persian, both included under this maxim. The third maxim in my scheme is the Cordiality Maxim, which, as I will detail below, includes Leech's Tact, Generosity, Agreement, Sympathy Maxims and possibly others. 5.1 THE SUPERORDINATE MAXIM OF MANNERS AND THE THREE MAXIMS To recapitulate, my proposed schema can be detailed thus: SUPERORDINATE MAXIM: MANNERS Behave, verbally and non-verbally, according to societal norms and acceptable standards, such as doing ta’arof where expected, showing deference, humility and cordiality, all of which are indications of good upbringing. (cf. the notion of Discernment in Hill et al. 1986:347-348). The following three maxims are subsumed under the superordinate maxim of Manners: 1.DEFERENCE/APPROBATION: Show deference to other – raise other in respect to self. In Persian, deference often works reciprocally among equals, thus expressing solidarity/involvement/cordiality. Deference attends to the other's (positive) face needs by directly or indirectly acknowledging other as superior or better than self, even if only nominally so. At the same time, self is shown as knowledgeable in the ways of behaviour in society, and therefore self's positive face (shaxsiat-see Chapter 6) is satisfied too. This maxim includes a common Persian strategy of praising one's interlocutor in terms of accomplishments, abilities, knowledge or possessions, as I will show subsequently. Scollon and Scollon (1995:44) maintain that a deference politeness system is one in which participants are seen as equals or near equals but 68

treat each other at a distance, for example among professional colleagues who do not know each other well. In equating deference with distance/independence, Scollon and Scollon follow Brown and Levinson, who argue that deference is a negative politeness strategy. As will be shown in the analysis that follows, in Persian, deference stategies enhance both interlocutors’ (positive) face (shaxsiat), which is not in keeping with Scollon and Scollon’s view. 2. HUMILITY: Show respect to other - lower self in respect to other. Humility attends to other's positive face needs because indirectly it presents other as superior since self acknowledges her inferiority, albeit nominally. Humility has usually been connected with lowering one's face, while in Iranian society, lowering of self is also seen as attending to self's positive face needs through exhibiting self's good manners. Beeman maintains that self-lowering and other-raising, together with the use of the plural in address and reference to others constitute the main ‘tools’ of ta’arof (1986:142). Deference and Humility can be seen as mirror principles because they often co-exist in practice; in other words, it is often the case that during an exchange both S and H will each practise Humility towards the self and Deference towards the other as in Turkish, where the strategies of putting oneself down and building the other up are identified as aiming at building rapport in any social interaction (Tannen and Oeztek 1981:41). In other words, being deferential towards an interlocutor and casting oneself low serve phatic purposes, which are not only confined to opening and closing sequences (cf. Laver 1975). The co-occurrence of Deference and Humility will become clearer in the course of the following discussion, where many examples could be equally used to illustrate either maxim. 3. CORDIALITY: Show interest in other's affairs, concern for other's needs, comfort and welfare, express your agreement, sympathy with and friendliness towards other. This maxim describes par excellence phatic behaviour, where many strategies function as asserting and strengthening relationships. It must be noted that these three principles are not mutually exclusive and that they often co-exist in practice. The above Politeness Maxims are realised through specific strategies as detailed below. 5.2 MAXIM 1 : SHOW DEFERENCE AND APPROBATION 5.2.1 Use other-raising and other-praising formulaic polite forms of verbs, formulaic phrases and sentences in invitations, apologies, gift offers, food offers, expressions of thanks and compliments.

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Such other-raising verbalizations are used in order to show ehteram (‘honour’, ‘respect’) towards other, thus attending to her shaxsiat (‘face’but see ch. 6 for a full description of both folk terms) and indirectly in order to attend to self's shaxsiat in that they indicate that the S has received appropriate breeding and knows how to function appropriately in society. Similarly, in Chinese, when a S appears humble and modest, she believes this to be helpful in maintaining and enhancing her face and image (Chen 1993:68). Matsumoto's (1988:413-4) comments describe a situation which sounds very similar to that in Persian culture when she states that in Japanese formulaic expressions are ‘strategically indispensable’ because they show that S behaves in accordance with the expected forms of behaviour. In Japanese, where linguistic etiquette dictates the correct formula to be used, saying the right thing in the right place is valued more highly than originality of expression (Coulmas 1981b:88-90). As Tannen and Oeztek (1981:39) aptly state, speakers of languages that use formulas extensively do not perceive formulas as insincere (as speakers of other languages might do, cf. Wierzbicka 1991:120-121), but ‘accept the assumption that the emotions are fresh each time they are experienced, and the formulas are simply the best way to express them’, which is the way use of formulas is understood in Persian too. Thus, Persian speakers do not perceive the use of formulas as insincere, although inevitably, in some cases, the feelings behind the formulas may not be so sincere. In a culture where the use of formulas is socially prescribed, it is not the sincerity or otherwise of the feelings behind the formulas, but their use itself that serves phatic aims: the fact that a speaker takes the trouble to use a socially enjoined formula indicates her intention to accord respect to her interlocutor and takes on therefore a phatic function. Precisely because of the possibility of a formula not reflecting 'real' feelings, speakers may sometimes break out of the formulas, as in Example 12 below, in an effort to persuade their interlocutor that they mean what they say. It must be stressed however, that breaking out of the formulas may only take place, if at all, between close acquaintances or intimates, i.e. between people who can interact without rudarvasi (standing on ceremony, see Chapter 4). Jahangiri (1980:220-234) and Beeman (1986:141-147) have written at some length on the polite forms of some verbs, like dadæn (to give), ræftæn (to go), amædæn (to come), budæn (to be), goftæn (to say). The above forms are ‘neutral’, i.e. they do not demarcate any status difference but they have all got ‘high’ and ‘low’ forms, which are used according to the perceived or intended status of the interlocutor. In this sense they are very similar to honorifics, as described by Ide (1989:227-231). If a speaker wants to show deference to her interlocutor, she will use mohabbæt kærdæn (‘to do kindness’), mærhæmæt kærdæn (‘to do 70

indulgence’) or lotf kærdæn (‘to do favour’) instead of dadæn and færmudæn (lit. ‘to order’) instead of goftæn. Similarly, budæn (‘to be’) is replaced by tæšrif dastæn (lit.’to have one's [honourable] presence’), amædæn (‘to come’) by tæšrif aværdæn (lit. ‘to bring one's [honourable] presence’) and ræftæn (‘to go’) by tæšrif bordæn (lit. ‘to take one's [honourable] presence’). Beeman (ibid.146) continues: ...At the next level, all three are replaced by the forms hozur yaftæn or hozur ræsandæn (to find one's presence, to be conveyed) or tæšrif færma šodæn (approx. to confer or command one's own presence). Finally, the form særæfraz færmudæn is used, meaning literally ‘to command (another's) head to be raised’-thus, etymologically, to command honor for those to whom one goes and comes or with whom one stays. In context, however, even such an elevated expression as tæšrif færma šodæn must be understood denotatively as ‘to go’, ‘to come’ or ‘to be’. In the recorded data only the forms tæšrif aværdæn, tæšrif daštæn and tæšrif bordæn occurred, presumably because the situations I recorded were not formal enough to call for the usage of the higher forms. Thus, an onthe-spot invitation to lunch was phrased as tæšrif daste bašin bæraye nahar (‘honour you-PL have for lunch’, i.e. ‘do us the honour of staying for lunch’) and an advance dinner invitation was cast in the mould of jom’e šæb tæšrif biarin dowrehæm bašim (‘Friday night honour you-PL bring together webe’, i.e. ‘do us the honour of coming for a get-together on Friday night’). Moving on to compliments, a speaker, complimented on a possession with ce (qædr) qæšænge! (‘how (much) beautiful!’), will often respond with cesm-e-šoma qæšænge (‘your eyes are beautiful’) or cesm-e-šoma qæšæng mibine (‘it's your eyes that see it beautiful’), or even qabeli nædare (lit. ‘worth not-has’ i.e. ‘it is unworthy of you’) to which the reply can be sæhabeš qabel dare (‘its owner is worth a lot’). It becomes therefore clear that although an expression of gratitude in response to a compliment is possible, the most common way of responding to a compliment is to return the praise to the initiator, thus applying the principle of other-praising out of humility. (I will return to compliments in section 5.2.3). Similarly, when offering food, one may say æz xunætunæm šodin (‘it is not as good as the food you eat at home’- cf. Chinese ‘There's nothing to eat ; let's make do with it’ Chen 1993:68) and when offering a present in ye cizi næqabeli bæratun ævordim (‘this is something worthless I [lit.we] have brought for you’) or qabele šoma ra nædare (‘it is not worthy of you’). The expression qabeli nædare (‘It is not worthy of you’ [i.e. ‘you can have it for free’]) is also often heard in shops, when a customer enquires about the 71

price of something, and is usually followed by the quotation of the price. When thanking xeili lotf kærdid (‘very favour you-PL did’ i.e. ‘you did me a great favour’) or lotf-e-tun ziade (‘favour-of-you-PL too much-is’ i.e. ‘you are too kind’) featured in the recordings. Persian, as other cultures that use set formulas, ‘afford their members the tranquillity of knowing that what they say will be interpreted by the addressee in the same way that it is intended and that, after all, is the ultimate purpose of communication’. (Tannen and Oeztek 1981:46). It seems that many formulas operate on the praising principle, such as the response to an apology for sitting with one's back turned to somebody, e.g. in the mosque or a public meeting: gol post-o-ru nædare (‘a flower does not have front and back’, implying that the hearer is a flower). 5.2.2 Use polite pronouns (2nd person plural for address and 3rd person plural for reference) and other-raising terms of address and reference like jenab-e-ali (‘your excellency’ -used for adult males) and særkar xanum (for adult females) (Keshavarz 1988:569). Deference, which also builds up self-respect, can be shown to anyone, even children, through the use of other-raising address or reference terms as in the following example: EXAMPLE 1 G (MALE, EARLY FORTIES) ADDRESSES A 3-MONTH-OLD BABY. G:: sælam xanum! Good evening, lady! PRONOMINAL USAGE Keshavarz writes that although Persian is similar to other Indo-European languages in featuring a V and an T pronoun distinction, the semantics of these forms is different from most European languages. For example, the use of the T pronoun to is generally considered rude outside very intimate or familial settings. In addition, intimates or close relatives, who would employ to when alone, will use šoma (you-PL: the V pronoun) if people outside the immediate family are present (1988:570; for a more detailed treatment see Beeman 1986:147-151). This may be the reason why no instances of to were found in my data, whereas the pronoun šoma featured generally, along with the more polite forms that have already been mentioned. In reference to a third person it is polite to use the third person plural form of the verb to refer to a single person eg mother to child: baba 72

umædæn (lit. ‘daddy they-came’, ‘Dad has come’) (cf. French, German, Italian use of plural as polite address forms. I have no knowledge of such forms used for reference). It should also be added that such polite usage to an interlocutor or a third person attends to S's, H's and referent's shaxsiat (‘honour’) through the show of verbal ehteram (‘respect’) towards H and referent (see Chapter 6). 5.2.3. Other-raising general conversation in: COMPLIMENTS One of the main functions of compliments is the creation or reaffirmation of solidarity between interlocutors (Manes and Wolfson 1981, Wolfson and Manes 1980, Wolfson 1983, Herbert 1986a). In Iranian society compliments mostly serve to elevate the interlocutor, sometimes also exhibiting humility, as in one of the recorded dinner conversations (C1B3), where M, the hostess, has laid the table and invites the guests to ‘tuck in’. She says to D, another female guest: befærma`id; ælbætte be qæzahaye šoma nemirese.(‘you-PL-order; of course to foods of you-PL not-arrives’ i.e. ‘Please start; of course this is not as good as the food you cook’). This is a ta’arof compliment, another case of self-lowering, other-raising, because both interlocutors know that they are both good cooks. The hostess means her utterance as a compliment and perhaps also as a ta’arof apology (see below): she presents D's cooking as superior to hers and indirectly apologises for the inferior quality of her own,according to the rules of ta’arof . D reverses the situation saying that she does not know how to cook at all, which is also ta’arof . One of my female informants mentioned that a hostess who apologises for or degrades the food she has cooked feels very confident about her dishes and is actually ‘fishing for compliments’. As will be mentioned in the discussion of the Humility maxim, even though someone may in reality be proud of her accomplishments and achievements and not consider that those of her interlocutor are remotely similar, she has to present the self as lower and praise the other, in order to attend to self's and other's face (shaxsiat). The following example illustrates how a compliment functions as an expression of thanks (cf. Wolfson 1983:88). EXAMPLE 2 A CONVERSATION IS GOING ON WHILE DINNER PLATES ARE BEING PUT AWAY. M, THE HOSTESS (LATE FIFTIES), INTERRUPTS THE CONVERSATION WITH AN OFFER OF DESSERT. F (EARLY THIRTIES) IS HER HUSBAND'S 73

NEPHEW. (1) M: hosein aqa, šoma nemixorin dige? (Hossein-sir, you-PL not-eat more?) Hossein, aren't you having anything else? (2) F: dæst-e-šoma dærd nækone, zæn `æmu, xeili xošmæze bud. (hand-of-you-PL pain not-do, wife-of-paternal uncle, very delicious was. Thank you (lit. May your hands always be healthy), auntie, it was very delicious. (3) M: nuš-e-junetun. (antidote-of-your-soul.) May it be wholesome for you. CONVERSATION CONTINUES FOR ANOTHER 20 SECONDS. (4) M: (interrupts) šolezær xordin? (dessert you-PL ate?) Have you had any dessert? (5) F: bæle, zæn `æmu, xeili hæm xošmæze bud(yes, wife-of-paternal-uncle,very also tasty was-) Yes, auntie, and very tasty it was too(6) M: dige nemixorin? (more you-PL not eat?) Won't you have some more? (7) F:

(8) M:

næ xeili mæmnun (no very obliged) No, thank you very much. hala (now) Well,

mæjburi begi ke xošmæzæst (obliged you-SING say that tasty-is) you can't very well say anything else, can you?

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(9) F: næ, vaqe`æn ali bud. (no, really perfect was.) No, really, it was excellent. M’s utterance 8 is a metapragmatic comment on how a speaker is often expected to praise something she is offered in order to express thanks. F, in utterance 9, stresses that his compliment is not to be taken only as a formulaic expression of thanks, which should be given anyway, but as a sincere token of appreciation. An other-raising compliment functioning as an expression of thanks was recorded on tape, when D, visiting M's house for the first time and bringing her a present (cemrosani- lit. ‘eye-brightening’), was thanked with šoma ke umædin xunæmuno rošæn kærdin (‘you brightened our house with your coming’). A similar formulaic compliment with the function of thanks for a visit is quoted by Rafiee (1992:156) as kolbe xærabeye ma ra monævvær kærdid (lit. ‘hut dilapidated of-us enlightened you did’, i.e. ‘you have illuminated/enlightened our dilapidated hut/shack/hovel’ [his gloss and translation]). Pomerantz (1978) states that the recipient of a compliment finds herself in a dilemma: if she accepts the compliment it may be seen as self-praise and if she rejects it outright, it may be impolite. Rafiee (1992:85-86) quotes a possible response to a compliment as extiar darid, ma ra šærmænde mikonid (‘disposal you-PL-have, us-ACC embarrassed you-PL-make’ i.e. ‘you are free to say anything you like, but what you say embarrasses me’ [my gloss]). He adds that some Iranians will characterise their interlocutor as immodest or arrogant if she responds with an expression of thanks to a compliment. Herbert (1989:25) expresses a similar view when he writes that the offer of a compliment is a token of solidarity, which, if accepted, may jeopardise the solidarity. In Persian, even though S humbles the self while elevating H's status she hardly expects H to agree with the force of the compliment. The expected response would be a ‘mirroring’ of S's behaviour: H to humble self and elevate S. In other words, Persian compliments rather than being tokens of solidarity, they have other-raising functions. Compliments and compliment responses in Persian are of a strongly formulaic nature. Example 3 features a faux pas which shows how deeply ingrained compliment and compliment response formulas are in the speakers’ minds. EXAMPLE 3 N (FEMALE, LATE THIRTIES) ADMIRES K’S (FEMALE, LATE TWENTIES) PENDANT.

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(1) N: ce qædr qæšænge! (how much beautiful is) What a beautiful pendant! (2) K: piškeš. You can have it. (3) N: qabeli nædare. (worth not-has) It’s not worthy [of you] N LAUGHS IN EMBARRASSMENT (4)

mæno bebin ce hærfai mizænæm! (me you-SING-look what talk I-do) What did I say, silly me!

In utterance (3), N uses a functional equivalent of (2), which is used as a compliment response, minimising the value of the object and offering it thus to the complimenter. The customary succession of compliment and compliment response is so strong in speaker N that she gets ‘carried away’, as it were, by it and commits a faux pas by denigrating the object of her compliment, hence her embarrassment in utterance 4. In Iranian settings, compliments, often quite long-winded, are offered because of the operation of the Deference/Approbation Maxim. On the other hand, the recipient cannot express outright acceptance, because of the strong application of the Humility Maxim. It is possible to respond to such compliments by one or more expressions of gratitude, of which Persian abounds. Native speakers explained to me that an expression of thanks in such cases does not mean an acceptance of the compliment, but an acknowledgement of S's intention to pay face. It seems that by using an expression of gratitude one is simply acknowledging the phatic aims of the compliment and thanks the initiator for her ‘purity of intention’, but one does not in any way accept the compliment. This fits in with our previous observations about being humble and the reluctance to accept offers, presents, food etc., to which I will proceed later in this chapter. It is all part of the ta’arof make-up of the Iranian culture and the importance of attending to self's and other's face in interaction. 5.3 HUMILITY MAXIM 5.3.1 Use self-lowering forms of verbs, use of 1st person plural pronoun ma (‘we’) to indicate one speaker, formulaic phrases and sentences and responses to the speech acts of invitations, apologies, gift offers, food 76

offers, expressions of thanks and compliments (mentioned in 5.2.1). LOW FORMS OF VERBS In section 5.2.1 the high forms of some verbs (e.g. mohabbæt kærdæn ’to do kindness’, mærhæmæt kærdæn -’to do indulgence’ or lotf kærdæn ’to do favour’ instead of dadæn -’to give’) were mentioned. In this section, I will look at the low forms of the same verbs, which are used when the speaker wants to lower herself. Thus dadæn (‘to give’) will be replaced by tæqdim kærdæn (‘to do offering, to offer’), goftæn (‘to say’) with `ærz kærdæn (‘to petition’), ræftæn (‘to go’) with ziaræt kærdæn (‘to make a pilgrimage’), amædæn (‘to come’) with xedmæt residæn (‘to arrive in service’) and budæn (‘to be’) with (dær) xedmæt budæn (‘to be at or in the service of’) (Beeman 1986, 145-146, his glosses and translations). Beeman (ibid.) adds that when greater status difference must be conveyed, all reference to personal action is obliterated through the use of the verbs særæfraz šodæn (lit. ‘to have one's head raised’ -thus to be honoured) and šæræfyab šodæn (lit. ‘to become a recipient of honor’). Contrary to English usage, the use of the first person plural pronoun ma (‘we’) to indicate one speaker is a marker of humility, as in ma ra šærmænde kærdid (‘you have put us [i.e. me] to shame’) or xejowlæt dadin ma ra (‘you gave us [i.e. me] shame’), through a compliment, or an offer of a gift. Beeman (1986:150-151) writes that this usage is very widespread, especially among the middle and upper classes, which is confirmed by my data. He adds that one of his informants expressed the view that a speaker avoids presumptuousness in greeting or praising someone herself, because that might be seen as ‘preparing the ground’ for a request of favour. He adds that the use of ma with a single subject is a way of showing respect through the diffusion rather than the humbling of self and that among the educated classes ma is preferred to forms such as bændeh instead of mæn (I). The following extract, where J (male, late thirties) escorts his friend F (male, early thirties) to do shopping in the shop of one of J's friends P (male, early thirties) confirms Beeman's view. When asked the price, P, the shopkeeper, quotes the cost price of the item, implying that he only intends to charge this. EXAMPLE 4 (1) J: dorost begu,..., ma maye nemixaim fæqæt begiri,-(correct say-SING,...we cost not-want only you-SING take) Say it properly, we don't want you to charge 77

the cost only-(2) P:

næ, šoma hæftsæd toman bedin. no, you-PL 700 tuman you-PL-give) No, only give me 700 tuman.

(3) J: ma mixaim fayede hæm bedim. (we want profit also give) we want to give you your profit too. (4) P: ma bayæd æz šoma pul nægirim. (we must from you-PL money we-not-take.) I mustn't take any money from you. In this extract it seems that each speaker tries to make his view prevail through the use of ma instead of mæn. Each one's view is in this way presented as stemming from more than one individual, which somehow makes it more valid. It seems that Beeman does not distinguish between humility and deference (respect) because the statement quoted above contains an obvious contradiction: if ma is used instead of bændeh, a marker of humility, it should also have a similar function, at least some of the time. In my view, this use of ma and of 1st plural form verb endings are indeed markers of humility, as in Examples 5 and 6 in the next section, where it contributes to the general impression of humility the speakers create through the use of dær xedmæt bašim (‘to be of service to you’, i.e. ‘to invite you to dinner’ in example 5, utterance 4), be xedmætetun beresim (‘to come to your service’, i.e. ‘to offer the New Year greetings’ in example 6) or ye mæqale næqabeli maro xundæn (‘an unworthy article of ours’ in example 6). Under the maxim of Humility, a host/ess will offer fruit or sweets to a guest saying qabele ta’arofi nist (‘it's not worth to be offered’, i.e. it’s not good enough for the guests) thus presenting her hospitality as inferior. As I have pointed out elsewhere (section 5.2.3), it may be that the speaker does not believe this to be the case at all, but the operation of the Humility Maxim is so strong that she must present it as such. It should be noted that many of the examples that have been given under the heading of the Deference Maxim in section 5.2.1 also illustrate the Humility Maxim. For example, æz xunætunæm šodin (‘it is not as good as the food you eat at home’) when offering food and in ye cizi næqabeli bæratun ævordim (‘this is something worthless I [lit.we] have brought for you’) or qabele šomaro nædare (‘it is not worthy of you’) exhibit both deference towards an interlocutor and humility on the part of the speaker.

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5.3.2 Use self-lowering formulaic reference terms, e.g. bænde (male slave), hæqir (humble), moxles (sincere), caker (devoted servant), all used by males (Keshavarz 1988:567). An instance which I tape-recorded occurred at an optician's in Tehran. It involved a male shop assistant who, when asked his name by the client replied moxlese šoma færhad (lit. ‘sincere-to-you-PL, Farhad’). Keshavarz (ibid.566-567) writes that such forms are usually used by inferiors in their communication with superiors in terms of age, status and (perceived) strength of religious faith, although it is by no means unusual for the superior partner in the interaction to use such forms herself, the reason being that ‘self-abasement has traditionally been considered as a good and admirable virtue.’ This shows how potent the concept of humility is in Persian, where ‘power and status can be overruled by humility.’ (ibid. 567). Matsumoto (1988:411) describes a similar case in Japanese of a superior using self-humbling forms in interaction with an inferior, the latter then denying this reversal of ranking in order to prevent loss of face by both parties, but especially on his own part. On the contrary, to an American, self-denigration almost always damages positive face because it is so near to self-humiliation (Brown and Levinson 1987:68). It is obvious how these differing perceptions in different cultural groups may easily lead to misunderstanding. 5.3.3. Self-lowering general conversation, including apologies. As tævazo`/forutæni (humility) is a positive value in Iranian society (Keshavarz 1988:566) all three strategies detailed above can be seen as attending to S's positive face, confirming that S has received correct socialisation. As already mentioned, the Maxims of Humility and Deference very often coexist in practice, as in the following example. EXAMPLE 5 A (MALE, EARLY THIRTIES) IS TAKING HIS LEAVE FROM G (MALE, EARlY FORTIES) IN WHOSE HOUSE HE HAS JUST HAD DINNER, AND ISSUES A TA’AROF INVITATION. (1) A: æz un ruz ta hala ma xedmæt næresidim aqaye X,-(from that day until now we service not-arrived Mr X--) since that day we have not been at your service for dinner,Mr X--

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eftexar bedino:: (pride you-PL to give) you haven't given us the honour (2) G: enšallah, enšallah. (God-willing, God-willing). I will hopefully. (3) A: dær xedmæt bašim ma enšallah. (to service we-be God-willing.) to be at your service for dinner, hopefully. (4) G: enšallah. (God-willing). Hopefully. A presents G's prospective visit as something to be proud of and his hospitality as a service which is due to his interlocutor. This is another typical ta’arof situation, where the speaker lowers the self whilst placing the addressee at a higher position, thus attending to the shaxsiat of both. (cf. Beeman 1986:142). Example 6 is a good example of self-humbling general conversation. It was recorded during a visit to one of Tehran's universities, when a senior colleague A (male, late fifties) of the academic I was visiting T (male, mid forties) came into T’s office. This was the first time they saw each other after the Iranian New Year holiday and according to the custom, T should have visited his senior colleague first. T said to his guest: EXAMPLE 6 behærhal bayæd orzxahiye maro bepæzirin ke zudtær -(anyway must apologies of-us you-PL-accept that earlier) Please accept my (lit. ‘our’) apologies for not coming to see you xedmætetun næresidim. væzifeye ma bud ke-(to-service of-you-PL we-not-arrived. duty of-us was that) earlier. It was my (lit. ‘our’) duty be xedmætetun beresim. (to service of you-PL we-arrive.) to come to you [first].

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Shortly afterwards, after introducing me, he explained how I came to be there: išun ye mæqale næqabeli maro xundæn... (they one article worthless of-us they-read...) she (lit.’they’) happened to read an unworthy article of mine (lit.’ours’)... Here, the combined effect of the use of ma and of 1st person plural verb endings and the choice of xedmæt residæn (‘to come to somebody’s service’), instead of amædæn (‘to come’) together with T’s apology for neglecting his 'duty' to visit A first and his reference to his article as ‘unworthy’, create a strong overall impression of humility. Needless to add that the same expressions simultaneously convey deference to A. Interestingly, an example of explicit self-awareness of ta’arof strategies occurred in this situation, when I talked about ta’arof and Persian politeness with the senior academic for more than half an hour. After my thanking him at the end of the interview, A said to me bebæxšid væqte šomara gereftim (lit. ‘you-PL forgive time-of-you-PL we-took’ i.e. ‘sorry I [lit. ‘we’] took your time’), upon which he realised that this was clearly ta’arof , and made us all laugh! APOLOGIES According to Leech, apologies belong to the Modesty Maxim (1983:132). In my scheme they are also placed under the Humility maxim, because they acknowledge, sometimes nominally, a deficiency or a breach of social rules for which the speaker holds herself responsible, therefore humbling herself with respect to the addressee. Most of the work on apologies has been based on the assumption that the speech act ‘apology’ refers to the same social act in all cultures and does not recognize cross-cultural differences in the situations that call for an apology (Wolfson, Marmor, Jones 1989:179). However, if apologies are studied cross-linguistically, it is likely that the notions of offence and obligation will differ. Coulmas (1981b:79 and 84) description of Japanese thanks and apologies sounds remarkably similar to Persian: there is a common domain where thanks and apologies are both appropriate. This is where it becomes difficult to keep object of gratitude and object of regret distinct from each other... The link between the object of gratitude and the object of regret is the concept of indebtedness.

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and Apologies indicate the speaker’s willingness to conform to conventional rules and social expectations. Not infrequently this seems to be their sole purpose The reverse side of the benefit of a favor is the strain that it cost the benefactor to carry out. For this strain the one who benefited is held responsible, and thus an apology is appropriate. The most common form of apology is bebæxšid or bebæxšin which is the imperative form of the verb bæxšidæn (to forgive), meaning ‘you-PL forgive’. It is this form that is used in what I will call ‘ostensible (or ta’arof ) apologies. These mostly, but not exclusively, occur at the end of a visit, as the following, both initiated by the hostess (female, late thirties) to her guests: EXAMPLE 7 bebæxšin dige. (you-PL-forgive then) Forgive me. .. bebæxšin bæd gozašt. (you-PL-forgive bad passed) Sorry you've had a bad time. This is another typical ta’arof situation. The speaker is ostensibly apologising for bad food, lack of comfort, waste of the visitors' time: in short she presents her hospitality as being worse than what the visitors deserve. In example 7 self-lowering and other-raising co-occur. Very often the guest will reply to the host’s apology with (bebæxšid) zæhmæt dadim (i.e. ‘you-PL forgive, trouble we-gave’), or she may offer this phrase on the way out in order to express thanks. Coulmas (1981b, 82) writes that Japanese also has a verbalisation of I have intruded on you, which functions as an expression of gratitude, while the response no, no, don’t mention it is used as a response to expressions of gratitude and apologies (cf. xaheš mikonæm ‘please [don’t mention it’]). Holmes (1990:160-161) has described the ‘minimal felicity conditions’ that must obtain for an utterance to be interpreted as an apology: I. an act has occurred; II. A believes the act has offended B; III. A takes some responsibility for the act. Ostensible apologies, as shown, present a somewhat different situation 82

from the one in Holmes' description. A standard form apology is offered but the circumstances could be described as follows:  I: an act has occurred to the cost of A and to B’s benefit;  II: A pretends she believes the act has offended B because it was not good enough ;  III: A nominally takes some responsibility for the act Wolfson, Marmor and Jones (1989:180) write that ‘situations which elicit apologies in one language could easily fail to do so in another’ and that cross-linguistic study of apologies may reveal that the notions of offence and obligation to apologise are culture specific. Ostensible apologies belong to this area of culture-specific notions of (nominal) offence and obligation to apologise in order to pay face to one's interlocutor and to one's self. The following situations illustrate cases where although an apology is strictly not required because no offence has been committed, it is nevertheless often offered as a token of self-lowering/other-raising. When somebody offers a present and receives thanks, sometimes apologies are used, in the form of bebæxšid, qabele šomaro nædare (‘you-PL-forgive, worth-of-you not-has’, i.e. ‘sorry, it is not worthy of you’) as I have already mentioned in the discussion of the Deference Maxim. This is similar to Japanese, where apologies may function as a ‘liner’ of other speech acts such as greetings, offers, or ‘thanks with an apologetic undertone’. (Coulmas 1981b:82) In a situation the present writer witnessed, a cab-driver apologised quite profusely for accepting the fare from a passenger (after having refused it a number of times, of course) because he had once been to the passenger’s blacksmith’s workshop and therefore considered himself his distant acquaintance. 5.4 CORDIALITY MAXIM 5.4.1 Make repeated offers of food, drink, offers of putting up for the night, invitations (advance and on-the-spot). OFFERS In the natural data, repeated offers of food were common, because a lot of the recorded interactions took place at mealtimes and during visits. One of them was the following example: EXAMPLE 8 TWO FEMALE FRIENDS, C (MID THIRTIES) and D (LATE TWENTIES) ARE HAVING LUNCH TOGETHER IN C'S HOUSE. 83

(1) C: ...mariam xanum æz in boxor unja ziade. (Mrs Mariam from this you-SING eat there much-is.) Mariam, have some more of this, there is a lot there. (2) D:

are xordæm. (yes, I-ate) That’s enough for now.

(3) C: axe kæm xordi. (oh, little you-SING ate.) That was too little. (4) D: hala... (Now...) Well... (5) C: mixori? boxor toro xoda. (you-SING eat? SING-eat by God.) Will you have some more? Please do. (D LAUGHS) (6) C: inja ziade axe gozæštæm inja bæraye hæssan. (there much-is I left here for Hassan) There is still a lot there- I've put some aside for Hassan [her husband] (7) D: are midunæm. (yes I know) Yes, I know. In this example D, who is not a native speaker, laughs in embarrassment at C's insistence. C feels she must insist because she wants to make sure that her guest does not stop eating before she has had enough (cf. Leech's Tact Maxim, submaxim (b): Maximize benefit to other) and interprets D's indirect refusals as an application of the mirror Maxim of Generosity (submaxim (a) Minimize benefit to self), which leads on to more insistence on her part. Speakers are aware that refusals of food and drink may often be ta’arof , and therefore feel obliged to insist further, telling their interlocutor not to do ta’arof , (which is just another way of doing ta’arof !), as in the following extract: EXAMPLE 9 84

A (MALE, EARLY THIRTIES) and D (HIS WIFE, LATE TWENTIES, NONNATIVE SPEAKER) ARE VISITING THEIR FRIENDS B and C. A HAS JUST SAID THAT IT IS HIGH TIME THEY WENT HOME, WHEN C INVITES THEM TO HAVE SOME MORE FRUIT: (1) A: næ dige ma yævaš yævaš berim dige (no more we slowly slowly we-to-go more) No, thank you, we’d better get going. (2) C: ye mive boxorin (one fruit you-PL-eat) Have a fruit first. (3) A: næ dige motšæker, næ dige xeili mæmnun (no more thankful, no more very obliged) No, thank you very much. (4) B: baba šoma ye sa’æt vaistadin ( you-PL one hour are-standing) But you’ve been standing there for an hour! (5) C: cera, ta’arof mikonin? (why, do you stand on ceremony?) Why, are you doing ta’arof ? (6) A: næ baba, ce ta’arof i...næ mæn ælan hænuz gelum-(no, what ta’arof ...no, I now still my-throat No, of course not...no, my sore throat is dorost hessabi xub næšode (completelywell not-became.) not completely well yet. (7) C: xob ye moz boxorin, ye moz - mive zærærdar nædarim. (well a banana you-PL eat.A banana- fruit harmful we-not have) Well, have a banana - the fruit we’ve got is not harmful (for the throat). sibo moz. -(apple and banana only apples and bananas.

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(8) (to D) šoma šir mixori biaræmya miri xune? (you-PL milk you drink I-to-bring or you-SING-go) Shall I bring some milk for you or will you have some at home? (9) D: næ dige mersi (no more, thanks) No, thank you. (10) C: cai næxordin, cai mixorin hosein aqa? (tea you-PL not-ate, tea you-PL-eat, hosein-Mr?) You haven’t had any tea, would you like some? (11) A: næ xeili motšæker, ma dige bayæt bolænd šim (no very thankful, we more must get up-) No, thank you very much, we really must be going-kotæmo bepušæm. (my coat I-put-on) let me put my coat on. (12) C: ye mive boxorin berin- bezær xanum mozešo boxore. (a fruit you-PL-eat you-PL-go.let lady banana-of- her to eat.) Have a fruit and then go. Let your wife finish off her banana. dæhonime hala. (ten-thirty is now.) It’s only ten thirty. Following the Cordiality maxim, C repeatedly offers refreshments while A refuses them. C’s utterance 5 directed to A ta’arof mikonin? (‘are you doing ta’arof ?’, i.e.’is this a ta’arof refusal?’) indicates speakers’ awareness of ta’arof conventions. As mentioned in Chapter 4, the first response to an offer is almost always a refusal which along with any subsequent refusals are followed by more insistent offers. These are perceived as expressions of cordiality and warmth of feeling, even when the object of the offer is unwanted. So strong are ta’arof conventions that in the course of the ethnographic interviews an informant reported cases that some hosts offer food with such insistence that they become genuinely tiresome, whereas another said that some guests may leave the dinner-table half-hungry because they were not offered food with sufficient insistence and therefore could not help themselves to as much food as they wanted. Offers of food and drink are obligatory in everyday interaction and it is interesting how early these habits are instilled in children: 86

EXAMPLE 10 MOTHER (EARLY FORTIES) TO 3-YEAR-OLD SON WHO IS EATING SWEETS C: bia be xale jun ta’arof kærdi? (come to auntie-dear ta’arof you-SING did?) Have you offered some to auntie? Nwoye (1992:321), in his study on face in the Igbo of Nigeria, writes that children are taught to share their food with other people, even if only as a ritual. It is only designed to teach adult forms of behaviour when food must be shared with anyone who happens to be there. An absence of such an offer is equivalent to a serious breach of etiquette and results in an adverse reflection of the person who failed to issue it. One of my informants mentioned that even if somebody is eating something small, like a fruit or a sweet in the presence of strangers, it is socially expected that she will offer to share it with them, even though she knows they will refuse as a matter of course. Such details show that the concept of manifesting Cordiality does not necessarily apply only among acquaintances but also among strangers. In fact, it seems to be so ingrained in the Iranian psyche that eating in the street is strongly disapproved of and some people are reported to dislike eating in public places, such as offices (apart from in restaurants of course) because they genuinely feel uneasy that their offer to share their food or drink with any bystanders will be refused. Ad hoc offers of putting up for the night are not uncommon among relatives or friends, especially if the guests have some way to go, or if it is late at night. In any case, at the end of a late visit, some hosts will issue perfunctory offers of putting up for the night, which usually are formulated as šæb bemunid (‘you-PL stay the night’ or šæb nemimunid? (‘won’t you-PL stay the night?’). A male informant said that his wife's paternal aunt (amme), who is unmarried, always offers to put him up for the night when he pays her a visit, even though they both know that the offer must and will be refused. It is however clear that they both feel that the offer has phatic aims despite practical and social constraints; it is a genuine expression of cordiality and warmth. Ritual offers and ritual refusals also feature in the setting of trade exchanges. EXAMPLE 11 IN THE CENTRAL BAZAAR OF TEHRAN. X IS A SHOPKEEPER (MALE, MID FIFTIES) AND J (MALE, LATE THIRTIES) IS HIS ACQUAINTANCE ESCORTING 87

HIS FRIEND F (MALE, EARLY THIRTIES) IN HIS SHOPPING TRIP. F IS PAYING FOR HIS PURCHASES. (1) F: haj aqa, xedmæte šoma. (pilgrim sir, service-of-you-PL) There you are, sir. (2) X: qabeli nædare. (worth not-has) Please keep it. (3) F: xeili mæmnun, qorbane šoma. (very obliged, sacrifice-of-you-PL) Thank you for the offer, but no, thank you. (4) X: jane mæn. (soul-of me) By my soul, I mean it. (H GIVES HIM THE MONEY) (5) F: xeili motšækkeræm æz lotfe šoma. (very thankful-am from kindness-of you-PL) Thank you for your kindness. (6) X: xaheš mikonæm. (request I-do) It’s nothing. (7) F: xeili mæmnunæm, qorbane šoma (very obliged, sacrifice-of you-PL) Thank you for everything. (8) J: zæhmæt kešidin, xoda hafez. (trouble you-PL-took, God protector) Thank you for the trouble you’ve taken [for us], goodbye. (9) X: xoda hafez, movæffæq bašin. (God protector, successful may-you-PL-be) Goodbye, God bless you. X nominally twice offers the goods for free as a way of showing his goodwill towards J and F. J’s and F’s expressions of gratitude are acknowledgement of this intention, not acceptance of the offer (cf. 88

Jaworski 1993:189-190 for Polish, where an expression of gratitude constitutes rejection of an offer). What is important in this exchange is that all interactants recognise the ritual and phatic aspects of the offer as a sincere expression of cordiality and friendliness. INVITATIONS Moving on to invitations, I will examine a whole range of ta’arof (‘ostensible’) invitations, which have par excellence phatic function, being expressions of cordiality and warmth. Writes Beeman (1986:185-186): [...] an offhand invitation will be interpreted as something elsemost often a move to break the interaction event, or a proper closing. A common example of this occurs when one person accompanies or conveys another to his or her home. The invitation at the door to come inside for tea or for dinner is a sincere expression- of thanks or regard- but it is rarely a sincere invitation, even though issued as a petition...Such situations give the guest (he/she who was accompanied or conveyed) a final opportunity to turn the tables and place himself in a subordinate position. The conventional use of these petition-invitations is so widespread for purposes of closing off interactions that everyone (except foreigners) knows not to accept them. If an invitation is sincere, it will be repeated up to three times after the first denial. Even then it is rarely wise to accept unless one is willing and ready to begin the gradual move toward intimate equality. (emphasis mine) In my experience, such expressions of thanks or regard (according to Beeman) or cordiality and warmth in my own terms are very common and only very close relatives or friends have acceptance as a real option. Ta’arof invitations are often issued when guests come to one's house near a meal time. Informants confirmed that such invitations show hospitality and good manners and that one would expect to be invited as a sign of respect even if it is known and expected that she would refuse. The absence of an invitation is very likely to be interpreted as lack of manners and proper regard and therefore will be perceived as lack of ehteram on the part of the hostess towards the guest, but will also reflect badly on the host's shaxsiat. It was said that such invitations are a social duty and routine, like saying sælam (‘peace’-the islamic greeting) first. An informant explained that when a guest is already in one's house, if the invitation is meant, it will be issued early on during the visit and will possibly be followed by bringing house-clothes for him to change into. If the host/ess does not really want the guest to stay for a meal, she does 89

not mention the meal during the visit. However, it is a social convention to issue at least one ta’arof invitation, often more, usually when the guest is ready to go, perhaps when putting on her shoes/overcoat, which is perceived as the signal of definite departure. At that point the host/ess may say ‘mimundin hala’ (‘you-PL were staying now’ i.e. ‘you could have stayed, you know’). This timing makes it clear that the invitation was not meant but is nevertheless an expression of hospitality, good manners and ehteram towards the guest (as in the fieldnote after Example 13). It was also mentioned that sometimes when the host/ess knows that the guest cannot stay, she does more ta’arof in order to be polite. When the guest refuses as she must anyway, the host/ess may reply with ‘xolæse ta’arof nædarim’ (‘ anyway, there is no ta’arof between us’) and this precludes the possibility of the guest's staying by explaining why the host/ess will not insist any more. The convention of ta’arof invitations is so widespread that if such an invitation is not issued, the guest will perceive its absence as a lack of regard and ehteram. In the case of an invitation at the door, the invitation is normally refused, unless the interlocutors are really close, in which case the invitation can be accepted as convenience permits. Recorded in my fieldnotes were three lunch invitations, two of which were refused and one that was taken up. During the first days after the Iranian New Year in Iran (21-22 March), it is the custom for all members of the extended family to visit each other, starting with younger members visiting the older ones. As all visits must usually be completed within the first ten days of the new year, visitors come at any time of the day, as people try to visit everyone who lives in the same area on the same day, in order to save time. On that day, it was near lunchtime when the hostess’(T) niece and her husband came to visit. When they indicated their intention to go, T said tæšrif dašte bašin bæraye nahar (‘honour you-PL have for lunch’ i.e. ‘honour us by staying for lunch’), but they excused themselves saying that they had another engagement. T did not insist more. Later, another niece, her husband and children came to visit and the same invitation with the same results ensued. Still later, T’s brother in-law, his wife and daughters came and the same invitation was repeated. At first he refused very strongly, saying that they had had lunch, but then he added diruz (‘yesterday’), which indicated that they would not mind staying as they had not had lunch. After a little more of insistence and refusal they decided to stay, having realised that there was enough food and that it would cause the hosts no inconvenience. Afterwards, when T was asked why the outcome of the last invitation was different from the other two, she replied that there were several reasons: whenever T’s family visit these last guests, they are usually offered lunch or dinner, so such invitations are not unusual between them. Apart from that, she knew that they had not had lunch and that they were 90

planning to visit some more relatives in the same area, so they would not be returning home until much later in the day. The next extract I examine was recorded in a similar situation, involving a visit of family friends turning into an ad hoc dinner invitation. This is an interesting stretch of interaction, because the invitation is phrased unconventionally, while the visitors’ refusals follow ta’arof conventions. EXAMPLE 12 A (MALE, EARLY THIRTIES) AND D (HIS WIFE, LATE TWENTIES) HAVE DROPPED IN TO SEE B (MALE, EARLY FORTIES) AND C (HIS WIFE, MID THIRTIES) WITHOUT RINGING FIRST, SO THEY ONLY FIND THEIR TWO TEENAGE CHILDREN AT HOME. SHORTLY AFTERWARDS B AND C ARRIVE AND SINCE A AND D ARE OLD FAMILY FRIENDS, THE HOSTS, ALTHOUGH NOT SPECIFICALLY ASKING THEM TO STAY FOR DINNER, ACT AS IF THERE IS NO QUESTION ABOUT THEIR STAYING. B, THE MALE HOST, DEFYING CONVENTION AND SHOWING THEIR CLOSENESS WITH THE VISITORS SAYS: (1) B:mixaim berim ina æge mixain intowri konin, (we-want we-go these if you-PL want this way you-PL do,) If you want to keep saying ‘we want to go’ mæn bazæm mizaræm miræm ælan birun. (I again leave go now out.) I'll just get up and go. (2) A:

kodum, koja? (which, where?) What, where?

(3) B: æz xune miræm birun. (from house I-go out.) I'll just leave.

(4) A:

cera? (why?)

(5) C: xob boro hala paltoto dær biar bešin binim. (well go now coat-of-you-SING out-take sit we-see.) Well, take off your coat and we'll see. (6) D: koja mirin? 91

(where you-PL go?) Where are you going? (7) B: mixam beræm mixam beræm berim nædarim. (I want I-go I-want I-go we-go we-not-have.) I don't accept your saying ‘we want to go’. (8) A:

/?/ cera? ki mixad bere birun? why? who wants to go out?

(9) B: næ dige æge umædin do dæqiqe mixaid (no more if you-PL came two minutes you-PL want) No, if you've just come to stay for two minutes bešinid berin, mæn nistæm æhleš. (you-PL sit you-PL go, I not-am people of-it) and then go, I'm not this kind of person. (10)A: (LAUGHS) (11)D: eh?... cera? (oh?...why?) (12)A: bešin haj aqa, bešin hala (you-SING-sit pilgrim-sir, you-SING-sit now) Well, sit down now... sæxt nægir šoma mixaim bebinimetun berim. (you-SING difficult not-take we want we-see you-PL we-go.) ...take it easy. We just want to see you for a bit and go. (13)D: næ dige hæm intowri /ke šoma/-næ dige. (no more also this-way /that you-PL/- no more) Don't do like this. The host is here expressing mock anger and his threat to leave is supposed to be taken as a protest at the visitors' even daring to think that he would not keep them for dinner, which stresses their closeness, even though linguistically B seems to be exercising some power over the guests. At first, A and D protest that their hosts had been out and are tired, thereby meaning that they would not presume to stay but B continues: (16) B: xob pæs æge sæxt nemigirim hæmun ye (well then if difficult we-not-take exactly one) 92

Well, then, if we take it easy we'll just hazeri dorost mikonim mixorim. (easy-food ready we-make we-eat.) make something easy and eat. (17) A:

hæmun. (exactly) ‘just’?

(18) A: næ: næ: æslæn šoma /esrar?/ nækon. (no no at all you-PL /insist/ you-SING-not-do) No, no, don't insist any more. (19) D: e`va, næ dige, šoma ælan xæste umædin æz birun (oh, no more, you-PL now tired you-PL came from outside) No, don't insist more, you've just come from outside and you're tired. veleš kon. (you-SING-leave you-SING-do) leave it for now. (20) B: ma xæsteim? (we tired-are?) Are you saying we are tired? (21) A: /?/

ma umædim injuri are. (we came this way yes) We popped in just like that.

(22) D: are dige e` - pæs ma. (yes indeed - then us) Yes, of course- who then? we? (23) A: æz sa`æte yazdæh bænde xoda haj xanumo-(from time eleven slave-of-God pilgrim-lady-ACC) Since eleven o'clock you've been out with-bordin birun (you-PL-took out) your poor wife. (24) B: taze xæstegimun dær miad inja bašin-93

(actually tiredness-of-us out goes here you-PL-to be) We actually forget our tiredness if you staybe mærge xodæm? (to death-of mine) May God strike me dead if I'm lying. (25) C: næ baba? (no, father) No, indeed! (26) A:

vallah? (by God) Really,

sa`æte šišonim hæfte? (time six-half, seven is) it's now six-thirty, seven. (27) B:

næ æslæn næ?...nešæste budim-- be xoda (no at all, no!...sitting we were --by God) No, really, no, we were sitting,-- believe me.

(28) A: pænj sa`æte. (five hours) In this extract, the host (B) tries to overcome the visitors' objections any way he can: ye hazeri dorost mikonim mixorim.(‘we’ll make something easy to eat’), ma xæsteim? (‘Are you saying we are tired?’), taze xæstegimun dær miad inja bašin-be mærge xodæm (‘We actually forget our tiredness if you stay -may God strike me dead if I'm lying’). All this insistence shows the visitors that the invitation is genuine, albeit unconventional, so they decide to stay. As mentioned earlier (5.2.1), this speaker breaks out of the formulaic conventions in his effort to convince the guests that his is a genuine invitation that he expects to be taken up without any further ta’arof refusals. The very unconventionality of the invitation is meant to stress the intimacy of the interlocutors, which permits B to move beyond the frame of formulaic/conventional invitations and to demand that A and D move beyond the frame of conventional ta’arof refusals. Another instance involving the same participants in this situation can be contrasted with what goes on in Example 13. The hosts' children were studying very hard for their exams when A and D dropped in to see them. Although B did invite them twice to stay for dinner, his wife C did not say 94

anything, indicating thus that having guests for dinner was not convenient. However, when A and D were by the door ready to go, she said ma ke delemun mixast bæraye šam bemunin (‘we that heart-of-us wanted for dinner you-PL stay’ i.e. ‘we really wanted you to stay for dinner’), which showed that even though the time was inconvenient, the good feeling was there. Future ta’arof invitations, often to a meal, are also phatic by nature and are understood as such rather than as ‘real’ invitations, as in example 5 above, where the guest issues a future ta’arof invitation in formal words in an effort to show his goodwill and his willingness to continue the relationship. Ta’arof invitations are similar to the ostensible invitations described by Wolfson et al. (1983:117 for American English), where both interlocutors invite each other to their houses but without actually fixing a time. These invitations do not contain a specific reference to time and/or mention of place or activity nor a request for a response. Similarly to future ta’arof invitations, these consist of a lead that more often than not will not be taken up for a long time or sometimes not at all. Thus at the end of a friendly visit, both hostess and visitors initiate such leads that will probably become proper invitations perhaps weeks, or even months, later. It is noteworthy that although the activity is specified (to eat an ice-cream that they did not eat last time they were together), neither of them initiates a move towards specifying date and time. Similar leads appear at the end of a dinner party, where hostess and visitors issue invitations that do not specify date or time. At the end of a visit this is expected of adults and it must be noted that even if such invitations are not followed up later on, they still express the ‘purity of intention’ described Bateson et al.(1977:270), or the warmth of feeling and the goodwill that both parties want to impart to each other. A genuine invitation will be issued in advance, mentioning the date and the activity (but not the exact time); the invitation will be denied at least twice using formulas like we don't want to give trouble to which the hostess will say, often more than once it's no trouble at all, I'll just make something simple and she will finish off saying We'll be waiting for you then. (cf. Gu 1990:252-253 and Mao 1994:475-479 for a very similar account of how interactants maintain and enhance their own and each others' faces throughout such an interaction in Chinese). It is interesting how other patterns of behaviour are made to fit into the invitation pattern with the interlocutors adopting the roles of host and guest. For example when people are dining out, it is almost always one person who pays the bill for the party and individual bills are unheard of. As laid down by good manners, each person must insist on paying, even if she does not really want or intend to. From what my informants said, it is the one who insists more strongly that ends up paying. All these examples show that cordiality is all pervading in Persian 95

interaction and that warmth and goodwill must be communicated, even when practical constraints do not allow offers and invitations to be materialised. This communication of goodwill is of paramount importance in showing regard to other's and to self's face. 5.4.2 Make health and other enquiries in order to show interest in other's affairs. Make insistent offers of help, services, material goods and do ta’arof in order to show helpfulness and concern for others's needs and wishes, welfare and comfort. Show appreciation of others' efforts. OPENINGS AND HEALTH ENQUIRIES Conversations typically open with the Islamic greeting sælam aleikom (‘peace be upon you’) or sælam (‘peace’) for short, immediately followed by health enquiries. Overlaps of both enquiries and answers are common as in the next example. EXAMPLE 13 A (MALE, EARLY THIRTIES) VISITING G'S (MALE, MID FORTIES) HOUSE FOR THE FIRST TIME. THE FOLLOWING EXCHANGE TAKES PLACE WHEN THE HOST COMES INTO THE LIVING ROOM. (1) A: haletun xube? xubin? (condition-of-you-PL well-is? well-you-PL-are?) How are you? Alright? (2) G:

hale šoma xube? (condition-of-you-PL well-is?) How are you?

(3) A: qorbane šoma. (sacrifice-of-you.) Thank you. (4) G:

mersi. (thank you) Thank you.

It is common to continue with another formulaic health enquiry a few minutes later, usually when there is a lull in the conversation: A: xubin? (well-you-PL-are?) 96

How are you then? G: qorbane šoma, sælamæt bašin. (sacrifice-of-you-PL, healthy you-PL-be.) Very well, thank you, it's kind of you to ask. It is customary to greet people one by one, including children: collective greetings are apparently not sufficient. EXAMPLE 1 (Reproduced) G (MALE, EARLY FORTIES) ADDRESSES A 3-MONTH-OLD BABY. G: sælam xanum! Good evening, lady! It must be noted that health enquiries constitute phatic communion (Malinowski 1923, 1975, Laver 1975) and do not normally receive factual answers. They serve to get the interaction off to a good start by showing everyone's concern for everyone else. According to this, a formal meeting in Iran will be interrupted by a late arrival, so that greetings and health enquiries can be exchanged whereas, from my experience, in an English speaking/Anglo Saxon cultural setting a participant arriving late is most likely to say nothing or mumble something like Sorry I'm late in order not to interrupt the proceedings. In fact, Rafiee (1992:112-113) writes that in Iran the verbal exchange of greetings takes precedence over almost all other proceedings, formal or informal. Striking similarities exist between Persian and Modern Greek conventions in this respect. Sifianou (1992:91-92) writes that unlike the English who prefer to join in a group more quietly and perceive greetings in this context as an interruption, Greeks expect to be greeted and want to greet other in this situation. If this does not happen, a Greek is likely to interpet the lack of greetings as indifference which is ‘a real insult’ for the Greeks ‘and is somewhat related to the notion...that most Greek social relationships are characterized by greater intimacy... To be indifferent is not neutral; it is essentially hostile’ (Triandis and Vassiliou, 1972:315-316, as quoted in Sifianou 1992:91-92). In Brown and Levinson's terms, in the Iranian setting the person arriving late has his positive face enhanced, through shows of friendliness and the avoidance of any mention of lateness, whereas the same person in an English speaking/Anglo Saxon setting has his negative face protected though ostensibly ignoring the fact that he was late. Health enquiries halfway in a natural conversation, very similar to ‘small talk’, serve as indicators of willingness to continue the interaction as in: 97

EXAMPLE 14 C (FEMALE, EARLY FORTIES) TO A (MALE, EARLY THIRTIES) AND D (HIS WIFE, LATE TWENTIES) C: xob, xæbæri æz šoma nist hale šoma xube? (well, news from you-PL not-is. condition-of you-PL good-is?) So... we haven't heard from you for a long time- how are you? and also as a filler in a conversational gap: EXAMPLE 15 INTERLOCUTORS AS ABOVE C: xob æz madær pedær ina ce xæbær? halešun xube? (well from mother father them what news? Condition-of-them goodis?) What news from your parents? How are they? and EXAMPLE 16 A (MALE, EARLY THIRTIES) TO TEENAGE BOYS OF THE HOSTS A:...xob mædrese dær ce hale? (well school on what condition-is?) How's school? When they serve the function of indicating willingness to continue the conversation or of a conversation filler however, they can, but by no means must, be treated as genuine questions and provide the impetus for the start of a new topic. Beeman (1986:176-177) remarks that a new stage in the conversation is marked off by health enquiries. If conversation stops and one of the interaction partners wants the interaction to continue, she initiates a new round of health enquiries, which function as a springboard for a new topic of conversation. This view has so far been confirmed by the data. SHOW CONCERN FOR OTHER'S NEEDS AND WISHES/APOLOGIES A youngster Y (male, late teens) and his uncle (early forties) visit K 98

(female, late twenties) and F (her husband, early thirties). In the course of the visit this conversation took place between Y and F: EXAMPLE 17 (1) Y: mitunæm kæmpiutero rošæn konæm? (can-I computer-ACC light I-do?) Can I turn on the computer? (2) F: befærma'...albætte xale sofia ye kæm-- hasasse baraye kæmpiutereš (you-SING-order...of course auntie Sofia one little sensitive for computer-of-hers) Well, yes...although Sofia is a bit--particular about this computer (i.e. about people using it.) (3) Y (turns to K): mænæm æz in kæmpiuter daræm,-(I-too from this computer I-have,) I've got exactly the same computer,-negæran næbašin. bebæxšid (worried you-PL-not-be. you-PL-forgive) don't worry. Please forgive me. Y PROCEEDS TO TURN THE COMPUTER ON. This was surprising because K took the apology to have been made because Y had realised that his request went against her wishes and she expected his next move to be one of withdrawal. It may be that Y, being a youngster, did not realise that F's response was meant as a refusal and he proceeded to reassure her that he knew how to operate the computer. His apology shows his awareness that what he had proposed was against her wishes but he may also have felt he should apologise for actually going ahead with it despite this awareness. SHOW APPRECIATION OF OTHERS' EFFORTS (APOLOGIES AND EXPRESSIONS OF THANKS AND GRATITUDE) When guests leave their hosts’ place they often apologise for giving trouble, which is perceived as appreciation of the hostess' efforts and hospitality. It was said that such apologies function pragmatically as expressions of thanks. Several informants said that if such apologies are not offered, it would seem as if the guest considers the hospitality as the host's duty, which runs counter to the Deference Maxim and is therefore 99

unacceptable. This became clear when, in the course of the interviews I asked why do guests apologise when taking leave. A female informant showed some sensitivity to this question and asked yæ`ni væzifæše? (‘Are you saying it is her duty?’ [i.e. the hostess']). This shows that even when a speaker follows the Humility maxim and nominally belittles her hospitality, she still expects proper appreciation and ehteram (‘respect’) to be shown. The following examples feature apologies as expressions of thanks. EXAMPLE 18 AT THE END OF A DINNER PARTY. A GUEST C (FEMALE, MID THIRTIES) TAKES LEAVE FROM X, THE HOST (MID FORTIES). C: aqaye X zæhmæt dadim, bebæxšin. (Mr X trouble we-gave, you-PL-forgive.) Mr X, sorry for the trouble. EXAMPLE 19 AT THE END OF THE SAME VISIT AS EXAMPLE 12. D IS A FEMALE GUEST, LATE TWENTIES. D: bebæxšin. qærar næbud ma intowri biaim. (you-PL-forgive. arrangement not-was this-way we-come) Sorry, we were not supposed to come just like this. The situation is presented as calling for an apology because the visitors, although expressly invited, perceive (or pretend to perceive) their presence as troublesome. In the first case the visitors had been invited for dinner in advance of the day, while in the second the hosts insisted very strongly that they should stay for dinner. D's second utterance could be seen as an indirect apology too. During the same visit, the visitors, while having dinner feel the need to apologise: EXAMPLE 20 A IS A MALE GUEST, EARLY THIRTIES, D HIS WIFE, LATE TWENTIES, B THE HOST MID FORTIES, C THE HOSTESS, EARLY FORTIES. (1) A: xolæse šoma bebæxšin vaqe`æn ma hæm injuri (anyway you-PL you-PL-forgive really we just like) Anyway, sorry, we just turned up just like-100

bolænd šodim umædimo? (this tall-we-became we-came) this. (2) D: ma razi næbudim be in kara. (we contented not-were to this works.) We really didn't want it to be like this. (3) B:

(4) D:

xošhal šodim be vallahe. (pleased we-became to God) Believe me, we were pleased to have you here. inqæd(so much

nærahæt šodæm. (upset I-became.) I feel really uncomfortable (i.e. for having caused you so much trouble.) (5) A:

væli be xoda //?// migæm-(but by God I say) Believe me,--

ba šoma in hærfaro nædarim, be jane xodæm. (with you-PL this words we-not-have, to soul-of myself.) with you we are not on these terms, by my soul.[i.e. you should not feel you must invite us for dinner.] (6) B: in karo ke kærdi... mam in karo-(this job that you-SING did...we-too this job) What you did is exactly what we-æz šoma entezar daštim. (from you-PL expectation we-had.) expected from you. [i.e. to turn up without invitation.] From what the interactants say, the two families are very familiar with each other, e.g. the guest’s (A) ba šoma in hærfaro nædarim (‘with you we are not on these terms’, i.e ‘we don’t have to stand on ceremony’) or the host’s in karo ke kærdi... mam in karo æz šoma entezar daštim (‘What you did is exactly what we expected from you’. [i.e. to turn up without an invitation]), which ties in with the unconventional invitation he had issued 101

earlier on (Example 12). However, the visitors still feel they are causing inconvenience to their hosts, thus showing their concern for their hosts' comfort and enhancing their own face. On the other hand, the hosts' also apply the principle of Cordiality, by stressing the familiarity that exists between the two families. Another apology, indirect this time, is offered again at the end of the meal: EXAMPLE 21 ALL INTERLOCUTORS AS IN PREVIOUS EXAMPLE A: xeili mæmnun... bedune barname umædimo... (very obliged...without programme we-came...) Thank you very much...we just turned up without arrangement... C: næ baba, ma hæm kari nækærdim ke, bæra xodemun dorost-(no indeed, we too job we-not-did, for ourselves ready) Come on, I (i.e. ‘we’) didn't make anything special, it's what-kærdim. (we-did) I (lit ‘we’) would have made for ourselves. GIFT OFFERS AND REPLIES As in invitations, in offers and acceptances of presents, ta’arof conventions apply too, as in Example 23, where A, a female guest, and her husband had borrowed C’s (the host’s) car for a day trip. Upon their return, A offers B, the hostess and C's wife, a souvenir of the city they visited. EXAMPLE 22 A AND D AS IN PREVIOUS EXAMPLE. B IS ANOTHER HOST, EARLY FORTIES, C IS HIS WIFE, MID THIRTIES (1) A: ino ma bæratun æz unja avordim... (this we for-you-PL from there we-brought.) We've brought you this from there. ... (2) B: aha...dæste šoma dærd nækone. (oh!...hand-of-you-PL pain not-do.) Oh, thank you.

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(3) A:

xaheš mikonæm cizi nist-(request-I-do nothing not-is) Please, this is really nothing.

baba cizi næbude (indeed nothing not-was.)

(4) B: šoma hær ja mixain berin bayæt-(you-PL any place you-PL-want you-PL-go must) Do you have to do something like this wherever you go? ye kari bokonid? hæm injuri šod? (one job you-PL-do? this way it-became?) Has it become like this now? (5) A: cizi nist... (nothing not-is) It's nothing, really (6) B: xeili mæmnun. (very obliged.) Thank you very much. (7) A: xaheš mikonæm (request I-do). That's alright. (8) B:

dæste šoma dærd nækone. (hand-of-you-PL pain not-do) That was very kind of you.

(9) B: xeili mæmnun, motšækeræm. (very obliged, thankful-am) Thank you very much, it's very kind of you. (10)C: hæmiše æz in kara bokonid. (always form this jobs you-PL-do.) You must repeat this. [i.e. bring a present.] (EVERYONE LAUGHS) Apart from the usual expressions of gratitude, the recipient, according to ta’arof conventions, says something to the effect that the donor should not 103

have taken the trouble (utterance 4: šoma hær ja mixain berin bayæt ye kari bokonid? hæm injuri šod? ‘Do you have to do something like this wherever you go? Has it become like this now?’). The recipient here phrases a question that expects a negative answer -like a tag question- and the donor, also following ta’arof conventions, downgrades the present itself (utterance 5: cizi nist ‘It’s nothing really’). The last utterance by the recipient's husband C hæmiše æz in kara bokonid is funny in this context, because he is reversing the accepted ta’arof conventions: instead of nominally protesting against the trouble the guests have taken in bringing a present, he actually asks for such offers to be repeated. Although this is not a ta’arof response, it highlights speakers’ awareness of accepted conventions, reversal of which, in familiar/intimate contexts may generate laughter through its very unconventionality. Another instance of giving a present is found in Example 23. Apart from the usual expressions of gratitude of mersi (from French), motšækeræm (‘I am thankful’) and sepasgozaræm (‘I am appreciative, beholden, gratified’), the recipient M, the hostess (mid thirties) says the following: EXAMPLE 23 D IS THE GIFT DONOR (FEMALE, LATE TWENTIES) M: xejowlæt dadæn maro...dæstetun dærd nækone-(shame they-gave us-ACC ..hand-of-you-PL pain not-do) They gave us shame (i.e. I'm embarrassed that you have taken so much trouble).Thank you very much. zæhmæt kešidin. (trouble you-PL-pulled.) You took trouble (i.e. in bringing a present). xeili mæmnun. ma razi be zæhmæte šoma-(very obliged. we contented with troubles-of you-PL) Thanks a lot.You really should not have taken all this trouble. næbudim. xeili mæmnun. (we-not-were. (very obliged.) That's very kind of you. D(the donor): qabeli nædare. (worth not-has) It's nothing really. M: mæn bælæd nistæm ta’arof konæm. 104

(I knowledgeable not-am ta’arof I-do.) I don't know how to do ta’arof .[i.e. to say the right things]. In all her utterances the recipient displays what could be called ‘ostensible displeasure’ at being given a present, out of concern for the donor's welfare, demand of time, trouble and expense, etc. The donor again downgrades the present, as in the previous extract, and the recipient's response is interesting: by saying that she is not good at ta’arof , she implies that what she has said so far does not count as such and that she should have gone on for longer. Needless to say that the phrase itself is ta’arof ! CLOSINGS Interaction closings constitute one aspect of conversational behaviour where phatic communion is concentrated for two reasons. Firstly, phatic communion functions as a ‘mitigation of a potential sense of rejection’ an interaction partner may have when the other interaction partner initiates the closing-off of the interaction (Laver 1975:230-231). Secondly, it re-asserts the relationship between the intention to go and for a host to insist that the guest(s) stay longer. The guest then must stay for at least another twenty minutes before leaving. Even then, leave-taking is an elaborate procedure, taking considerable time; where more than one guest and host are involved everyone must take leave from everyone else individually, as in the openings. As shown earlier in example 9, the hostess C repeatedly offered refreshments to the guests A and D after they had expressed their intention to go home. The following example comes from the end of the same interaction, while A and D are taking leave and C and B are seeing them off at the door. EXAMPLE 24 ALL INTERLOCUTORS AS IN EXAMPLE 9 (1) C: zæhmæt kešidin (trouble you-PL took) Thank you for coming. (2) D: zæhmæt dadim dobare. (trouble we-gave again) We’ve given you trouble again. (3) A:

xob xeili motšæker æz hæme ciz (well very thankful from all things) Thanks for everything.

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(4) B:

xaheš mikonæm. (request I-do) Pleasure.

(5) C: axe šoma cai mive hici næxordin. (but you-PL tea fruit nothing you-PL-not-ate) But you didn’t have anything to eat. (A HAD NOT HAD MUCH FRUIT BECAUSE HE WAS BUSY ROCKING THE BABY IN HER CAR SEAT. THEY TALK ABOUT THE BABY’S ERRATIC SLEEPING PATTERN FOR ABOUT 40 SECONDS.) (6) C: zæhmæt kešidin xanum. trouble you-PL-took lady) (TO D) Thank you for coming. (7) D: xaheš mikonæm, zæhmæt dadim. (request I-do trouble we-gave) Sorry for the trouble we gave. (8) C: xaheš mikonæm, bazhæm biain æz in tærafa (request I-do again you-PL come from this sides) It was nothing. Do come again. (HERE FOLLOWS A CONVERSATION OF ABOUT 5 MINUTES. THEY FIRST TALK ABOUT A SPECIALITY ICE-CREAM THEY DID NOT EAT THEY DAY BEFORE THAT WHEN THEY WERE IN A’S AND D’S HOUSE. D SAYS THAT THEY SHOULD PAY BACK THE VISIT IN ORDER TO DO SO. AFTER THAT THEY TALK ABOUT B’S NEW BOSS, NEWLY ARRIVED FROM IRAN AND ABOUT HIS FAMILY WHO ARE LONELY IN THEIR NEW SURROUNDINGS) (9) A: xoda hafeze šoma, X xanum, xeili motšæker, bæceha xoda hafez. (God-protector-of you-PL Mrs X [first name], very thankful, children, God protector) Goodbye, Mrs X, thank you, goodbye children. (10) C:

besælamæt, xaheš mikonæm, zæhmæt (to-health, request-I-do, trouble) God bless you, my pleasure,

kešidin. (you-PL took) thanks for coming. 106

(11) A: šæb bexeir. (night good) Good night. (12) E: xoda hafez. (God protector) Goodbye. (13) D: xoda hafez. (God protector) Goodbye. (14) C: hala bazhæm yevæqt væqt kærdi xasti biai inja berim-(now again sometime time you-SING did you-wanted you-come here we-go) Still, if you have some time one day and you feel like it, ye toke pa hæm unja. (one step-of foot there) we can go there for a bit. (15) D: koja berim? (where we-to-go?) Go where? (16) C: xuneye xanume Z. (house-of Mrs Z [family name]) To Mrs Z’s house. (17) D: aha: kei ruz? (er...when day?) Er...during the day? (18) C: šæb, ruz? (night, day) Day or evening, anytime. (ANOTHER CONVERSATION OF 2.5 MINUTES ABOUT C’S FREE DAYS, LEADING ON TO TALKING ABOUT C’S ENGLISH LANGUAGE CLASS. C SAYS SHE IS NOT PLEASED WITH HER PROGRESS.) (19) C: xanum zæhmæt kešidin. (lady trouble you-PL-took) 107

Thank you for taking the trouble to come. (20) D: šæb bexeir, xaheš mikonæm. xoda hafez,-(night good, request I-do) Good night, goodbye, are šoma bayæd biain. (yes you-PL must come) do come to our house. (21) C:

biain. (you-PL come) Do come again.

(22) D: are šoma bayæd biain. (yes you-PL must come) You come to our house too. (FINAL CROSSED ‘GOODBYES’ FROM EVERYONE, WHILE D CARRIES THE BABY TO THE CAR). In example 9, the hostess C expressed her concern with her guests’ comfort through the repeated offers of refreshments. In this example both guests and hosts follow the same principle of Cordiality in displaying ostensible ‘unwillingness’ to part, because they enjoy each other’s company. The next example takes place at the end of a dinner party. A (male, early thirties), B (male, early forties), C (mid-thirties, B’s wife) and D (late twenties, A’s wife, non-native speaker) have had dinner at the house of B’s boss G (male, early forties). M is his wife, in her mid-thirties. The guests are making their way to the front door. (The symbol X stands for the hosts’ family name). EXAMPLE 25 (1) B: xob xeili mæmnu:n, tæšækkor æz hæme ci:z? (well very obliged, thanks for all things) Thank you for everything. (2) C: xanume X dæstetun dærd nækone, xeili mæmnun. (Mrs X hand-of-you-PL pain not-do, very obliged) Thank you very much, Mrs X. (3) M:

xaheš mikonæm. 108

(request I-do) You’re welcome. (4) B: zæhmæt dadim. (trouble we-gave) Sorry for the trouble we gave you. (5) C:

zæhmæt dadim, jæmoruræm nækærdim. (trouble we-gave, tidy-up-too not did) Sorry for the trouble-I didn’t even help you tidy up

(6) M:

bešinin bazæm baba //?// (you-PL-sit again ) Why don’t you stay a bit longer?

(7) C:

xeili mæmnun, xeili-(very obliged,very) Thank you very much,

zæhmæt dadim. (trouble we-gave) we’ve really given you too much trouble. (8) M: bebæxšin dige. (you-PL forgive more) Sorry [you’ve had a bad time]. (9) D: //?// xeili zæhmæt dadim. ( much trouble we-gave) Sorry for the trouble. (10)A: æz un ruz ta hala ma xedmæt næresidim aqaye X -(from that day until now we service not-arrived Mr X) Since that day we haven’t had the chance to be at your service [for dinner]-šoma eftexar bedino dær xedmæt bašim ma enšallah. (you-PL honour give-and at service we-be God willing) to do us the honour to be at your service, God willing. (11) G: enšallah enšallah enšallah. (God-willing God-willing God-willing) Hopefully we will.

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(12) M: bebæxšin bæd gozæšt. (you-PL-forgive bad passed) I’m sorry you’ve had a bad time. (A STRETCH OF CONVERSATION IN WHICH D GIVES M SOME SWEETS SHE HAD BROUGHT FOR M’S CHILDREN AND WHICH SHE HAD FORGOTTEN TO GIVE HER AT THE BEGINNING OF THE VISIT). (13) M: æz kadoye...qæšængetun xeili mæmnun. (from present nice-of-you-PL very obliged) Thank you for your lovely present. (14) D:

xaheš mikonæm in qabeli nædare ke, xaheš mikonæm. (request I-do this worth not-has request I-do) You’re welcome, it was nothing really, you’re welcome.

(15) M: zæhmæt kešidin. (trouble you-PL took) Thank you for coming. (16) D: zæhmæt dadim. (trouble we-gave) Sorry for the trouble. (THE GUESTS PROCEED TO THE FRONT DOOR WHILE THE HOSTS ACCOMPANY THEM.) (17) B: xob dige xoda hafez. (well God protector.) Good night then. (18) M: tæšrif biarin bazæm aqaye...M. (honour you-PL-bring again Mr M). Do come again, Mr M. (19) D:

(20) A:

šomam hæm intor ælan dige-(you-PL too this-way now) You too.Now

xaheš mikonæm-(request I-do) Please.

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(21) D: nobæte šomast. (you-PL-is.) it’s your turn. (22) C: šomam tæšrif biarin. (you-PL too honour bring) You must come too. (23) A: cæšm, cæšm, ætmæn...šoma fe’læn-(alright, alright, definitely...you-PL now) We will, definitely, but you should-(24) M:

dige yad gereftin dige. (now memory you-PL-took) You know the way now.

(25) A: tæšrif biarin...bæle? (honour you-PL bring...yes?) come too...sorry? (26) M: xeili mæmnun. (very obliged) Thank you very much. (27) A: enšallah ke...xedmæt miresim šoma behærhal tæšrif biarin. (God-willing that...service we-arrive you-PL anyway honour you-PL bring.) Hopefully we will come but you also come. (28) M:

baše. (let-it-be) OK

(29) G: enšallah. (God willing.) Hopefully. (30) C: aqaye X zæhmæt dadim, bebæxšin. (Mr X, trouble we-gave, you-PL forgive) Sorry for the trouble, Mr X. (31) G: xaheš mikonæm. (request I-do) Don’t mention it. 111

(32) M: // ? // fe’læn xoda hafez. ( now God protector) Goodbye then. (33) B: šæbetun bexeir, xoda hafeze šoma. (night-of-you-PL good, God protector-of you-PL) Goodnight to you, goodbye. (34) C: xoda hafez (God protector) Goodbye. (35) M: xeili mæmnun, xoš amædin, xoš amædin, be sælamæt. (very obliged, you’ve been welcome [to our house], to health) Thank you for coming, it’s been nice having you, have a good journey. (36) D:

xoda hafez (God protector) Goodbye.

(37) G: aqa qorbane šoma:, sælamæt bašin. (sir sacrifice-of you)PL...healthy you-PL-be) Thank you...God bless you. (38) D:

xoda hafez, mersi, mersi, zæhmæt dadim. (God protector,thank you, trouble we gave) Goodbye, thank you, sorry for the trouble.

(39) A: mibinimetun inšallah. (we-see-you-PL God-willing.) See you later. (40) G: inšallah. (God-willing) Hopefully. (41) M: xaheš mikonæm, zæhmæt kešidin. (request I-do, trouble you-PL took) Don’t mention it, thank you for coming. (42) A:

movæffæq bašino(successful you-PL-be and-) 112

Keep well. (43) D: xoda hafez, mersi, xodahafez. (God protector, thank you, God protector) Goodbye, thank you, goodbye. (44) G: xoda hafeze šoma, besælamæt, xošamædin. (God protector-of you-PL, to health, well-you-PL-came) Goodbye, it’s been nice having you. (45) A: xanum X xeili motšækkeræm. (Mrs X very thankful-I-am) Thank you very much, Mrs X. (46) M: xeili mæmnun, zæhmæt kešidin. (very obliged, trouble you-PL-took) Thank you for coming. (47) A: xoda hafez. (God protector) Goodbye. (48) B: šæb xoš. (night good) Goodnight. (HE GOES OUT. A TALKS ABOUT HOW THEY WOULD LIKE TO MAKE THE BABY GET USED TO THE COLD - 35 SECS.) (49) M: xeili xošhal šodim, zæhmæt kešidin. (very happy we-became, trouble you-PL-took) It’s been nice having you here, thank you for coming. (50) D: xaheš mikonæm, zæhmæt dadim. (request I-do, trouble we-gave) The pleasure was all ours, sorry for the trouble. (51) A: xaheš mikonæm. (request I-do) The pleasure was all ours. (THEY COME OUT TO THE STREET AND THE HOSTS FOLLOW THEM.) (52) A: xob xoda hafeze šoma // ? //, xeili mæmnun. 113

(well, God protector-of you-PL very obliged) Goodbye and thanks a lot. (53) M: xeili mæmnun...besælamæt...xaheš mikonæm. (very obliged...to health...request I-do) Thanks for coming, God bless you. (EVERYONE SAYS ‘xoda hafez’ (‘GOODBYE’) TO EVERYONE ELSE) (54) B: šæb xoš, særi berin særma næxoræn bæceha, xeili særde-(night good, quickly you-PL-go cold not-eat children) Good night - go in before the children catch a cold, it’s very cold-šæb xoš. (night good) good night. (A FINAL ROUND OF ‘xoda hafez’ BEFORE THE GUESTS GET IN THEIR CARS AND DRIVE OFF.) Related to the phatic component of the ‘continuing consensus’ for future encounters, a common theme running through the farewell ritual is the expression of the wish to reciprocate the favour in future and the recognition of the hosts' efforts to please. These expressions of cordiality, like many other expressions, function as dual face enhancers; they show the initator as knowledgeable in society's ways and therefore worthy of esteem and also accord the recipient respect. In the trade exchanges below (examples 26 and 27), the customer still casts the shopkeeper in the role of the host and expresses his willingness to reciprocate the ‘favour’. EXAMPLE 26 F (MALE, EARLY THIRTIES) AND HIS FRIEND J (MALE, MID-THIRTIES) WHO IS A SHOPKEEPER IN THE TEHRAN BAZAAR, ARE DOING SHOPPING THERE. X (MALE, MID THIRTIES) IS ANOTHER SHOPKEEPER, NOT OF J’S ACQUAINTANCE. SHOPKEEPER X HANDS PACKET TO J. (1) J: xeili mohebbæt kærdin: bebæxšin: išallah ke mæn betunæm-(very kindness you-PL-did: you-PL-forgive: God-willing that I can) That was very kind of you. Sorry for the trouble. I hope to be able--xodæm dubæi hæstæm mæqazæmun- jobræn konæm, J hæstæm. (myself in Dubai I-am shop-of-us - reciprocate, J I-am) 114

to be useful to you in the future - my shop is in the Dubai bazaar, my name is J. (HE ASKS THE PRICE OF THE MERCHANDISE, THE SHOPKEEPER REFUSES IT ONCE, J INSISTS AND WHILE HE IS COUNTING THE MONEY, THEY TALK ABOUT THE STATE OF THE ECONOMY.) (2) J: dær hær suræt bazæm ægær hær moq’e baše,-(in any way again if any time it-be) Well, anyway, as the case may be, if you ever need anything, færamuš nækonid dær xedmætetun hæstæm(forget you-PL-not-do at service-of you-PL I am) don’t forget I am at your service. (3) (TO THE SHOP BOYS)bæceha motšækkeræm, zæhmæt kešidin(children thankful, trouble you-PL-took) Thanks for everything, lads-qorbune šoma, xoda hafez. (sacrifice-of you-PL, God protector.) a million thanks, goodbye. (EVERYONE SAYS ‘xoda hafez’ TO EVERYONE ELSE.) EXAMPLE 27 J AND F AS BEFORE. THE SHOPKEEPER M IS J’S ACQUAINTANCE. F DOES NOT DECIDE TO BUY ANYTHING, SO J BIDS M FAREWELL, THANKING HIM FOR HIS ATTENTION. (1) J: mæjid jan, pæs mibinæmet. (majid soul, then I-see-you-SING) See you later then, Majid dear. (2) M: inšallah. (God-willing) Hopefully, if God wants. (3) J: ‘æmri, færmayeši nædari? (instruction, order you-SING-not have?) Is there anything I can do for you?

115

(4) M: qorbane šoma. (sacrifice-of you-PL) No, thank you for your kindness. (5) J: (TO M’S FATHER WHO IS SITTING NEARBY) aqa jun?...xeili zæhmæt kešidin. (sir-soul...very trouble you-PL took) Dear sir...thank you for your kindness. (6) F:

xeili mæmnun. (very obliged) Thanks a lot.

(7) M: movæffæq bašin. (successful may-you-PL-be) God bless you. (EVERYONE SAYS ‘xoda hafez’ TO EVERYONE ELSE.) These two examples (26 and 27) show how even in trade settings and whether the interactants are acquaintances or not, the same principle of expressing the will to reciprocate the ‘favour’ applies, as in the socialising settings we saw in examples 24 and 25. This mutuality is another manifestation of the interdependence that obtains in Iranian society. 5.4.3 Refuse any of the offers mentioned above at least once and often more even if you would like to accept it, out of concern for other’s inconvenience/cost and for self's positive self-image (shaxsiat), which will be damaged if one is seen as greedy and too ready to grab. In this section I will analyze three long stretches of conversation that demonstrate what is a par excellence ta’arof behaviour. These stretches are particularly long, precisely because in each one an offer or an invitation is made and refused repeatedly, until it is finally accepted. Aryanpour's Persian-English Dictionary renders ta’arof kærdæn (‘to do ta’arof ’) as ‘to stand on ceremony’ which reveals that refusing an offer, often more than once, is expected and practised by everyone. People are so aware that this is a typical way of exercising ta’arof that very often they nominally object to it or ask whether a refusal happens because of it. This is a prototypical instance of ta’arof where speakers comment metapragmatically in order to pre-empt a definite refusal, as in example 9 mentioned under Food and drink offers. In example 9, the hostess (C) felt that she had to repeat the offers in case her guests were refusing them in ta’arof . This shows how a refusal in 116

response to an offer is almost inevitable in Iranian interaction. An offerer must go through the ritual of increasing insistence, if she wants to get her offer accepted. The following extracts feature offers and refusals. EXAMPLE 28 A AND D (AS IN PREVIOUS EXAMPLE) HAVE DROPPED IN TO SEE B (MALE, MID FORTIES) AND C (HIS WIFE, EARLY FORTIES) WHO INSIST THAT THEY STAY FOR DINNER. THEY REFUSE AT FIRST AND B THINKS THAT THEY REFUSE BECAUSE IT IS EXPECTED OF THEM (‘THEY DO ta’arof ‘): D: axe næ ta’arof nist mæn dorost migæm. ( no, ta’arof not-is I correct I-say) This is no ta’arof , I mean it. EXAMPLE 29 A (MALE, EALY THIRTIES) IS RETURNING TO B (MALE, EARLY FORTIES) SOME MONEY HE HAD BORROWED OVER THE WEEKEND TO BUY A SECOND-HAND CAR. (1) A: bezær mæn..(TAKES OUT MONEY) ta færamuš nækærdæm (let I... until forget not-did) Let me...er... before I forget. (2) B: aqa vel kon tora xoda (sir leave by God) Leave it, really. (3) A: næ næ xaheš mikonæm. (no no request I-do) Please. (4) B: be vallahe nemixam (by God I-not-want) I don’t need it now, really. (5) A:

xaheš mikonæm (request I-do) Please.

(6) B: nemixam (I not-want) 117

I don’t need it. (7) A:

(8) B:

pænjai hæm bærat gereftæm æz bank (fifty-pound note too I took from bank) I even got it in fifty pound notes for you. næ nemixam axe (no I-not-want) But I don’t need it I say!

(9) A: mæn..mæn goftæm be šoma ke- be jane xodæm be xoda-(I...I I-said to you-PL that- by soul of-me by God) I told you...I swear by God-mæn ino qælbæn migæm - šoma ‘eine bæradære mæni-(I this-ACC from-heart I say - you-PL like brother mine-are) believe me, I speak from the heart, you are like my brother ægær inja...ægær mæn læng bemunæm yæ’ni- migæm-(if here...if I lame am left that-is - I say) if I ever need anything, I say tænha kesi ke mæn mitunæm...begæm yæ’ni xodæm -(only person that I can...I to-say that is myself) you are the only person I can [ask]rahætæm šomai...inæm æz in. (comfortable-am you-PL-are...this too from this.) that is I am comfortable with...so that’s about that. This makes B take the money and count it, finding it more than what he gave the night before. A explains that this is for the dinner out they had had the night before and for which B had paid. (10) B: boro aqa jun (go sir-dear) Leave it, man! (11) A: e’ e’ næ vallah be xoda! (what? no by God [ARABIC] by God [PERSIAN]) Oh, no, it can’t be! (12) B:

næ c: be hæzræte - aqa fek kærdi(no by saint - sir thought you-SING-did) 118

No, I swear-you’d better think again! (13) A:

næ be jane xodæm (no by soul of-me) No, by my soul

(14) B: fek kærdi - fek(thought you-SING-did - thought) that’s what you think! (15) A:

næ mašin- ræftim širinie mašin-(no car - we went sweet-of-car--) No, that was a treat [from us] to celebrate the purchase of

the car (16) B:

mašin - širinie mašin æslæn-(car - sweet-of-car at all--) celebrate the car? What--

æz in hærfa nædarim - mixad sære maro šire-(from these words we-not have - he-wants head-of-us syrup) are you talking about? [JOKINGLY] He’s trying to cheat me! (17) A:

e’ næ injuri nækon-( no, this way not-do) Don’t be like this!

(18) B: bemale - boro aqa...boro-(to-smear - go sir ... go--) Come off it, man! (19) A: næ vallah e’ æziæt nækon šoma (no by God tease not-do you-PL) No, really, don’t fool me around. (20) B: ma širini doros-- mæn širini dorost hessabi mixam bo::ro:-(we sweet prop-- I sweet proper I want -leave off-- ) I want a proper celebration, not just like that-(21) A:

næ vallah širinie tævællode-(no by God sweet-of birthday-of--) No, really, it was to celebrate--

ciz // 3 syll // 119

(what ) the birthday of... [HIS WIFE] (22) B: boro aqa. næ bebin dašte baš dašte baš dašte baš-(go sir. no look have have have--) Leave it. Look, keep it for now-(23) A:

næ næ næ næ næ nemixam. (no no no no no I-not-want) No, I don’t need it.

(24) B: mæn bæ’dæn hessab darim. (I later account we-have) we’ll sort it out later. : (B’S TEENAGE SON CRACKS A JOKE) (25) A: næ dige inæm værdarin šoma mæn rahæt bašæm jeddi migæm-(no more this-too take you-PL I comfortable to-be really) No, really, I want you to take this too, so that I feel more comfortable, I mean it(26) B: næ vallah (no by God) I swear I won’t have it. (27) A: næ be june mæn be šoma goftæm axe. (no by soul-of me to you-PL I-said) No, by my soul, I told you, didn’t I. (28) B: næ (no No

bebin dige bebin ah: dige-look more look... more--) tell you what..there...--

æslæn hici ah::..ah:..ah:..-(at all nothing...) that’s the end of it- I don’t want to hear anything more about it...there. (B TAKES THE MONEY HE HAD LENT A BUT REFUSES TO TAKE THE £20 NOTE, WHICH A WANTS TO GIVE HIM FOR THE DINNER OUT THEY HAD HAD TOGETHER THE NIGHT BEFORE.)

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(29) A:

næ ah ah hæm nædare næ næ næ næ be xoda (no ‘ah’ too not-has no no no no by God) No, and don’t say ‘there’ either

(30) B: guš kon // 2 syll // (listen ) Just listen... (31) A: xob baše hala con mixaim- pæs cera šoma? -OK let-it-be now because we-want- but why you-PL?) Keep it for now so that we can do that again- why should you pay? bia næ næ næ næ be xoda næ e’... ino-(come no no no no by God no ...this-ACC--) have it no, no I swear...you keep this(32) B: //2 syll // (33) A: negærdar pæs ta bæ’d dobare ciz konim. næ ino æslæn šoma-(keep then so later again what we-do. no this at-all you-PL) now so that we can go out together again. You should have taken this in the first place. (B TAKES HALF OF THE MONEY HE PAID FOR DINNER) (34) A: xeili mæmnun behærhal...motšæker æz hæme ciz...mæmnunæm. (very obliged anyway...thankful from all things...obliged-am) Thanks for eveything anyway. In such a situation, interlocutors resort to strong insistence, often oathtaking that they do not want to accept, which leads to more insistence until finally ostensibly reluctant acceptance ensues. Native speakers do not consider it polite to appear too eager to accept an offer of food or service and it is generally expected to refuse at least once, often more than once. The same goes for the person who offers the food or the service: she is expected to offer it at least once and if the offer is genuine (i.e. she wants it to be accepted) more than once. In Example 29 B had lent A the money because A could not get enough cash from the cash dispenser to pay for a second hand car. Even though the understanding between them was that A would return the money when the bank opened, which is what he was trying to do in this extract, B vehemently refuses to accept the money. The reason for his refusal is to show that he puts his friend’s needs first, in case A was finding it difficult to 121

repay him so quickly. On the other hand, A also repeats his offer with insistence because he knows that B’s refusals are ta’arof and that in the end he will accept the money. Both interlocutors are keen to project certain desirable qualities which enhance their and the other's face: A wants to show appreciation of the loan and punctuality in repaying it and B wants to show his generosity towards his friend and stress that for him money is unimportant. The length of the extract indicates the importance of face negotiation between participants. Although taking place in a different setting (trade exchange), Example 30 is similar to Example 29 in that it involves a similar understanding between the participants. Here, J, even though a family acquaintance of P, is present in the role of a customer, so the understanding is that P will provide goods and will receive money for them. EXAMPLE 30 J AND F ARE THE SAME PARTICIPANTS AS IN EXAMPLE 11, P IS ANOTHER SHOPKEEPER IN HIS EARLY THIRTIES IN THE CENTRAL BAZAAR OF TEHRAN, AND J’S CLOSER ACQUAINTANCE THAN M (EXAMPLE 27). P HAS BEEN ASKED WHETHER HE HAS GOT ANY SHORTER WAISTBANDS. (1) P: næ dige æz in kucektær nædaræm, behærhal qabeli nædare. (no more from this smaller I-not-have, anyway worth not-has) No, I haven’t got any shorter than this one-anyway you can have it such as it is. (2) F: xeili mæmnun aqa pærviz. (very obliged Mr Parviz) Thank you very much, Parviz. (3) J: xob mæmnun pærviz jun æmr befærma’in. (well obliged parviz soul instruction you-PL-order) Well, thank you very much, dear Parviz, give your orders [i.e. say how much it costs]. (4) P: age ejaze bedin pulešra nægiræm, mehmune mæn bašin. (if permission you-PL-give money-ACC not-take, guest-of me you-PLbe) If you allow me, I won’t take any money- be my guests. (5) F: qorbunetæm aqa pærviz jun. (sacrifice-of-you-SING Mr Parviz soul) 122

Thank you very much [i.e. no], my dear Mr Parviz. (6) J: bebin, hæmin ke zæhmæt dadim æzæt mæmnunim. (look, this that trouble we-gave from you-SING obliged- we-are) Look,even for the trouble we gave you we are really thankful. (7) F: qorbune mohæbbætet. (sacrifice kindness-of-you-PL). You are really kind. (8) J: xeili lotf kærdi,xodævænd be šoma sælamæti bede-(very kindness you-SING-did, God to you-PL health give) Thank you for your kindness, may God keep you healthy-vo, dele xoš, inšallah. (and heart happy, God willing) and happy. (9) P: jæ’fær aqa ina dunei hæftsæd toman mayæše. (Jafar Mr, these one seven hundred tuman cost-of-it-is) Jafar, each one of those costs 700 tumans. (10) J: dorost begu baba jun, ma maye nemixaim fæqæt-(correct say soul, we cost not-want only you-SING) Speak clearly, my friend,we don’t want you to— (11) J: begiri, ma mixaim fayede hæm bedim. (to-take, we want profit too we-give) charge us only the cost price, but have some profit as well. (12) P:

næ, šoma hæftsæt toman bedin, (no, you-PL 700 tuman give) No,you can give me 700 tumans.

(13) F: areh. (yes) That’s right. (14) J (TO F): nemigire dige, aqa pærvize dige. (he-not-take more, Mr Parviz is more) He won’t take the money; this is how Parviz is. (15) P: ma bayæd æz šoma pul nægirim. (we must from you-PL money not-take) I mustn’t take any money from you [i.e. let alone have some 123

profit]. (16) J: xeili mohæbbæt dari, tæk foruši hæm ke šode-(very affection you-SING-have, retail too that became) You are really kind, since you are selling them individually [although a wholesaler] bayæd bištær begiri. (must more you-SING-take) you must charge even more. (17) P: næ baba in hærfa ci e. (no these words what is) No, you shouldn’t even think about it. (18) J: qorbune to beræm. (sacrifice-of-you-SING I-to-go) Thank you very much. (19) P: jæ’fær aqa bezær baše- mæn migiræm æzæt bæ’dæn. (Jafar sir let be- I take from you-SING later) Jafar, leave it for now- I’ll take it from you later. (20) J: mæn puli nemixam bedæm ke. (I money not-want to-give) It’s not me who will pay. (21) P: færqi nemikoneha,ma hala do ta kæmærbænd yadegari(difference not-does, we now two waistbands souvenir) It makes no difference, suppose I am presenting thedadim be aqa. (we-gave to gentleman) gentleman with two waistbands as a souvenir. (22) F: qorbune šoma beræm. (sacrifice-of-you-PL I-to-go) Thank you very much. (23) J: inqæd to bamohæbbæti ke be xoda æz in tæræfi amædæm,-(so-much you-SING affectionate-are that by God from this side Icame) You are so kind that by God, as I was passing near your shop, 124

delæm næyumæd ke næyam. (heart-of-me not-came that I-not-come) I couldn’t help coming to see you. (J GIVES P 1,000 AND 500 TUMAN NOTES. P RETURNS ONE 100 TUMAN NOTE.) (24) P: nowkæretæm. (slave-of-you-SING-am) I’m still at your disposal. (25) J: baše pærviz, in dige cizi nist,-(be-it Parviz, this more nothing not-is) Leave it, Parviz, this is nothing-bebin (J MAKES P KEEP THE 1OO TUMAN NOTE) (look) come on now. (26) F: baše pærviz jan. (be-it Parviz soul) That’s alright, dear Parviz. (27) J: aqa, bazhæm age kari dašti, ma dær xedmæte šoma hæstim. (sir, again if work you-SING-had, we at service-of-you-PL are.) Still, if there is anything I can do for you, I am at your service, Parviz. (28) P: mæn nowkæretæm, xošhal šodæm, fædat šæm. (I servant-of-you-SING-am, happy I-became, sacrifice-of- you-SING Ibe.) I am at your disposal, I was happy to see you. (29) J: kari cizi nædari? haj aqaram æz qole-(work nothing you-SING not-have? Pilgrim sir-ACC-too from saying-of--) Isn’t there anything I can do for you? mæn sælam beresun. (me peace send) Give my regards to your father. (30) P: fædat šæm, nowkæretæm. 125

(sacrifice-of-you-SING I-to-be, servant-of-you-SING-am) Thank you very much, I am at your service. (31) J: xeili xošhal šodæm. (very pleased I-became) Nice to see you. (32) F:

aqa pærviz jan, qorbunet beræm. (Mr Parviz soul, sacrifice-of-you-SING I-to-go) Dear Mr Parviz, thank you ever so much.

(33) P: ya ‘æli: aqa...tæšrif biarin dær xedmæt bašim-(Oh [Imam] Ali; sir...honour you-PL-bring at service we-be) OK then...do come over for dinner-(34) F: xeili mæmnunæm, qorbunet beræm. (very obliged, sacrifice-of-you-SING I-to-go) Thanks for everything, thank you. (35) J:

æz lotfet binæhayæt mæmnunæm. (from kindness-of-you-SING endlessly obliged-am) I am extremely grateful for your kindness.

(36) P: vallah be qor’an, injuri ke najure. (by God by the Qur’an, this way inappropriate-is) But really, it shouldn’t be like this [i.e. I shouldn’t take money from you]. (37) F: mæmnunæm, šoma hæm yemoq’e unværa kari daštin-(obliged-am, you-PL too once that way work you-PL-had) Thank you very much- If you ever need anything from there-mæn dær xedmætæm. (I at service-am) I am at your service. (38) P: inglis, næ baba ma kari nædarim. (England, no we work not-have) From England, no I don’t need anything, (39) J: qorbunet beræm pærviz jan, kari nædari? (sacrifice-of-you-SING I-to-go Parviz soul, work you-SING not have?) Thank you very much, dear Parviz, so there isn’t anything I can do for you? 126

(EVERYONE SAYS ‘xoda hafez’ [GOODBYE]) The difference between other trade exchanges (e.g. Example 11) and this one is that here P and J are family acquaintances. This fact results in P’s refusing to accept payment for such a length of time, thus displaying his generosity and regard for J and in J’s insisting on paying, thus showing his concern for P’s needs. In utterance 1 the speaker P starts with the formulaic in trade exchanges qabeli nædare (‘you can have it for free’) but continues with a request for permission not to accept money (utt. 4), thus casting himself in a somewhat inferior position in making his offer, i.e. displaying humility. When J and F assert their appreciation of P’s regard and show of generosity (utts. 5-8), P mentions the cost of the waistbands, which is much lower than the price he would sell them at, possibly hinting that he is prepared to sell them without any profit, again out of regard for J (utt 9). J and F (utts. 10-13) then express their concern for P’s need to make a profit, P reverts to his previous position, that of feeling it is not right to take money from J altogether (utt.15), which shows how generosity is experienced as an obligation by Iranians. After more reassurance from J (utts. 16,20) and another three rather weaker refusals from P (utts.17,19 and 21), J reasserts his appreciation of P’s warmth and goodwill in utterance 23, which seems to persuade P to accept at least the cost price of the waistbands (1400 tumans). The fact that P did not accept to charge any profit is presented as J’s and F’s object of gratitude, so they nominally express their readiness to reciprocate (utts.27,29,39). What makes this extract so remarkable is that despite the tacit understanding between the parties that this was a trade transaction, P earnestly tried to cast himself in the role of the ‘host’ in offering F tokens of hospitality in the context of the relationship between him and J, the complexity of the politeness work being a result of that relationship. In a parallel with Example 29, both A (Example 29) and J (Example 30) succeed in doing what all parties in both exchanges expect will happen: A has to repay the money he borrowed and P has to accept payment for the goods he sells, because this is how he makes a living. However, according to ta’arof conventions, B and P refuse the money with a lot of insistence in order to show their generosity and regard, and A and J insist on paying because they want to show their concern for their interlocutors’ needs and to avoid causing them inconvenience. A situation of offer and insistent refusal is featured in Example 31 too, where the hostess M (mid thirties) offers to hold the baby of her guests, A and D, while they are having dinner. A (the baby’s father, early thirties) insists that M carries on with her dinner (48). D, the baby's mother (late twenties), picks her up and tries to continue with her dinner but when the 127

baby starts crying again, M offers twice to hold her saying that she has finished dinner, which is not true, and picks the baby up. D offers three times to hold her but is not successful, perhaps because as a non-native speaker she gives the wrong messages with her tone: she does not appear to be insistent enough. C, another female guest (mid thirties), picks the baby up and then A, the baby's father, enters the conversation offering with a lot of insistence to do the same. He repeats bedin be mæn (‘give her to me’) four times but C does not comply. Then A tells his wife to pick the baby up and when M again tells them not to worry he says: EXAMPLE 31 (128) A: næ axe qæza særd mise axe væsæte qæza ke nemiše ke-(no, food cold becomes middle-of meal not-becomes) no, your food will get cold it's not right in the middle of the meal, næ baba vallah næ? (no indeed, by God, no!) no,no, by God, no! (129) M:

xordæm næ tædig (I-ate brown rice) I've had some crusty rice.

xordæm. boxorid šoma. (I-ate. you-PL_eat you-PL.) I have done. You get on with your meal. (130) D: e'va... axe nemiše intowri ke. (Uh uh... not-becomes this way.) Well, that's not right. (131) A: pæs mæn mišinæm... ye meqdar dige...dige hala-(then I sit...one little more...now ) So I'll just carry on for a bit more, now ke...xanume X zæhmæt mikešæn. (that...Mrs X trouble they-take) that Mrs X takes the trouble [to look after the baby]. (132) D: axe intowri xub nist. ( this way good not-is) But that's not right.

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A short while later the baby starts crying again and a new round of offers and refusals along the same lines ensues. It takes the host's intervention dust dare hala (‘She [his wife] wants to hold the baby) to make A agree: (160) A: e'? baše...baše. (oh. may-it-be, may-it-be) oh? OK then. A's first utterance (128) is a strong protest but it only takes so little for A to be persuaded. From the ease that A was persuaded it is clear that his (128) was a ta’arof utterance: he did not mind eating his dinner without interruptions but he obviously felt he had to offer to hold the baby, because it is expected of him. This becomes clear in these last lines where the same thing happens within a few seconds. 5.4.4 Establish rapport and common ground through the use of terms of address indicating endearment in relationships of familiarity/ intimacy and neutral or respectful terms in other relationships. In Persian, the use of a term of address is perceived by native speakers as expressing warmth and friendliness. If the address term is a deferential one, in addition to cordiality it also conveys respect, as in Example 32.

EXAMPLE 32 A (MALE, EARLY THIRTIES) IS VISITING G'S (MALE, EARLY FORTIES) HOUSE, WHEN G COMES FROM UPSTAIRS (1) G: sælam æleikom (peace be unto you-PL) Good evening. (2) A: sælam æz mas (HE STANDS UP) (peace from us [i.e. me] is) Good evening. (3) G: æhvale šoma (conditions-of you-PL) How are you? (4) A:

jenabe aqaye X ? (Excellency-of Mr X) Mr X ? 129

A deferential term of address can sometimes be combined with a term of endearment, usually before a question or in a request, as in Example 33. EXAMPLE 33 ON THE TELEPHONE, F (MALE, EARLY THIRTIES) CHECKS THE EXCHANGE RATE. R (MALE, LATE FORTIES) IS THE OWNER OF THE EXCHANGE BUREAU, A SLIGHT ACQUAINTANCE THROUGH THEIR PREVIOUS DEALINGS. F: aqaye R jan, emruz geimæt-e-pond cænde? (Mr R soul, today price-of-pound how much is?) Dear Mr R, how much is the exchange rate for the pound today? F shows cordiality towards R because he has been pleased with the way R conducts business and obviously hopes to continue their business relationship in the same way. EXAMPLE 34 J (MALE, LATE THIRTIES), A SHOPKEEPER IN THE TEHRAN BAZAAR, ESCORTS HIS FRIEND F (MALE, EARLY THIRTIES) WHILE DOING SHOPPING. THE SHOPKEEPER X, HIS ACQUAINTANCE, HAS JUST HANDED THEM THE PACKET WITH THEIR SHOPPING. (1) J: xoda bærekæt bede, xeili mæmnun, bazæm dær xedmætetun hæstæm,(God blessing may-give, very obliged, again at service-of-you-PL I-am) May God bless this money, thank you very much, I repeat I am still at your service [for whatever you need] jenab. [TO S's FATHER] haj aqa, xoshal šodæm. (Excellency. Pilgrim sir, happy I-became). sir. Sir, I was very pleased to see you again. (2) F: aqa, qorbane šoma, xeili mæmnun. (sir, sacrifice-of-you-PL, very obliged.) Thank you very much, sir, very kind of you. (3) X: xaheš mikonæm, lotf kærdid. (request I-do, favour you-PL-did.) You welcome, thank you for coming.

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Again, the terms of address that J and F use are meant to express their warmth towards the addressee and their appreciation at the service they have received, at the same time also enhancing their own face. In example 35, the use of an endearment term of address from C (female, mid thirties) serves as a mitigation of the offence B (her husband, early forties) jokingly pretends he has taken: EXAMPLE 35 (1) C: in ketrira kæj gozæšti...bebæxšid. (this kettle tilted you-SING-put…you-PL-forgive) You’ve put the kettle tilted on the stove - sorry. (2) B: belæxære ye iradi gereftin. (in the end one mistake you-PL-took) You’ve managed to pick a fault at last! (JOKINGLY) (3) C: næ ‘æziz jan: be xoda negæran šodæm- næ væreš dar (no dear soul: by God worried I-became - no take it take it) No, love, I just got worried. Take it off the stove æslæn...gærme dige. (at all...hot-is more) altogether...it is hot enough. By using a term of endearment, C shows that she did not mean her comment as a criticism, but as an expression of her concern for her husband’s and the guests’ safety. 5.5 CONCLUSION At the beginning of this chapter I focused on Leech's Politeness Maxims and maintained that in most of the maxims as far as Persian is concerned, contrary to Leech's view, the bracketed submaxim (b) within each maxim is more important than sub-maxim (a). The above analysis has shown that under the Deference Maxim (Leech's Approbation Maxim) the submaxim ‘Maximize praise of other’ is more potent than ‘Minimize dispraise of other’ and similarly the submaxim ‘Maximize dispraise of self’ in the Humility Maxim (Leech's Modesty Maxim) is more prevalent than ‘Minimize praise of self’. Under my Cordiality Maxim I have subsumed Leech's Tact, Generosity, Agreement and Sympathy Maxims. Within these maxims too, the bracketed submaxims (b) (‘Maximize benefit to other’, ‘Maximize cost to self’, ‘Maximize agreement between 131

self and other’ and ‘Maximize sympathy between self and other’) have been shown to prevail in Persian. This means that Leech's (1983:133) assertion that avoidance of discord (negative politeness) is a more weighty consideration than seeking concord (positive politeness) is not as ‘universal’ as he makes it out to be. From what has been said so far, it seems that the opposite holds true for Persian. Moreover, many interactional patterns and strategies, not just interaction openings and closings, have been shown to be of phatic nature and, moving on to another plane, behind the maxims and their application lie all-pervading considerations of face, in which all expressions of politeness have their root. The three maxims I have formulated for Persian derive from native speakers' perceptions of politeness and face. A speaker in behaving according to these maxims attends to H's public face (shaxsiat) in showing her the required ehteram (respect), but also to her own shaxsiat in that she demonstrates that she is a properly socialised individual, knowledgeable in society's ways. It is therefore the fundamental concept of public face, based on societal values, and not wants of an individual's face that underlies all politeness considerations in Persian. Chapter 6 is devoted to a detailed analysis of this central concept.

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CHAPTER 6 THE NOTION OF FACE IN IRANIAN SOCIETY 6.1 INTRODUCTION This chapter focuses on two aspects of Persian face, shaxsiat (pride) and ehteram (honour) and demonstrates how considerations for both aspects and for both interlocutors are the underlying factors in managing polite communication in Persian. It then examines the value of Brown and Levinson’s model of politeness in accounting for Persian politeness and it is suggested that the model is in need of some reformulation in order to handle Persian data. I will especially focus on Brown and Levinson’s concept of negative face and the related notion of imposition, and show that both have an extremely limited pertinence in Persian culture. 6.2 FACE IN PERSIAN CULTURE Face is a central concept in communication, because, as I will argue, politeness and all its manifestations derive from it. My account of face in Persian is mainly based on the information gleaned from the ethnographic interviews and on some follow-up conversations I have had with native speakers on an ad hoc basis. Here I return briefly to an aspect of Goffman’s concept of face, which is very relevant to Persian reality. In Chapter 2 we saw how an individual follows a code of behaviour which is in line with the place he claims for himself in society. Apart from his own behaviour, the individual must ensure that all events that surround him must be consistent with the face he wants to maintain (Goffman 1967:9-10). According to Goffman, this maintenance of face stems from duty considerations of two kinds: duty to oneself, otherwise known as pride, and duty to wider social units, also called honour. He characteristically writes that ‘[a]pproved attributes and their relation to face make every man his own jailer; this is a fundamental social constraint even though each man may like his cell’ (1967:10). The two interrelated concepts of Goffman’s pride and honour interestingly correspond to the two main components of the Persian concept of face, shaxsiat and ehteram. shaxsiat is a complex concept which could be rendered as ‘personality’, ‘character’, ‘honour’, ‘self-respect’, ‘social standing’. A person's shaxsiat is mainly dependent on the way he behaves and his educational background and is often perceived as related to the socialisation and upbringing he has received. Thus, a polite person is characterised as bashaxsiat (lit. ‘with-shaxsiat’) whereas a person who will not observe the expected codes of behaviour and will behave in a way that may be perceived as offensive by his interlocutors is usually characterised as bishaxsiat (lit. ‘without-shaxsiat’). A 133

person who verbally elevates an interlocutor behesh shaxsiat mide ( i.e. ‘gives him [the interlocutor] shaxsiat’ [honour, respect]), at the same time also showing his own shaxsiat. A person's shaxsiat is perceived as indicative of a person's self-respect (cf. Goffman): the more polite a person is, the more shaxsiat he has. In other words, a person who wants to keep up his own shaxsiat will also try to maintain his interlocutor’s shaxsiat too. Ehteram (near equivalents ‘honour’, ‘respect’, ‘esteem’, ‘dignity’) establishes the positions and statuses of the interactants with respect to one another and is shown through the adherence to the established norms of behaviour according to the addressee's position, age, status and interlocutors' relationship (cf. Goffman’s duty to wider social units). Ehteram is shown through the use of appropriate address terms, conformity to ta`arof conventions and keeping up rudarvasi (see section 4.6), where appropriate. There is an important difference between these two ‘sides’ of face. shaxsiat has its root in the individual and his background and is, therefore largely unalterable, even though it must be attended to in interaction, while ehteram flows from the speaker to the addressee, and may or may not always be given. This is reminiscent of Goffman's (1967:10) view that: ...while [a person's]...social face can be [his] most personal possession and the center of his security and nature, it is only on loan to him from society; it will be withdrawn unless he conducts himself in a way that is worth it. However I must stress that ehteram is almost ever-present in Iranian interaction and it is often, although not always, dependent upon a person's shaxsiat. In other words, a speaker addressing an interlocutor of a high (perceived) shaxsiat (social position or educational background) will show a high degree of ehteram too, but this does not mean that a person of a lower shaxsiat (social standing) will not receive ehteram. I postulate that ehteram is one of the basic motives behind polite behaviour in Persian. There is an apparent contradiction in the view that although a person's shaxsiat is intrinsic, it has to be upheld and attended to in interaction. Native speakers construe shaxsiat as the result of various parameters such as education, wealth and membership of a good family. In addition, a speaker must attend to his shaxsiat through his adherence to accepted forms of behaviour and through his exhibition of good manners. Consequently, an individual who, while enjoying the prerequisites of shaxsiat (education,etc.), fails to behave in keeping with it, will soon lose it, just like a property inherited from one's parents will soon fall to ruins if it is not repaired and maintained. Also, a person attends to his own shaxsiat through showing ehteram, verbally and non-verbally, not only to an interlocutor but also to any other people present, which shows how face needs of all participants in a given situation are attended to at the same time. 134

Moving on to face in general, politeness rules dictate that H attend to S's face through treatment according to H's age, position, social standing and the relationship obtaining between them. This is achieved inter alia through the use of expressions of desirability of H's company, demonstration of concern about H's comfort and welfare and show of interest in H's affairs (see Ch.5). Thus, in Persian, non-conformity to established norms is very likely to result in a facethreatening situation for one's interlocutor, because the use of an inappropriate linguistic form on the part of S may be perceived as trying to establish a different relationship from the one H feels appropriate or desirable (cf. Beeman 1986:73-77). It could be argued that shaxsiat is similar to Brown and Levinson’s notion of positive face. However, there are some very important differences between the two concepts. Brown and Levinson conceptualise positive face as a person’s individual want to be desired, respected, liked and his wants shared by others. In an Iranian setting, giving shaxsiat to H has to do with society’s injunctions about paying face, and also with group face wants. Behaving in line with societal values is of paramount importance; as a result, loss of face can come about if S is seen behaving or becomes known to have behaved in an unacceptable way, because this lapse in behaviour is perceived as detrimental to S's social standing and indirectly to his family's public face and is bound to incur society's criticism, which directly damages S's face. Brown and Levinson would account for this lapse as detrimental to S's positive face because their face construct is based on individual (in fact, a Model Person’s) values, not group values. Conversely, in Persian, individual and group values are equally important. An individual as a member of a group needs to uphold the group's public face and adhere to its values, but at the same time he also commands enough scope for his own wishes and development. The three terms of abuse mentioned below (near synonyms, according to Beeman) indicate the importance of family values, politeness, honour and their relationship with each other (all definitions reproduced from Beeman 1986:8586).   

bi-’adab [‘without manners’-SK] connotes not only social inappropriateness but also a lack of all of those refinements that separate humans from animals.’ bi-sharaf [‘without honour’- SK] ...connotes a lack of honor and respect for one’s family.’ bi pedar va madar (without a father and mother)’.

According to Beeman (1986:85-86) these expressions denote that an individual who is perceived as unable to conform to societal norms of behaviour is dishonourable. These negative traits must have come about through the lack of appropriate upbringing and socialisation the individual 135

should have had from his family, but presumably did not, the result being the individual’s inability to function in a socially acceptable manner. This view illustrates the close connection between the central role of the family in somebody’s socialisation, the way he will attest to this socialisation through his behaviour and the social standing he will attain as a result of it. The importance of maintaining individual and group face is obvious. Related to the maintenance of group face is the frequently-heard injunction zaher-ra hefz kon (‘keep up appearances’), which reflects the importance of maintaining one's individual and public face (e.g. family face) in not making public affairs that were meant to be private. This face can thus be lost if something a S intended to be kept a secret comes out in the open, or when a S loses control over his behaviour. If face is lost in this way, speakers often employ the expression aberu-mun raft (lit. ‘water-of-face-of-us went’ i.e. ‘we lost our face’). According to Rafiee (1992:319) the term ‘aberu’ literally means `water of the face' and signifies reputation, dignity or esteem. He maintains that it is a probable reference to ‘the perspiration process which is triggered off when one is disgraced, put to shame or acutely embarrassed’. In this respect, the Iranian setting is very similar to the Japanese, where any breach of conduct, violation of social rule and so on result in loss of face. Being face-conscious in Japanese society involves two closely related attitudes: avoidance of embarrassment for others and maintaining one’s own face (Coulmas 1981b:83). It could be argued that in societies where conforming to the established norms of behaviour is of cardinal importance, like the Iranian and the Japanese, maintenance of face is a central consideration in interaction. Other’s and self’s face must be preserved at all costs. Thus, S’s want to keep some aspects of S's life secret from other people may often be at odds with the H's need to express interest in S's affairs, in order to show S ehteram. This difficulty is often resolved through S's indirect, vague or evasive reply, S's steering the conversation to another topic or S's saying something that does not reveal the whole truth, or even saying something that does not perfectly correspond to reality. Native speakers see such strategies as perfectly legitimate and polite ways of preserving S's shaxsiat, but also, very importantly, of preserving H's face in that they do not clearly indicate S's reluctance to part with personal or private information, which might offend H. Similarly, requests are refused or suggestions dismissed in ways that do not damage either interlocutor’s face. Rubin (1983:13) mentions that in Arabic Imshaallah [sic] (‘God willing’) as a response to a suggestion for an activity is a negation, whereas, Imshaallah [sic] plus time and details is equivalent to ‘yes’. Similar strategies exist in Persian, not only in the same setting, but in other cases where a speaker has to refuse a request or contradict an interlocutor. Let us consider the following examples. In the course of the conversation between two cousins, F (male, early thirties) outlined a difficulty he was facing, thus making it clear that he needed to borrow R’s (male, late thirties) car. However, R was reluctant to lend his car 136

to F, which was obvious because he did not offer to lend it at the first mention of the difficulty. As F went on explaining his difficulty, R said something to the effect of If I didn’t need it to drive my daughter to the doctor’s, I would definitely lend you mine, it would have been no problem. Through this response, R achieves three aims:  He shows ehteram to F, exhibiting his willingness to help.  He enhances his shaxsiat, exhibiting generosity and conformity to societal norms.  He presents the loan of the car as an impossibility due to circumstances beyond his control. It is worth noting that after this interaction the informant F explained his indirect approach as designed to leave R to decide whether the account of his difficulties was just that or a request to borrow the car. This is in line with Brown and Levinson’s explanation of the motivation behind off-record strategies, which is that the speaker F leaves himself an ‘out’ by providing himself with a number of defensible interpretations; he cannot be held to have committed himself to just one particular interpretation of his act.’ (1987:211). In this example, F could argue that he was just describing his difficulties rather that asking to borrow R’s car, and does not risk face loss if an offer of help is not forthcoming. Secondly, and very importantly, informant F also said that another motivation of off-record requests like this allowed the addressee to show generosity and do ta’arof (offer) without, or before, being explicitly asked for a favour (cf. Sifianou 1993, who ascribes the use of off-record requests in Greek to the same reason). The second is a similar situation involving the same speaker F, who was still trying to borrow a car, and M, his brother-in-law (early forties). In this example, F employed a more direct approach. The dialogue, which is reconstructed here from fieldwork notes, took the following format: EXAMPLE 36 F: farda mashineto lazem dari? chon-(tomorrow car-of-you-SING need you-SING-have? because--) Do you need your car tomorrow? I wanted-mixastam dustamo bebaram frudgah (I-wanted friend-of-me to-take airport.) to drive my friend to the airport. M: na, lazem nadaram, vali dandash xarabe (no, need I-not-have, but gear-of-it broken-down-is--) No, I don’t need it, but there is something wrong with the gear box--

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mitarsam ke vasate rah bezaratet (I-am-afraid that middle-of road leave-you-SING) I’m worried it breaks down on the way-va barat moshkel ijad kone, vaellah masalei nabud. (and for-you-SING difficulty makes, otherwise issue not-was) and it creates a greater difficulty for you, otherwise it would be no problem. Familial obligations demand that members must provide any possible assistance to other members. By explaining the practical reason why he could not accede to F’s request, M conformed to the established norms of helpfulness, family loyalty, show of consideration to other’s wishes and sensitivity to other’s needs and thereby preserved both F’s and his own face, at the same time ensuring that the relationship continues with the same warmth and friendliness. On the other hand, F appreciated the ehteram he was given through the way the refusal was formulated: apparently, it is M’s effort to preserve F’s face that counts more than the end result of the interaction. After the interactants left, a bystander explained that to refuse directly saying something along the lines of Sorry, I don’t lend my car to anyone would simply be too ‘disrespectful’ (biehterami, lit. ‘without-ehteram’ [respect]), because it would not be showing the proper regard to F. My informant added that the practice of direct refusal is very rare indeed and is generally frowned upon by others. It is true that, as Rubin mentions, ‘the problem is not one of truth and forthrightness’ but ‘one of how people like to be treated and talked to’ (1983:16). 6.3 BROWN and LEVINSON'S MODEL APPLIED TO PERSIAN The following discussion examines the assumptions that Brown and Levinson’s model of politeness makes with regard to some FTAs and points out that certain aspects of the model do not appear to apply to Persian politeness, or indeed, to Anglo-Saxon/British reality. 1. Brown and Levinson have based face considerations on individual wants of communicators and therefore the individual is of prime importance in their model. On the other hand, face considerations in Persian have to do with a person’s position and standing in society: an individual needs society’s approval of his actions, which in turn enhances his face (shaxsiat). In that, Persian face is very similar to Chinese (Gu 1990, Mao 1994) or Japanese (Matsumoto 1988, Ide 1989), which have to do with societal values and norms: one's face is enhanced through adhering to these norms rather than through sharing the same wants with at least some other speakers or through maintaining freedom from imposition, as Brown and Levinson propose. 138

In fact, according to Brown and Levinson's theory one could argue that in Persian, conformity to society's expectations threatens an individual's negative face in that his behaviour is constrained, or even dictated by social rules. However, in the Persian context, the individual's shaxsiat (face) is enhanced through social group acceptance and through the ehteram (respect, face that others pay to him) he receives as a result of it. 2. In Chapter 5 mention was made of some FTAs from Brown and Levinson's list, which do not seem to have the same pragmatic function in Persian. Here I will focus on them with an explanation of my position. Among the FTAs that primarily threaten the addressee's (H) negative face want by indicating the speaker’s (S) potential intention to impede H's freedom of action, Brown and Levinson list the following: 

offers, which indicate that S wants H to commit himself to an action, which is likely to result in H’s debt, if the action is beneficial to H.

As mentioned elsewhere, some of Brown and Levinson's claims present a rather negative view of interaction which does not intuitively sound right for British society. It is possible that H feels indebted to S for making an offer, but the primary consideration would be, I think, enhancement of H's positive face, in that S pays attention to H's needs, as e.g. in offers of help. Similarly, as I have detailed in the previous chapter, offers and invitations (the latter omitted from Brown and Levinson's considerations) constitute a large part of ta`arof, the aims of which are mainly to show one's respect and good feeling towards H (see section 4.5). Offers and invitations in Iranian society must be seen as inherently positively polite, to employ Brown and Levinson's terms, because H is shown that S is concerned about his needs and welfare and that his company is desirable to the S, even though H will eventually have to reciprocate, thus incurring some cost or trouble to himself. As already mentioned, the ‘duty’ to reciprocate offers of help, invitations and other services is seen as an integral part of everyday life and not as an ‘imposition’ or a limitation of one's freedom of action. 

compliments, expressions of envy or admiration, as these indicate that S likes or would like something of H's.

These three `acts' are mentioned among the acts that primarily threaten the addresse's negative face under the heading ‘Those acts that predicate some desire of S toward H or H's goods, giving H reason to think that he may have to take action to protect the object of S's desire, or give it to S’ (1987:66). Although it does not seem likely that Brown and Levinson intended expressions of envy to be conflated with compliments, the fact that they are grouped together in the same entry indicates that Brown and Levinson viewed their 139

face-threatening potential as very similar. In Chapter 5, where I dealt with compliments in more detail, I explained that in Iranian interaction compliments are expressions of goodwill and very often sincere joy in H's new possession or admirable quality. Therefore, they attend to H's face, in that they express S's good feeling towards H. FTAs that threaten H's positive face want include: 

use of address terms and other status marked identifications in initial encounters, because S may wrongly identify H in an offensive or embarrassing way, intentionally or by accident.

In Persian address terms are used more than in English and with a variety of functions. In initial encounters, S will often employ respectful, other-raising terms of address as a means of setting the encounter on a positive footing. It could be argued that because other-raising forms of address are more formulaic in Persian than in English, they are less face-threatening. Native speakers perceive their use as a show of respect and therefore as attending to the addressee’s face (shaxsiat); in other words, formality corresponds to what Brown and Levinson would term positive politeness. Among the FTAs that threaten S's negative face the following are listed:  expressing thanks, because S accepts a debt, thereby humbling his own face. In view of what has already been said about the notion of ‘debt’ and imposition in Persian, expressions of thanks and gratitude primarily attend to H’s (positive) face but also to S's (positive) face in that they indicate that he has received correct socialisation. 

acceptance of offers, in that S is constrained to accept a debt and consequently to encroach upon H's negative face.

Similarly to expressions of thanks and gratitude, acceptance of offers pays homage to S's positive face, because it reinforces S's and H's relationship. It has already been mentioned that offers and other help will be reciprocated as a matter of course and are not felt as impositions in an Iranian setting. 

acceptance of H's thanks or H's apology because S may feel obliged to minimize H's debt or transgression.

As humility is a very positive quality of character, responding with humility to H's thanks or H's apology, which is the case in Persian, attends to S's positive face. 

unwilling promises and offers, whereby S unwillingly commits himself to 140

some future action. If his unwillingness shows, it will also constitute a threat to H's positive face. In Chapter 4 mention was made of ta`arof and its function as a means of establishing and maintaining relationships through the show of goodwill. Even though H may know that a particular offer is ‘just’ ta`arof and an unwilling offer, his positive face (shaxsiat) will be enhanced anyway. If S does not make such an offer where one would be expected, H's face will be damaged, because he will perceive the absence of the offer as an absence of S's good intentions and show of respect towards him. At the same time, the absence of the offer will damage S’s face (shaxsiat) for exactly the same reason: by not showing respect towards H. Brown and Levinson continue with FTAs that damage S's positive face: 

acceptance of a compliment may make S feel he must denigrate the object of H's prior compliment, and in doing so he may damage his own face; or he may feel obliged to compliment H in turn.

The above-mentioned compliment responses (denigration of the object of the compliment and return compliment) are the most common in Persian, with an outright acceptance almost impossible (no instances of acceptance of a compliment have appeared in the conversational data). Native speakers explained expressions of thanks as compliment responses not as compliment acceptance but as an acknowledgement of S's intention to pay homage to the recipient's face. If S denigrates the object of the compliment, he attends to his own face by being humble and if he pays a compliment back to H, he attends to H's face and to his own face too because he demonstrates the ability to conform to societal rules. 3. Although Brown and Levinson allow for some FTAs to ‘intrinsically threaten both negative and positive face (e.g. complaints, interruptions, threats, strong expressions of emotion, requests for personal information1987:67) they do not allow for the fact that some speech acts will serve a dual purpose in enhancing the face of both speaker and addressee, which is very common in Persian, as I will show in the examples in section 6.5. In Chapter 5 and in this section I have examined certain speech acts that Brown and Levinson characterise as FTAs and shown that they function as FEAs in Persian. This should not be taken to mean that there are no FTAs in Persian; criticisms, threats, warnings, confessions and ‘real’ apologies were reported by native speakers as face damaging (aberurizi, lit.'face-dropping', shaming) to the recipient and often to the initiator too. I surmise that given the potential threat to both interlocutors' shaxsiat, or positive self-image, such acts will be realised through shaxsiat-redressive strategies. However, in the absence of data on such acts, I do not wish to go beyond this tentative claim. 141

6.4 NEGATIVE FACE, THE NOTION OF IMPOSITION AND FORMALITY Brown and Levinson’s notion of negative face is another aspect of their model that seems to have very limited application in Persian mainly on account of the notions of imposition and formality, which, according to Brown and Levinson, are intrinsically connected with negative face. As mentioned in Chapter 2, Brown and Levinson define negative face as ‘the want of every ‘competent adult member’ that his actions be unimpeded by others’ (1987:62), which assumes that such a member has the expressed right to enjoy freedom from imposition. Brown and Levinson’s model is meant to apply universally, which implies that the two aspects of face, negative and positive face have universal validity. However, the kind of data I have collected suggest that in Persian, negative face as an individual's explicitly acknowledged right to maintain freedom of imposition does not seem to have the importance that Brown and Levinson ascribe to it. In section 4.4 I explained how in Iranian society, the smooth course of everyday interaction depends on the acknowledgement of mutual duties and obligations among the members of various networks because the exchange of goods and services, where possible, is seen as indispensable in human interaction and is reciprocated as a matter of course. A non-Iranian spouse was often annoyed with some of her Iranian husband’s friends who seemed to be asking their help too often, when he reminded her that in the past these friends had freely helped them in various ways when they needed it and they would again do so, if required. Neither the friends nor the Iranian husband seemed to be in any discomfort for ‘imposing’ on each other, and when questioned, neither of them experienced the request for help as an imposition, in Brown and Levinson’s sense, even though they would usually use ostensible apologies (see 5.3.3). It should however be pointed out that what has been said so far does not mean that requests are never refused, or that Iranians never contradict anyone on any score. Let us return briefly to the examples I quoted in section 6.1. In both situations R’s and M’s aim was to maintain freedom from the imposition of having to lend their car to F. However, from the way they formulated their refusals in these cases and from the more general comments of the informants during the ethnographic interviews and that ad hoc conversations, it is obvious that Iranians do not generally perceive the need to be free of imposition as very important; in fact they disapprove of any practice that aims to assert this need explicitly. Iranians will assert their position and refuse requests when they really must, but they will do so in ways that maintain both the shaxsiat and the ehteram of both interlocutors (not the negative face of one of them), as in the above examples. In the ethnographic interviews it was mentioned that is sometimes possible that Iranians will accede to a request only because they want to avoid offending 142

an interlocutor and because they feel that a refusal would constitute biehterami (disrespect). When this happens, it is described as tu rudarvasi endaxtan (‘to throw [somebody] into rudarvasi’ - see Chapter 5), which very aptly describes the situation: the individual who is ‘thrown into rudarvasi’ must behave according to the established norms and exhibit the virtues of helpfulness, warmth, even self-sacrifice, in order to pay face to his interlocutor, and also to himself. As already mentioned, Brown and Levinson (1987:62) maintain that negative face, from which politeness of non-imposition derives, is connected to formality. In other words formality is employed by S in order to redress threats to H’s negative face. However, Persian native speakers explain that they perceive the use of formal expressions as a show of ehteram (respect, ‘paying face’) which enhances both H’s shaxsiat (positive self-image) through attributing to him real or fictitious high status and S’s shaxsiat in showing his ability to behave according to established social norms. I must clarify here that I do not claim that negative face does not exist at all in Iranian culture which would be unwarranted. I believe that a person's right to freedom of action is a fundamental human right. However, in the social contexts that my data were collected, negative face certainly did not have any prominence. In addition, during the ethnographic interviews, native speakers did not attach any importance to a person's right to have his actions unimpeded. Had data from a wider variety of settings been available, it is possible that somewhat different conclusions would have been drawn; but this will have to be the subject of future research. 6.5 SOME EXAMPLES The following extract (Example 37) was recorded in the Central Bazaar of Tehran, where J (male, late thirties) is a shopkeeper. He is now escorting his friend F (male, early thirties) and F's wife while they are doing some shopping. They are in a shop which belongs to one of J's acquaintances. When F and his wife have chosen what they want, J says to the shopkeeper (X): EXAMPLE 37 (1) J: jarime naqdi kon maro (fine cash you-SING do-IMP us) Give us a cash fine (i.e. tell me how much it is) (2) X: bashe baba, cizi nist (be-it INTERJ, nothing it-is) That's alright, it's nothing really. (3) J: qorbunet beram 143

(sacrifice-of-you-SING I-go) Thank you very much. (4) X: boro jafar jun (go-IMP Jafar soul) Leave it, my dear Jafar. (J SAYS SOMETHING INCOMPREHENSIBLE TO F) (5) X: jafar jun boro (Jafar soul, go) Dear Jafar, leave it (i.e. it's alright, don’t pay me). (6) F: aqa gorbunet (sir, sacrifice-of-you-SING) Thank you , sir. (7) J: fadat sham (sacrifice-of-you-SING may-I-become) Thank you very much. (8) X: vallah, bedune ta'arof (by God, without ceremony) I swear, I mean it. (9) J: ali jun bebin...az maqaze xodemun darim mibarim dige (Ali soul look...from shop-of ourselves we-take EMPHATIC PARTICLE) Look, my friend Ali...it as if it is our own shop! (10)X: boro jafar aqa (go-IMP Jafar sir) Leave it, Mr Jafar ! (11)F: aqa, qorbane shoma, xeili mamnun. (sir, sacrifice-of-you-PL, very obliged) Thank you, sir, this is very kind of you. (12)X: qabele shomaro nadare (worth-of-you-PL not-has) They are not worthy of you (i.e. you can have them for free) (13)J: qorbunet beram, xeili mamnun. (sacrifice-of-you-SING I-go, very obliged.) 144

Thank you very much, that's very kind of you. (X REDUCES ALL THE PRICES AS HE CALCULATES) (14)X: hezaro punsad (thousand five-hundred) Fifteen hundred (tumans) ................ (15)J: xoda behet barekat bede, qorbunet beram. (God to-you-SING blessing may-give, sacrifice-of-you-SING I-go) May this money be blessed by God, thank you very much. (F GIVES X THE MONEY) (16)X: qabeli nadare aqa (worth not- has sir) It's not worth anything, sir (i.e. you can keep the money). (17)F: xeili mamnun, qorbane shoma. (very obliged, sacrifice-of-you-PL) That's very kind of you, thank you.(i.e. no, thank you) (18)X: aqa, jane man (sir, soul-of-me) By my soul (I swear), sir. (19)F: xeili motshakeram az lotf-e-shoma (very thankful-I-am from kindness-of-you-PL) Thank you for your kindness. (X TRIES TO RETURN SOME OF THE MONEY BUT J INSISTS THAT HE TAKE IT.) (20)X: bezar bashe (let be) Leave it. (X PUSHES SOME OF THE MONEY INTO J'S HAND AND J FINALLY TAKES IT) (21)J: dastet dard nakone. (your-SING-hand pain not-do.) Thank you. (22)F: xeili mamnunam, qorbane daste shoma (very obliged-am, sacrifice-of hand-of you-PL) 145

Thank you very much, thank you. (23)X: xahesh mikonam, coda behetun barekat bede. (request I-do, God to you-PL blessing may-give) Please, may God bless you. This example is typical of trade exchanges, although in this case the number of ritual (ta`arof) refusals is higher than one would expect in any ‘standard’ trade exchange where the interlocutors are total strangers. In Iran it is common for a shopkeeper to nominally refuse payment with the formulaic expression in utterances (12) and (16) ‘it's not worthy of you’, but this is never meant literally. I maintain that such ritual refusals serve a dual purpose: they anoint the speaker's face (shaxsiat) because they show generosity and sincerity but they also enhance the addressee's face in that he is presented as a person of high standing (shaxsiat) through the show of ehteram (respect). As one of my informants said, this practice is to ensure that the customer will shop there again, even if the prices are slightly higher than elsewhere. In this conversation, more attention must be paid to the interlocutors' face for two reasons. Firstly because X and J are acquaintances and secondly because J, accompanying his friend F does a favour to both of them: he brings some custom to his acquaintance X and by doing that also ensures that his friend F will buy good quality goods at the right price. All three are quite clear from the outset that this is the setting. However, X feels he must refuse payment with more insistence than usual (see utts.(2), (4), (5)-he even swears to God he means it in (8)). All this insistence enhances his face in showing generosity and hospitality, J's face in front of his friend F in showing J a lot of ehteram and, of course, F's face in being shown ehteram. After each of his refusals, J and F repeatedly thank him with various expressions of gratitude of which Persian abounds, all translated in English as ‘thank you’. The function of these expressions is a refusal and not an acceptance of X's offer as one might think: I believe that J and F thank X for showing them the expected ehteram and elevating their shaxsiat. It should also be noted that this refusal does not damage X's face in any way but is the expected response to his offers. X obviously feels that accepting payment too easily will damage both his and J's face: he will appear a man too hardened by profit considerations to show ehteram and J will think that X only sees him as a source of profit, leaving out the human element. This is clearly unacceptable to both of them, so J's utterance (9) It is as if it were our own shop is meant to encourage X to quote a price perhaps with a good discount and not much profit. X still refuses twice more (10), (12), adds up the prices (14) and adds another two refusals as F actually gives him the money (16), (18), which makes 8 refusals in all. 146

This extract is a very good example of how ta`arof stems from considerations of the Persian folk notion of face. In it, the interactants attended to each other's face, thus also securing future business between X and J. Brown and Levinson's model would account for such data only partially and to an unsatisfactory degree, because it would only ascribe one function (redressing either X's or F's positive or negative face) to any one act. It would not recognise that X's refusals also enhance his face, thus missing out on half of the facework that was underway in this extract. The failure to account for the totality of the facework and to recognise the multiplicity of face-enhancing goals points to a deficiency in the theory (see e.g. Penman 1990). Example 6 in Chapter 5 illustrates how face considerations for both participants can be present even in a very short stretch of conversation. I reproduce it here: EXAMPLE 6 WHILE I WAS VISITING AN ACADEMIC (K, MALE, LATE FORTIES) IN HIS OFFICE IN TEHRAN, A SENIOR COLLEAGUE OF HIS (B, MALE, LATE FIFTIES) CAME INTO THE OFFICE. AFTER THE INITIAL GREETINGS, HEALTH ENQUIRIES AND SMALL TALK, K INTRODUCED ME AND EXPLAINED HOW I CAME TO BE THERE: (1) K : ishun ye maqale naqabeli maro xundan... (they one article worthless of-us they-read...) she happened to read an unworthy article of mine... (2) B : xahesh mikonam... (request I-do) Please (i.e. don't say that) K humbles himself thus elevating his shaxsiat through the use of the phrase ‘unworthy article’ (cf. Chen 1993:68 who reports that Chinese academics often refer to their work as ‘my humble work’). It seems that he did not want to appear as showing off in the presence of his senior colleague, especially as the article had been written in English. B's response indicates that he is aware of what K is trying to do and is in effect telling him that he does not need to, at the same time also enhancing his own and K’s face. The next example to be analysed in this section was reported to me by a native speaker (F), who urgently needed to send a document to Tehran. He had arranged with Iran Air's Station Manager (Q), whom he had known for about a year, that one of Q's colleagues flying to Tehran on the flight that day would take it for F's family in Tehran to collect. F arrived at the airport three minutes before take off, did not manage to see Q, who was busy at the boarding gate, but handed the document to one of the traffic agents and eventually the document reached its destination. 147

The same evening F rang Q up to thank him and in the course of the conversation Q apologised for not having been able to see F at the airport and excused himself saying that it had been a particularly busy day. After the telephone call, F told me he was surprised to be offered an apology, because no reasonable person would take offence that Q had not come down from the boarding gate, as Q seemed to think. F was nonetheless pleased that the apology was offered, because he perceived it as a sign of warmth, friendliness and esteem towards him. As I understood it, Q primarily paid respect to F's shaxsiat (face) but also secondarily to his own through this show of ehteram, which was seen as a sign of warmth and goodwill. Now F will also hold Q in higher esteem and the relationship will possibly grow closer over time. The following is an instance of avoiding making an adverse comment on someone, although the intended (indirect) criticism is made very clear. In Example 38 , A (male, early thirties) and B (male, early forties) talk about an old family friend of A's, referred to as haj aqa (‘pilgrim-sir’- a term of respect), who is also a colleague of B's and who was supposed to bring a parcel from A's parents in Tehran to A in London. Haj aqa failed to turn up to pick the parcel up and eventually B and his wife, who also happened to be in Tehran at the time, brought it to its destination. A is obviously displeased with haj aqa's negligence and when B describes how A's father had to travel all through Tehran to hand the parcel over to B and his wife and the trouble this had caused him, the conversation continues in the following way: EXAMPLE 38 A: are na na be qole ma`ruf adam... nemidunam.hm hm (yes no no to saying famous someone..I-not-know.hm hm) Yes...no no as they say one..I don't know.hm hm B: are haj aqa(yes pilgrim-sir) Yes, the pilgrim sirA: bale...baziha ye formi... (yes indeed...some people...one way...) It's true, some people [behave] this wayA does not say anything specific about haj aqa's behaviour, possibly because he thinks that if he did he would damage his own face, but his displeasure is communicated very clearly. At that point B's wife enters the conversation with good wishes for A's parents and the embarrassing moment is over. It is possible that apart from preserving his own face, A avoids overt criticism so as not to damage haj aqa’s social position and help create an adverse impression of haj 148

aqa and himself on B. These examples demonstrate how the concept of face in the sense of an individual’s self-respect upheld and enhanced through social acceptance is ever present in Iranian interaction and how in even the shortest conversation attention to participants' faces is interdependent and mutual rather than compartmentalised. 6.6 SUMMARY As it transpired from native speakers' metapragmatic comments made during the ethnographic interviews in Tehran and London, politeness is experienced by Persian native speakers as adherence to social conventions and attendance to an individual's personal and group face wants. Persian face (shaxsiat) does not begin and end with one's individual positive or negative face wants but depends mainly on one's conformity to established norms as a result of correct socialisation (tarbiat) and is conferred by society on the above condition. I maintain that because shaxsiat is linked to social values, it should be characterised as public face, as opposed to the concept of private face rooted in the individual's wants, according to Brown and Levinson. The concept of public face is in line with the closely-knit ties that exist among the members of the nuclear and the extended family, the circle of friends and acquaintances, in that unacceptable behaviour reflects badly on one's family. The key concepts of rudarvasi and ‘keeping up appearances’ have a lot to do with maintaining one's public face. Verbal behaviour like ta`arof, formality, the speech acts that were examined in Chapter 5, and non-verbal behaviour, such as rising as a sign of respect when a newcomer enters a room, all attend to H's public face but also, very importantly, to S's public face at the same time. Goffman described face as two-sided: an individual goes to certain lengths to maintain his face, but at the same time he is also expected to invest a lot of effort in preserving others’ faces. A point that until recently had not been addressed in the literature is the possibility, or rather the certainty, of the co-existence of self-respect and considerateness during an encounter. Recently it has been recognised that discourse can and often does have multiple goals (see e.g. Tracy and Coupland 1990a, 1990b; Penman 1990); this recognition harks back to Goffman, who argued that an individual operates with considerateness towards both his own and others’ face simultaneously (Goffman 1967:11). I postulate that the motive behind all politeness manifestations is maintenance of both interactants’ faces (shaxsiat) through showing ehteram and that therefore some speech acts that have been characterised as FTAs (Face Threatening Acts) by Brown and Levinson should be characterised as Face Enhancing Acts in Persian (which does not mean that there are no FTAs in 149

Persian-see Chapter 8). In addition, the dual function of enhancing the face of both interlocutors at the same time should also be recognised. In Penman’s words,’...we have demonstrated the need to always allow for the possibility of multiple goals in discourse’ (1990:37).

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CHAPTER 7 DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION In this chapter I discuss how the main politeness theories can be applied to Persian, focus on any shortcomings and formulate a framework that accounts satisfactorily for my data. I also indicate some directions for future research. 7.1 THE MAIN POLITENESS THEORIES APPLIED TO PERSIAN Brown and Levinson’s (1978, 1987) is the most complete account of politeness and is certainly unique in two senses: unlike previous theories, it recognises that politeness is intrinsically related to face, which is ‘the public self-image that every member wants to claim for himself’ (1987:61). Moreover, it has been widely tested empirically against three unrelated cultures, which, allegedly, attests to its universality. The fact that politeness is closely linked with face considerations has been confirmed by research on many cultures like Chinese (Gu 1990, Chen 1992, Mao 1994), Japanese (Matsumoto 1988, 1989, Ide 1989, Hill et al. 1986), Greek (Sifianou 1987, 1992, 1993) and Igbo of Nigeria (Nwoye 1992). Nonetheless, most of these researchers have pointed out that Brown and Levinson’s face construct, consisting of negative and positive face wants displays a certain ethnocentric, in particular, Anglo-Saxon bias. This model is an elaborate description of strategies employed in redress of face-threatening acts (FTAs). The need for such redress presupposes the notion of face of every ‘competent adult member’ that his wants be desirable to at least some others (positive face) and that his actions be unimpeded by others (negative face). Thus, Brown and Levinson propose that politeness consists of strategies directed towards `softening the blow' of an act that threatens the positive or the negative face of H, but sometimes of S too. One of my main reservations against adopting this framework for Persian is that the socially normative aspect of politeness is completely ignored. In Persian, as in Chinese (Gu 1990:242) ...it would be a serious oversight not to see the normative aspect of politeness. Failure to observe politeness will incur social sanctions... A society...consists of individuals, but it is more than a total sum of its individual constituents. Politeness is a phenomenon belonging to the level of society, which endorses its normative constraints on each individual. The normative aspect of politeness is very potent in Persian to the extent that if a certain action does not conform to social norms, as for example performed by a foreigner, it may be considered impolite rather than neutral or just strange. Because of this consideration, I feel that in my framework of 151

analysis for Persian the regulative aspect of politeness must be accommodated. Another reservation about Brown and Levinson's model is that it places great importance on the face needs of individuals without recognising group face needs, which in some societies, as e.g. the Igbo of Nigeria (Nwoye 1992) and, as has been shown, in Iranian society, are also very important. Moving on to the concepts of positive and negative politeness, it is easy to quote decontextualised examples of positive or negative politeness from diverse languages. What to the researcher may seem like an instance of negative politeness, because of his background, may be experienced very differently by native speakers. The interpretation of some examples from nonWestern languages in Brown and Levinson’s theory as negative politeness manifestations may well result from the above mentioned bias of the researchers and has contributed to the ethnocentric bias that the theory has been accused of. In particular, the centrality of the notion of negative face in Brown and Levinson’s model, has attracted a lot of criticism. In Chapter 6 I took the position that in Persian, negative face as an individual's explicitly acknowledged right to maintain freedom of imposition does not seem to have the importance that Brown and Levinson ascribe to it. Directly linked to Brown and Levinson's negative face is the notion of imposition, which also seems to have very little relevance in Iranian society, where display of respect, involvement and helpfulness are valued very highly. These claims are based on the data I collected in certain settings, namely ‘social’ occasions, like dinner parties and visits between friends, and a few trade exchanges. It is assumed that had data been collected in other settings, the above claim might have been formulated differently. In other words, the statement that negative face and the notion of imposition are of limited application in Iranian culture may be attributable to the kind of data collected rather than to the absence of negativity in the culture as a whole. In Chapter 6 I examined Brown and Levinson’s account of some FTAs and demonstrated how these acts actually function as Face Enhancing Acts in Persian. According to Brown and Levinson, ‘...acts that predicate some positive future act of S toward H, and in so doing put some pressure on H to accept or reject them, and possibly to incur a debt’ (1987:66), like offers, are acts that ‘intrinsically’ threaten the interlocutor’s negative face. We have seen (Chapter 5) how in Iranian society offers of hospitality, food and other services and invitations are seen as tending to H's shaxsiat (similar to, but not identical with positive face), in that S expresses concern for H's welfare, comfort and feeling that his wants are desirable to S, to use Brown and Levinson's formulation. Such offers are often expressed with a lot of insistence, which is perceived as S's expression of sincere feelings towards H rather than as an imposition on his time, present or future (cf. very similarly in Chinese invitations in Chen 1993:69). Although offers and invitations certainly incur future debt, this debt is seen 152

as normal in the course of events of human interaction and from what many native speakers said in the course of the ethnographic interviews, they do not in any way perceive them as an impediment to their future actions, but rather as an indispensable component of their social life. This shows how from very early on speakers are socialised into ‘sharing’ mutual rights and obligations - as an informant aptly put it, Iranians are ‘partners in joy and sorrow’. Brown and Levinson (1987:68) list the acceptance of a compliment as an act which directly damages S's positive face, in that ‘S may feel constrained to denigrate the object of H's prior compliment, thus damaging his own face; or he may feel constrained to compliment H in turn.’ In Persian, because humility is an all-important characteristic of a polite person, downright acceptance of a compliment is extremely unusual. The usual response to a compliment is to compliment H back or to disagree with the compliment (see Chapter 5). However, such responses are not in any way perceived as damaging to S's face. On the contrary, both S and H have their ‘positive’ faces enhanced, rather than threatened, the former showing his good breeding in being humble and the latter being shown honour and liking through the return of the compliment. Moreover, Brown and Levinson identify negative politeness with selfeffacement, formality and restraint, stating that ‘...Face-threatening acts are redressed ...with linguistic and non-linguistic deference...’ (1987:70). However, mutual or one-way formality and deference enhance the shaxsiat (similar to positive face) of both interlocutors’. Following on from this, formality can coexist with solidarity and egalitarianism (cf. Wierzbicka 1991:113 for Polish), but Brown and Levinson’s framework does not allow for this. The last major shortcoming of this framework is that it does not allow for the multifunctionality of utterances, which is very common in Persian. As we have seen in Chapter 6, when a speaker attends to an interlocutor’s face, he also enhances his own at the same time, which fact is not accommodated by Brown and Levinson’s theory (see Penman 1990 for a demonstration of multifunctional utterances). What makes it all the more surprising is that Goffman (1967:14), on whose notion of face Brown and Levinson base their own, recognised the duality of face wants, when he wrote that: ...the person will have two points of view- a defensive orientation toward saving his own face and a protective orientation toward saving the others’ face. Some practices will be primarily defensive and others primarily protective, although in general one may expect these two perspectives to be taken at the same time. In trying to save the face of others, the person must choose a tack that will not lead to loss of his own; in trying to save his own face, he must consider the loss of face that his action may entail for others’ (my emphasis) This is a very important point, largely neglected in subsequent theories (but 153

see Scollon and Scollon 1995:36-38). An individual goes to certain lengths to maintain his face, but at the same time he is also expected to invest a lot of effort in preserving other people’s faces ‘willingly and spontaneously because of emotional identification with the others and with their feelings’ (ibid). In other words, Goffman attributes to speakers noble feelings like empathy and sympathy, not antagonistic and selfish motives. In sum, Brown and Levinson's model presents ordinary, everyday interaction as beset by FTAs which must be redressed one way or another. Thus, the main difference between their approach and mine is that in my view politeness is a way of constructing society, by creating and enhancing goodwill rather than maintaining its structure by redressing ‘dangerous’ FTAs. Herbert and Straight (1986) expressed the view that complimenting in American society does not so much presuppose solidarity as much as actually construct it, by creating favourable conditions for solidarity to grow. Similarly, by attending to H's face, S shows warmth and goodwill, thus promoting the relationship beyond what it already is and giving it scope to develop further, as in the last example I analyzed in Chapter 5. Beeman (1986:142) aptly expresses a very similar view in this way: The more adroit operators in interaction will not be limited to reacting passively to a social hierarchical situation they see as ‘given’. Playing on the ambiguity that exists in all social encounters, they will be able to seize the opportunity to define status for other participants. By using linguistic and behavioral forms appropriate to a given status, they are able to make incumbent on others not only a relative hierarchical rank, but also the social ethic associated with that rank. In the formulation of my framework, Fraser’s (1975, 1990), and Fraser and Nolen’s (1981) view of a Conversational Contract existing between speakers is very useful because in Iranian society, politeness is bound by social rules and abiding by the CC involves following those. The third framework that has been instrumental in the formulation of my proposal is Leech's way of organising politeness in maxims. This view seems very appropriate for Persian, where politeness is perceived as a series of injunctions/social rules obeyed by every polite person. It is through the obedience to these rules that S can foster relationships and make an impact on the world around. 7.2 THE PRESENT FRAMEWORK AND MODIFICATIONS TO THE THEORIES The theories I discussed in Chapter 2 and briefly referred to in this chapter, have all contained very useful insights and approaches to the study of politeness phenomena. What has struck me as remarkable however, is the underlying assumption in all of them that the one view excludes the other. 154

Grice, Lakoff and Leech saw politeness as being subject to ‘rules’ or ‘maxims’, but did not concern themselves with the phatic goals of polite behaviour. On the other hand, Brown and Levinson’s view of politeness as being linked to a concept of face is essentially right, despite the ethnocentricity of its components as they visualised it and the face-threatening nature of most speech acts, which does not allow for cross-cultural variation. Fraser (1990:233) rejects both Brown and Levinson’s and Leech’s views of politeness, stating that being polite does not mean making the hearer ‘feel good’ or avoiding making him ‘feel bad’; it simply means abiding by the Conversational Contract (CC). I have shown how in Persian making the hearer ‘feel good’ and avoiding making the hearer ‘feel bad’ (to a lesser extent) is part of the CC. Moreover, Fraser and Nolen in principle recognise the importance of the notion of face in polite interaction, but, as in the other theories except Brown and Levinson, they do not link face considerations to the CC. In other words, they do not specify what the motivation behind abiding by the CC is. Coulmas’ (1981b:83) view that in Japanese breach of conduct or violation of social rules mainly results in loss of face strikes the right note in the connection between social rules and an individual’s face. The situation he describes is very similar in Iranian society: acting appropriately constitutes tending to face needs of both S and H, which means that following the rules and protecting face are interdependent and coexistent. To sum up, in my scheme I postulate a Persian Conversational Contract (PCC) that involves an unalterable right and an unalterable obligation of every participant: the right to having his face recognised and enhanced during the interaction and the obligation to recognise and enhance the interlocutor’s (and the bystanders’, if any) face likewise. The Persian CC consists of the superordinate maxim of ‘Manners’, which means that interactants agree to behave in socially accepted ways so that their own faces can be protected and enhanced and, ultimately, so that smooth communication can take place. Under this superordinate maxim the other three maxims of Deference, Humility and Cordiality are subsumed. It is important to note that the maxims are not water-tightly separate in interaction and that in any given utterance the maxims can coexist. In Chapter 5 we have seen how these maxims are realised through specific ritual politeness (ta’arof) strategies aiming at maintaining and enhancing both interlocutors’ face (shaxsiat) simultaneously, without which communication often cannot proceed. Ritual politeness strategies place the emphasis on attending to H's positive self-image (shaxsiat) and may or may not reflect ‘sincere’ or ‘real’ feelings. However, it is the fact that a speaker goes through the ritual and not the sincerity or the dissimulation of feelings that make ritual politeness strategies (ta’arof) attend to S's and H's positive face. Mao formulated his proposal of relative force orientation (1994:472- see Chapter 2), as a response to more recent research on non-Western politeness, 155

mainly Japanese and Chinese. If we examine Persian according to this proposal, it belongs to the cultures where face tends towards an ideal social identity, as opposed to an ideal individual autonomy. This orientation of Persian towards an ideal social identity is also reflected in the fact that many politeness strategies, not only in openings and closings but also in the ‘medial’ or ‘business’ phase of interactions (cf. Laver 1975) are phatic in nature, as we have seen in trade exchanges; this indicates the importance of creating, maintaining and enhancing relationships in a society where interdependence rather than independence is the norm. It is possible to propose a modification to Brown and Levinson’s theory in order to accommodate Mao’s concept of relative face orientation. Mao’s ideal social identity roughly corresponds to Brown and Levinson’s positive face, whereas his ideal individual autonomy is similar to their negative face. In an analogy to the concepts of discernment and volition (Hill et al. 1986), in some societies positive face predominates to the expense of negative face, as in Greek (Sifianou 1987, 1992), whereas in others, e.g. English, negative face prevails. It is also possible that in some other cultures, as I have shown for Persian, the assertion of negative face needs is almost a taboo. I should clarify that the components of face in each society may range from slightly to substantially different, as for instance in Persian, where shaxsiat can be said to be similar to positive face, but it also includes a person’s acceptance by a wider social group, and the respect that he receives because of his background. To take this proposal a step further, ideal individual autonomy (or negative face) societies view some speech acts like offers, invitations, and so on as facethreatening, while ideal social identity (or positive face) societies perceive the same acts as face-enhancing, precisely because of their orientation. In addition, politeness in cultures like the latter can be described in terms of maxims because it is mainly the result of socially instituted injunctions. Although Brown and Levinson’s model, short of major revision, does not seem to be a likely candidate for universality, it has been shown to be extremely useful as a basis of the discussion of politeness in diverse cultures and it has certainly been the first theory to link politeness with face considerations. 7.3 FUTURE RESEARCH In the course of this work, some aspects of Persian pragmatics have either only been mentioned but not dealt with in any detail, or expanded on but still warranting more investigation. I will now examine them and give some indication of the direction of future research in these areas. Off-record/ indirect strategies have been referred to in Chapter 6, where it was shown that the motivation behind them is preservation/enhancement of both interlocutors’ faces. It is possible, that apart from providing an ‘out’ for 156

the addressee (Brown and Levinson), or giving the opportunity to the addressee to appear generous by making a spontaneous offer (Sifianou 1992:211), such strategies may have more underlying motivations. Even without quantitative data, it is possible to argue that indirect/off-record strategies are used extensively in Persian. This aspect of polite usage, along with conventional indirectness in Persian will have to be the subject of more research. Another area where more research is needed is on differences in the use of ta’arof between intimates, acquaintances and strangers. I predict that differences will plot in a way similar to Wolfson’s Bulge (1986, 1988), with highest frequencies concentrating in situations involving acquaintances, presumably because there is some degree of relationship negotiation in those, and low frequencies among intimates and strangers, where relationships are unambiguous. However, I do not wish to make more than a tentative claim about this, in anticipation of quantitative analysis of more extensive data. Persian being a ‘formula’ language, formulaic expressions are used more extensively than in English and seem to have strategic uses. Descriptive studies of different forms and functions of formulas are likely to prove interesting and useful. Research into Persian FTAs like criticisms, threats, warnings, confessions and ‘real’ apologies should provide more evidence of the aspects of face that are threatened by them and the kinds of strategies employed for their redress. However, given the paramount importance of maintaining one's positive selfimage, I expect that access to such material will be extremely limited and difficult to come by. Another area that warrants further examination is the notion of negative face in Persian. It will be interesting to test my conclusion on the limited pertinence of negative face needs as an explicitly acknowledged right against data collected in settings other than the ones I collected data in. It would then become possible to make more general claims about this important notion and its importance or otherwise in Iranian society. Information on discourse organisation in Persian is very scant. Hatch (1981:xiv) writes that in Persian overlaps in conversations are quite appropriate, whereas in English they are relatively rare and adds that if this overlap is transferred to English, it may result in the Persian speaker’s being perceived as pushy, aggressive, or inconsiderate. I have the feeling that research into the form and function of discourse markers will yield some stimulating results, particularly where discourse markers with different functions in Persian and English can cause misunderstanding. Topic management, like the inductive-deductive pattern (Scollon and Scollon 1995:76 ff.) in the presentation of information and the structure of argument also features differences that merit more investigation. Gumperz’ work on how cross-cultural differences in the interpretation of contextualization cues (Chapter 2) may play a crucial role in communication breakdown. Similar work involving the comparison of contextualization cues in 157

English and Persian might yield useful results both for their own sake but also in foreign language education. Some investigation into the way Iranians understand English cultural values, like ‘forthrightness’, ‘honesty’ or ‘sincerity’ and the way the English perceive Iranian cultural values like ehteram or rudarvasi may reveal significant differences likely to cause misunderstanding if native speakers of both languages come into contact with each other. Kasper (1990:197) called for future studies to look into the ways in which social markers are used in the expression of strategic politeness. I have expressed the view that the use of terms of address in mid-discourse in Persian expresses cordiality, and if the term of address is an other-raising one, it expresses deference at the same time. Deferential terms of address are sometimes used for other purposes, e.g. the polite pronoun shoma (you-PL) is used to coax children by attributing grown-up status to them. More research should reveal other possible functions of address terms and other social markers. To my knowledge, gender and age differences in polite behaviour in Persian have not been addressed at all. It would be interesting to discover whether such differences in Persian exist and whether they are similar to the differences that have been discovered for English (Holmes 1995 for gender differences). Finally, and very importantly, the results of any such investigations could afford very useful insights to teaching material writers, teachers of English to Iranians, teachers of Persian to English speakers and could enhance the quality of their students’ learning experience and progress. Moving on to the study of politeness in general, Janney and Arndt (1993) argue for the abandonment of the search of universals and focus instead on the production of ‘increasingly differentiated comparative studies of politeness phenomena in other cultural contexts’ (38), using Brown and Levinson’s model ‘as a set of baseline hypotheses’ (ibid.) rather than as a supposedly universal one. They maintain that such studies may result in opening up new avenues for comparative study, and eventually to lead to the possibility of beginning to operate conceptually in a stereotype-free way (39). Ide (1993:8) distinguishes first from second order politeness. The former refers to politeness as an everyday concept, comprising matters of etiquette and protocol, while the latter represents politeness as an academic concept. She then argues that if we use Goody’s (1978) view that every speaker takes into account ‘short- and long-term gains’ in interaction, second order politeness derives from the speakers’ calculation of short-term costs and gains, whereas first order politeness is based on the calculation of long-term costs and gains. She expresses the view that the goal of politeness research is to ‘create an overall framework which can include what has been left out of the pioneering theories’. The current general trend in politeness research tends to be the search for politeness universals. On the way to achieving this goal, more cross-linguistic 158

studies need to be carried out (Matsumoto 1989:220); these will afford more data that can be used to test and modify the existing hypotheses, and eventually lead to the formulation of a universal framework. 7.4 CONCLUSION Despite the criticism that pioneering works by Lakoff (1973), Brown and Levinson (1978, 1987) and Leech (1983) have received, they still remain the basis of and the point of reference in any politeness discussion. I hope that I have been able to demonstrate how they have all propounded some part, though not all, of what seems to me to be a wider picture of politeness. It is also hoped that this work contributes in some, however small, measure to a wider understanding of how politeness functions in another, non-Western society. Finally, on a practical level, if the results of this thesis were of some use in language teaching, maybe, to return to the quote from A Passage to India with which I started this unworthy work of mine, there could come a time when what you want and what I want, to be friends, will be transferred from the indeterminacy of place and time to the reality of Here and Now.

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SCHIFFRIN D 1994: Approaches to discourse. Oxford: Blackwell SCOLLON R & S B K SCOLLON 1983: Face in interethnic communication in Language and Communication, J C Richards & R W Schmidt (eds). London, Longman SEARLE J R 1969: Speech Acts. New York & London: Cambridge University Press SEARLE J R 1975: Indirect speech acts in P Cole & JJ Morgan (eds) SIFIANOU M 1987: Politeness markers in Greek and English. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Reading SIFIANOU M 1989: On the telephone again! Differences in telephone behaviour: England vs. Greece. Language in Society 18: 527-544 SIFIANOU M 1992: Politeness phenomena in Greece and England. Oxford, Oxford University Press SIFIANOU M 1993: Off-record indirectness and the notion of imposition. Multilingua 12-1, 69-79 STRECKER I 1993: Cultural variations in the concept of ‘face’. Multilingua 12-1,119141 STUBBS M 1981: Analysts and users: different models of language. Paper read to Applied Linguistics Colloquium, Berne, June 1981 STUBBS M 1983: Discourse analysis - the sociolinguistic analysis of natural language. Blackwell, Oxford TAKAHASHI T & L BEEBE 1987: Development of pragmatic competence by Japanese learners of English. Journal of the Japan Association of Language Teachers 8(2) TANNEN D & OEZTEK P C 1981: Health To Our Mouths: Formulaic Expressions In Turkish And Greek in Coulmas F (ed) 1981a:37-54 TANNEN D 1984: The Pragmatics of Cross-cultural communication. Applied Linguistics 5/3:189-195 TANNEN D 1984b: Cross-cultural communication. CATESOL Occasional papers 10:1-16. Reprinted in van Dijk 1985b: 203-215 TANNEN D 1989: Talking Voices. Cambridge University Press TANNEN D 1993: Framing in Discourse. Oxford University Press TAYLOR B P 1974: Toward a theory of language acquisition. Language Learning 24: 23-35 THOMAS J 1983: Cross-cultural pragmatic failure. Applied Linguistics 4: 91-112 THOMAS J 1995: Meaning in interaction. London: Longman TISDALL W 1902: Modern Persian conversation-grammar. Heidelberg: Julius Groos TRACY K (ed) 1991: Understanding face-to-face interaction: Issues linking goals and discourse. Hillsdale NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates TRACY K & COUPLAND N (eds) 1990: Multiple goals in discourse. Clevedon: Multilingual matters: 1-13 TRACY K & COUPLAND N 1990a: Multiple goals in discourse: An overview of issues in Tracy K & Coupland N (eds) 1990 TRIANDIS H C & VASSILIOU V 1972: A comparative analysis of subjective culture. The analysis of subjective culture, Triandis (ed) 1972 in Comparative Studies in Behavioral Science. New York: Wiley 166

TURNER G 1973: Stylistics. Harmondsworth: Penguin WATANABE S, 1993: Cultural differences in framing: American and Japanese group discussions in Tannen D (ed) 1993: 176-209 WATTS R J 1989: Relevance and relational work: linguistic politeness as politic behavior. Multilingua 8-2/3, 131-166 WATTS J, S IDE, K EHLICH (eds) 1992: Politeness in Language: Studies in its History, Theory and Practice. Studies and monographs 59: Mouton De Gruyter WATTS J, S IDE, K EHLICH 1992a: Editors’ introduction. Watts, Ide, Ehlich 1992,1-17 WATZLAWICK P, J B BAVELAS, D JACKSON 1967: Pragmatics of Human Communication: A study of interactional patterns, pathologies and paradoxes. New York: W W Norton & Co WEINREICH Uriel 1953: Languages in Contact; Findings and Problems. New York: Linguistics Circle of New York. Reprinted by Mouton, The Hague, 1974 WIERZBICKA A 1985a: A semantic metalanguage for a cross-cultural comparison of speech acts and speech genres. Language in Society 14: 491-514 WIERZBICKA A 1985b: Different cultures, different languages, different speech acts: Polish vs. English. Journal of Pragmatics 9: 145-178 WIERZBICKA A 1990: Cross-cultural pragmatics and different values. Australian Review of Applied Linguistics 1990, 13,1,43-76 WIERZBICKA A 1991: Cross-cultural pragmatics: the semantics of Human Interaction: Trends in Linguistics – Studies and Monographs 53. Mouton de Gruyter WOLFSON N 1976: Speech events and natural speech: Some implications for sociolinguistic methodology. Language in Society 5(2): 189-20 WOLFSON N 1981: Compliments in cross-cultural perspective. TESOL Quarterly 5: 117-124 WOLFSON N 1983a: Introduction to Wolfson & Judd (eds), 3-9 WOLFSON N 1983b: An empirically based analysis of complimenting in American English in Wolfson & Judd (eds), 82-95 WOLFSON N 1983c: Rules of speaking. Language and Communication, Jack C Richards and Richard W Smith (eds) 1983:61-87 WOLFSON N, 1986: Research methodology and the question of validity. TESOL Quarterly 20(4), 689-699 WOLFSON N 1988: The Bulge: A theory of speech behaviour and social distance. J Fine (ed) 1988 Second Language Discourse: A textbook of current research: 21-38. Norwood NJ: Ablex WOLFSON N 1989: Perspectives: Sociolinguistics and TESOL. Cambridge: Newbury House WOLFSON N & J MANES 1980: The compliment as a social strategy. Papers in Linguistics 13(3):391-410. Reprinted in the International Journal of Human Communication 13(3) WOLFSON N & E JUDD (eds) 1983: Sociolinguistics and Language Acquisition. Newbury House

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WOLFSON N, L D'AMICO-REISNER & L HUBER 1983: How to arrange for social commitments in American English: The invitation in Wolfson & Judd (eds) 1983:116-128 WOLFSON N, T MARMOR, S JONES 1989: Problems in the comparison of speech acts across cultures in Blum-Kulka, House, Kasper (eds) 1989: 174-196 YAHYA-OTHMAN S 1995: Aren’t You Going To Greet Me? Impoliteness In Swahili Greetings. Text 15/2:209-227

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APPENDIX I TRANSCRIPTION AND TRANSLATION CONVENTIONS

Transcription of the Persian text largely follows Lambton's (1954: ix-xii) conventions. I should however point out that I have followed a phonetic transcription and have therefore tended to disregard differences in spelling where the phonetic presentation is identical. The symbols that differ from Lambton's are as follows: alef or alef hamze as æ (as in English ‘man’) alef madde (as in English ‘bath’) qaf ( ) and qein ( ) as represented as q in the transcription as they are not differentiated in practice by most speakers. In the transcription I have followed Tannen's (1989) conventions apart from the ones that follow below for the typed text: : under a line denote that some lines are omitted -- at the end of a line denote that the utterance carries on to the next line ? indicates rising intonation . indicates falling intonation ... in an utterance denote a pause of more that 0.5 second - indicates that the utterance is cut off as the speaker makes another start. In translation, I have provided a word-for-word translation of every line and a near-equivalent in English, at the same time trying to preserve something of the flavour of the original.

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APPENDIX II

TOPICS FOR ETHNOGRAPHIC INTERVIEWS: PERCEPTIONS OF POLITENESS AND TA’AROF The following questions in Persian formed the basis of the ethnographic interviews. For the benefit of non-Persian speaking readers, an English translation is given under each question.

1. adab væ adabdani æz næzære soma ce mæ’ni dare? soma fekr mikonid ke mosæxxæsate ye adæme mo'adab ci hæst? 1. What does the word politeness mean to you? What are the characteristics of a polite person? 2. ce ræftari æz næzære soma ba adabi mæsub mise/be hesab miad 2. Please give an example of behaviour that impresses you as being polite. 3. ce ræftari æz næzære soma biadabi mæsub mise/be hesab miad? 3. Please give an example of behaviour that impresses you as being impolite. 4. ta’arof be næzære soma ce mæni dare? cetor mitunid unra be kesi ke æslæn dær moredes cizi nemidune tozih bedin? 4. What does ta’arof mean to you? How could you explain ta’arof to somebody who does not know anything about it? 5.be næzære soma risehaye tærixi væ ejtema'i ta’arof ci hæst? 5. What are the historical and social roots of ta’arof? 6. ta’arof dær zendegie ruzmarre iraniha ce naqsira ifa mikone? cera iraniha ta’arof mikonæn? 6. What is the role of ta’arof in the everyday life of Iranians? Why do people do ta’arof? 170

7. gofte mise ke hærci sæmimiæt bistær mise, ta’arof kæmtær mise? movæfeqin? aya in nokte be jævabdædæne so'ale qæbli komæketun mikone? 7. It has been said that as familiarity increases ta’arof decreases.Do you agree with this? Does this suggest something about ta’arof's function? 8. ce juri mitunid befæhmid ke ye ta’arof jeddi e ya qeire jeddi? 8. How can you tell whether something said in ta’arof is to be taken at face value or not?) 9. bæziha moqei ke hedie ya cesm rosani bæraye kesi mibæræn mæ'æzerætxahi hæm mikonæn ke un hedie næqabele væ bebæxsin væ æz in qæbil ta’arofa væ sahebxane mæ'æzerætxahi mikone æz inke ægær qæza xosmæze naæbud,ya hengame særfe qæza sære sofre, yæ kæm bud væ ta’arofæti æz in qæbil yæ sahebxane dær moqÕe xodahafezi mæÕæzeræt mikone æz inke be mehmanha bæd gozæst væ qeire...be næzære soma mænzure guyænde æz in ta’arofa ci e? 9. When people apologise for bringing a present, offering food and leaving somebody's house at the end of a visit, why do they do it?

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Ωσπερ ξένοι χαίρουσι ιδείν πατρίδα Ούτως και τοίς γράφουσι βιβλίου τέλος

The sight of homeland gives much joy to travellers; The same joy do writers feel upon the completion of a book (inscription at the end of a Byzantine manuscript)

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