Power, Distance, and Self-Esteem in Persian Requests
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Being Polite in Conversation: Power, Distance, and Self-Esteem in Persian Requests Azar Mirzaei A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand August 2019 ABSTRACT Polite linguistic behaviour is concerned with how society and individuals interact. Speakers modify their linguistic choices based on a sociocultural context. Most research on politeness examines social variables such as power and distance (e.g., Brown & Levinson, 1987), but rarely the individuals themselves. This study looks both at how social factors and facts about individuals such as self-esteem affect request dialogues in Persian. In this mixed methods study, 36 Iranian men participated in open role plays to collect controlled yet quasi-normal speech across scenarios differing by power and distance. The self- esteem of each participant was collected using the Rosenberg (1965) self-esteem questionnaire. Request speech acts and supportive moves were coded and quantitatively compared to test the impact of power, distance, and self-esteem. Additionally, stimulated recall interviews were conducted to gather the thoughts of the participants about their choices in each prompt. Interviews were analysed through inductive content analysis to identify themes and develop theory. Finally, the role play request dialogues were treated as whole conversations (Clark, 1996), rather than singular speech acts. In this approach, request conversations are joint interactional activities that the speakers wish to accomplish, allowing the study of both the key elements of that joint task and the manner in which request conversations develop. In alignment with Brown and Levinson’s predictions, Persian speakers used more words and more turns when their addressee was of a higher power status, and also when the addressee was an intimate. Moreover, participants identified power and distance as important to their decisions, and power shaped the request conversation. There were also variations in conversation style and thought processes for speakers of low versus high self-esteem. The triangulated method of studying requests additionally revealed critical concepts for behaviour beyond power and distance, conversational motivations for linguistic politeness choices, and the need for additional categories for coding Persian requests. Finally, speech act quantification and interviews revealed that speakers do make strategic politeness choices. However, control of those choices is frequently divided between speakers such that the request does not arrive fully formed from the requester. Rather, it is co-constructed during the conversation, and what look from the outside like strategic choices of the requester are actually interactional consequences of choices from the addressee. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis is the result of research that began in July 2014 for which I am indebted to many people for all their help. My sincere gratitude first goes to my primary supervisor, Dr Hunter Hatfield, for his continued support on- and off-campus, patience, motivation and the opportunity to complete my PhD project. I would also like to thank my secondary supervisor, Dr Anne Feryok, for her encouragement, input and guidance in this journey. I am also thankful to the University of Otago for providing me with the generous scholarship that made this research project possible. My deep appreciation goes to 36 Iranians, living and studying in New Zealand at the time of data collection, who participated in this thesis with great enthusiasm and eagerness. I am also grateful to my Iranian—especially Dr Sara Rahmani and Setareh Shojaei—and Kiwi friends—especially Dr Jo Oranje—who participated in my pilot study and helped me to find more volunteers in Dunedin and Christchurch. I would also like to thank my office-mates and colleagues in the Department of English and Linguistics: Dr Ian Moodie, Dr Max Olsen, Wei Mao, Rouhollah Askaribigdeli, Dr Jieun Lee, Dr Jo Oranje, Arezou Sobhani, Dr Mutahar Al-Murtadha, Dr Grant Howie, who answered my endless questions and shared their suggestions as to how the thesis could be improved. I especially thank Rouhollah Askaribigdeli for his comments on my English translations. I am grateful to the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies—especially Professor Dr Dr h.c. Bernd Kortmann and Dr Britta Küst—and the University of Freiburg, Department of Linguistics (Romanisches Seminar)—especially Professor Dr Stefan Pfänder and his team— for providing me with an opportunity to complete my study off-campus. I also thank Professor Dr Cammie McBride for her helpful feedback on an early draft of part of my analysis. Thanks go to my parents, Aghdas and Ali Mohammad, my sister, Azadeh, and my brother, Amir, who have been greatly supportive during my education. The encouragement of my best friends—especially Avida Zarei—also helped to keep me motivated on my project. Last but not least, I would like to express my gratitude to my husband, Dr Majid Daneshgar, for love, care and support on every step of this journey. This thesis would have been impossible without his patience and encouragement. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii LIST OF TABLES ix LIST OF FIGURES xi LIST OF APPENDICES xii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS xiii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1 1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY 1 1.2 PURPOSE OF THE STUDY 4 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 7 2.1 INTRODUCTION 7 2.2 REQUEST 7 2.2.1 Request Definition 9 2.2.2 Request Structure and Classification 9 2.3 POLITENESS THEORY 14 2.3.1 Politeness Approaches 16 2.3.1.1 First wave politeness research 16 2.3.1.2 Second wave politeness research 16 2.3.1.3 Third wave politeness research 18 iv 2.3.1.4 Requests as conversations 19 2.3.2 Social Variables 21 2.3.2.1 Distance 21 2.3.2.2 Power 23 2.3.2.3 Rank of imposition 24 2.3.3 Face 26 2.4 PERSIAN FIRST-ORDER POLITENESS (ADAB) 28 2.4.1 Persian Face 34 2.4.2 Requests in Persian 35 2.5 SELF-ESTEEM 39 2.5.1 Definition of Self-Esteem 39 2.5.2 Dimensionality of Self-Esteem 42 2.5.3 Self-Esteem Levels 44 2.6 RESEARCH QUESTIONS 45 CHAPTER 3: METHODS 47 3.1 INTRODUCTION 47 3.2 LITERATURE ON DATA COLLECTION TECHNIQUES IN PRAGMATICS 47 3.2.1 Natural Corpus 48 3.2.2 Discourse Completion Task 49 3.2.3 Open Role Play 51 3.2.4 Stimulated Recall Interview 55 3.2.5 Questionnaire 56 v 3.3 PARTICIPANTS 59 3.4 INSTRUMENTS 60 3.4.1 Open Role Play 60 3.4.2 Stimulated Recall Interview 64 3.4.3 Self-Esteem Questionnaire 66 3.5 DATA COLLECTION PROCEDURE 68 3.6 SUMMARY 72 CHAPTER 4: REQUESTS AS SPEECH ACTS 73 4.1 INTRODUCTION 73 4.2 REQUEST DATA ANALYSIS PROCEDURE 73 4.2.1 Coding Data 74 4.2.1.1 Request head acts 77 4.2.1.2 Internal supportive moves 81 4.2.1.3 External supportive moves 86 4.2.1.4 Self-esteem grading 88 4.3 STATISTICAL ANALYSIS 89 4.4 FINDINGS 92 4.4.1 Total Number of Words, Turns and Request Strategies 93 4.4.2 All Head Acts 93 4.4.3 1st Head Acts 96 4.4.4 Internal Supportive Moves 98 4.4.5 External Supportive Moves 100 vi 4.5 HIGH AND LOW SELF-ESTEEM GROUPS 104 4.6 THE POSSIBLE ALTERNATIVES USING INTERVIEWS 107 4.7 SUMMARY 108 CHAPTER 5: REQUESTS AS CONVERSATIONS 110 5.1 INTRODUCTION 110 5.2 INTERACTIONAL DATA ANALYSIS PROCEDURE 111 5.3 FINDINGS 113 5.3.1 Opening the Request Conversation 113 5.3.2 Justifying the Request 115 5.3.3 Emphasizing Joint Goals 130 5.3.4 Accepting the Request 135 5.3.5 Co-Determining the Request 135 5.3.6 Closing the Request Conversation 155 5.4 SUMMARY 156 CHAPTER 6: PARTICIPANTS’ PERCEPTIONS OF REQUEST CONVERSATIONS 158 6.1 INTRODUCTION 158 6.2 QUALITATIVE DATA ANALYSIS PROCEDURE 158 6.3 FINDINGS 161 6.3.1 Taarof 162 6.3.2 Pride 168 6.3.3 Humility 170 vii 6.3.4 Giving the Addressee an Option 174 6.3.5 Attitude 177 6.3.6 Academic Face 181 6.3.7 Social Rights and Moral Obligation 183 6.3.8 Power 186 6.3.9 Relationship 190 6.3.10 Imposition 198 6.4 SUMMARY 204 CHAPTER 7: DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS 205 7.1 INTRODUCTION 205 7.2 RESEARCH QUESTION 1 205 7.2.1 Power 205 7.2.2 Distance 207 7.2.3 Self-Esteem 209 7.3 RESEARCH QUESTION 2 211 7.4 RESEARCH QUESTION 3 213 7.5 COMPARISON TO PREVIOUS STUDIES ON PERSIAN 217 7.6 LIMITATIONS 219 7.7 CONCLUSION AND FURTHER IMPLICATIONS 221 REFERENCES 225 APPENDICES 252 viii LIST OF TABLES Table 3.1 Distribution of the Participants 60 Table 3.2 Role Play Scenarios across Different Contexts 64 Table 3.3 Rosenberg (1965) Self-Esteem Scale 67 Table 3.4 Standing and Sitting Positions 71 Table 4.1 Persian Request Sequence Coding Procedure 75 Table 4.2.a Trosborg’s (1995) Head Act Request Coding Schema (The Request is Underlined) 78 Table 4.2.b Trosborg’s (1995) Head Act Request Coding Schema (The Request is Underlined) 79 Table 4.2.c Trosborg’s (1995) Head Act Request Coding Schema (The Request is Underlined) 80 Table 4.3 Trosborg’s (1995) Internal Supportive Moves (The Move is Underlined) 82 Table 4.4 Trosborg’s (1995) External Supportive Moves (The Move is Underlined) 87 Table 4.5 Results of Self-Esteem Survey 89 Table 4.6 Frequency of All Head Acts (incl. 1st Head Act) across All and Each Scenario(s) 94 Table 4.7 Request Examples 95 Table 4.8 Frequency of 1st Head Act Request Strategies across All and Each Scenario(s) 96 Table 4.9 Examples of 1st Head Act Requests in Four Scenarios 97 Table 4.10 Frequency of Internal Supportive Moves across All and Each Scenario(s) 99 ix Table 4.11 Frequency of External Supportive Moves across All and Each Scenario(s) 103 Table 4.12 Addressees’ Choices in Interview in Four Scenarios 108 Table 5.1 Initial Reasons 115 Table 5.2 Reason Mixed in the Conversations 122 Table 5.3 Samples of Taking an Action by Students 144 Table 5.4 Samples of Taking an Action by Professors 145 Table 5.5 Questions by the Professors 151 x LIST OF FIGURES Figure 3.1.