Rapport Management toward Expressing Sympathy in Persian

Sayyed Amir Sheikhan

doi:10.13092/lo.83.3787

Abstract

The present study sets out to examine the realisation of the speech act of expressing sympathy in Persian, which, notwithstanding its significant communicative role, has not received the attention it deserves. More precisely, drawing on data collected through open role-plays and retrospective interviews, and using rapport management theory (Spencer-Oatey 2005), this study is an attempt to scrutinise Persian speakers’ sympathy expressions in a situation exhibit-ing solidarity between the interlocutors. Results show that by employing 12 distinct strategies, Persian speakers respect behavioural expectations through expressing involvement, empathy and respect in the context of sympa-thising. Also, they respect and mostly enhance their own and the interlocutor’s identity and respectability face. In addition, their interactional goals are strongly relational.

Highlights

Emotion has long been argued to be a phenomenon with human beings (Darwin 1972)
As the expressions of sympathy vary in different cultures and subcultures, when expressing sympathy to interlocutors from different cultures/subcultures, speakers should respect their own norms of interaction and protect/maintain/enhance both their own and the interlocutor’s respectability face and their own and the interlocutor’s identity face (See section 2; SpencerOatey 2005)
Open role-play was prioritised to the methods collecting naturally occurring data since within the scope of the present research, which is to study a specific type of interaction in the same context, it would be extremely difficult to collect the desired data (i. e. sympathy expressions offered to a specific person in the same context by different subjects who each have a specific set of specifications) through naturally occurring talk

Summary

Introduction

The verbal expressions of emotions and the perceptions of them are claimed to vary in different cultures (Matsumoto et al 2002). It is argued that expressions of emotion cannot be considered as a universally constructed phenomenon since they are developed in response to a certain culture portraying unique social complexities (Turner/Stets 2005). The expression of sympathy, which is a linguistic response to someone’s emotion of misery, is different from culture to culture (see Nakajima 2003; Matsumoto et al 2002; Turner/Stets 2005). Intimates get involved with some emotional sensitivities; and expressing sympathy can have a constructive effect if offered appropriately in accordance with the cultural norms and protocols, or a destructive one if it fails to satisfy the socio-cultural expectations. Investigations on the realisation of the speech act of expressing sympa-

Methods

Results

Conclusion