Variation of Politeness Strategies among the Iranian Students

Abstract

The present study examined certain politeness strategies (bald on record, positive politeness, negative politeness, off-record and don’t do face threatening act) used by the Iranian students in their interactions with university service providers in the library, computer lab and restaurant contexts based on Brown & Levinson's (1987) politeness theory. In order to elicit the strategies, 177 students at Ilam University were exposed to five scenarios with multiple options representing different strategies of politeness. The result indicated the participants' insistence on self-serving goals. Negative and positive politeness strategies were the most frequent ones, but indirect strategy was the least favored one applied by the students and only a minor portion of students chose avoidance of face threatening act strategy. Examining the effect of gender on the politeness strategy use, the findings revealed statistically significant differences between male and female respondents in three scenarios. Further, the respondents' mother tongue was not found as a determining factor in the kind of politeness strategies the Iranian respondents would adopt.