Iran has been at the centre of international controversies since 1979 when the Islamic Republic of Iran was established. The controversial issues that Iran is associated with include its involvement in nuclear programme and the violation of human rights in Iran. Iranian politicians are often criticised for the Iranian government’s non-conformity with Human Rights Council and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). In this study we examine what strategies or non-replies Iranian politicians employ to respond to interviewers’ face-threatening questions. The data consist of thirty political interviews conducted from 2001 to 2015 with a total of twelve hours of talk involving journalists working for western broadcasting companies and Iranian politicians collected from YouTube packaged for public consumption. It was explored that Iranian politicians employed eight kinds of superordinate non-replies to avoid answering the interviewers’ face-threatening questions to save, protect or enhance their face. The findings of this study can shed light on the avoidance strategies of Iranian politicians.

Good interpersonal communication between tourists and tourism service providers contributes to positive word-of-mouth among tourists. If this basic need is not fulfilled by tourism service providers, disappointed tourists will not hesitate to share their negative experience and express their negative feelings with others either face-to-face or in virtual communities via travel websites. The present study examined tourists’ online reviews by focusing on 275 negative evaluations of interpersonal communication with tourism service providers. The study found that issues related to interpersonal communication in service encounters could be categorized in three major categories of synchronous communication, asynchronous communication and non-verbal communication. Based on these findings, the study proposed four communicative activities i.e. role-play, problem solving, story-telling and group project activities to be conducted in English for tourism classes to help consolidate students’ English language competency and better prepare them for their careers in tourism.