Refusal strategies in Persian

Abstract

This study investigates how Iranian speakers of Persian realize the speech act of refusals to the initiating acts of offers, suggestions, invitations and requests. Two hundred and eight acts of refusals were naturally collected and classified according to the refusal classification scheme proposed by Beebe, Takahashi, and Uliss‐Weltz. The results showed that Iranian Persian speakers employ indirect strategies and a combination of direct and indirect strategies more than direct ones in refusals, in communication with the interactants with whom they have ongoing relationship. ‘Reason’ and ‘gratitude’ were the most frequent strategies in the data. Returning the act was found to be a new strategy. Finally, the socio‐cultural implications of the variety in the production of refusals are discussed.

Appraising and reappraising of compliments and the provision of responses

“…Since Persian speakers are highly sensitive to other's face wants in line with their traditional and conservative culture (if not, they might be accused of being impolite), they do not convey shekasteh-nafsi by directly rejecting or denying a compliment 9 (it is against their cultural schema of adab va ehteram). Direct rejecting is regarded as impolite and embarrassing among Persian speakers (Izadi and Zilaie 2015), and thus, challenges interlocutors' positive face wants. The data indicate that using 'thank you' is an indirect way of rejecting, considering the accompanied second assessment of the first compliment which is mostly 'nonagreement' or 'nonacceptance' .…”

Socio-pragmatic Transfer in Egyptian Refusals

“…The second data collection method was field notes, which is considered the most reliable data collection method in the field of ILP and speech act research (Chamani and Zareipur 2010, Kasper 2000, Wolfson and Manes 1980 as it reflects language as it is actually used in real life situations. Moreover, Wolfson and Manes' (1980) pioneering strategy in collecting ethnographic field notes was followed by a number of researchers who collected ethnographic data on different speech acts such as apologies, refusals, compliments, and compliment responses (i.e., Chamani and Zareipur 2010, Izadi and Zilaie 2015, Shishavan 2016, Mostafa 2015.…”

Emergence of Marked Semantic Formulas in Refusal Strategy Hierarchies

“…At the same time, the insistence from the inviter is expected, while both gratitude and a return of the act on the part of the refuser are usually offered. This complexity of ta"arof makes refusal especially difficult for those who do not understand Persian culture (Izadi & Zilaie 2014).…”

“…The number of studies with relevant data is quite limited. Most of the studies either combine all the semantic formulas (Keshavarz, Eslami & Ghahreman 2006;Hosseini & Talebinezhad 2014;Izadi & Zilaie 2014;Lin 2014) or do not categorize the data based on the situation of an invitation with the appropriate variable of social status (Chen, Ye & Zhang 1995;Liao & Bresnahan 1996;Beckers 1999;Chang 2009;Sahragard & Javanmardi 2011;Ghazanfari, Bonyadi & Malekzadeh 2013;Farashaiyanl & Muthusamy 2017). Given these reasons, the studies for this research are carefully selected, considering their relevance and representativeness.…”