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The present article is intended to investigate the face making/ threatening linguistic behaviors of the characters in Pellekan, a play by Akbar Radi, based on the Terkourafi’s model (2008) which divides linguistic behaviors into five categories of unmarked politeness, marked politeness, impoliteness, unmarked rudeness and marked rudeness. Its effort focuses on specifying the most frequently used linguistic behavior in the play, finding the dominant linguistic behavior of the superior characters as well as determining how the main character behaves /is behaved in superior/inferior positions. The findings based on the research data show the prevalence of the marked rudeness in Pellekan; there is no tendency on the part of the superior characters to save and construct the inferiors’ faces which are threatened by the frequent use of marked rudeness on purpose. The Linguistic behaviors of the inferior characters are more varied and they make use of unmarked rudeness more than the other linguistic behaviors. Furthermore, the main character’s linguistic behavior, moving from inferiority to superiority, changes from impoliteness to marked rudeness; the more superior position he occupies the more his use of marked rudeness will be.

1. Introduction

Pellekan is a play by Akbar Radi, one of the most famous playwrights of Iran, wherein the reader is encountered with “clear-cut faces of close and distant relatives” (Radi, 2000, qtd. in Talebi, 2003, p.49). Moving from the lower-class of the society to the upper-class, Bolbol’s language behavior changes ostensibly which merits scholarly attention. It is investigated based on Terkourafi’s (2008) model which discriminates among different language behaviors, namely: unmarked politeness, marked politeness, impoliteness, unmarked rudeness, marked rudeness. In marked and unmarked politeness, face construction is the focus of the attention; in impoliteness face threatening is accidental whereas in marked and unmarked rudeness face threats are regarded as intentional. It is hypothesized that the linguistic behaviors of the characters are tended toward rudeness in general and to the marked one in particular. The more the main character goes up the ladder of power and wealth the more he is willing to be markedly rude.

  Research Question(s)

1.         Which linguistic behavior is more predominant in Pellekan?

2.         How the superior and inferior characters are differ in terms of linguistic behaviors?

3.         How is the main character treated in inferiority positions and how he treats others when he goes up the ladder to superiority?

 

2. Literature Review

Literary texts are the main venue to represent characters in interaction and in fact it is this part that drew most attention. Brown and Levinson’ Literary texts are the main venue to represent characters in interaction and in fact it is this part that drew most attention. Brown and Levinson’s theory of politeness (1978, 1987) was adopted in Brown and Gilman (1989), Jucker (2016, Bouchara (2009), Rossen-Knill (2011), Chun and Yun (2010), Chikogu (2009), Simpson (2005) and …Culpeper (1998, p. 83) believes that “impoliteness generates the disharmony and conflict between characters which generates audience interest and often moves the plot forward”. Furthermore he (2005 and 2011) contended that impoliteness was committed to amuse and interest the audience. Chapman and Clark (2014) have focused on pragmatic stylistics in films. They were mainly concerned with impoliteness as a linguistic means of characterization, plot developments and characters’ intentions. In Persian, Rafie-Sakhaei focused on characters dialogues in Iranian plays based on Brown and Levinson’s politeness theory. Investigating (im)politeness among in the Persian youngsters’ novels, Rahmani et. al. (2016) concluded that the youth characters made more use of impoliteness strategies among peers and of politeness strategies in talking with other characters. Namvar (2019) focused on verbal impoliteness patterns in Madaraneh with Culpeper discourse theory framework. Mahmoodi Bakhtiari et. al. (2016) found negative impoliteness as the dominant linguistic impoliteness pattern in Sayyadan. Rahmani (2018) studied characters reactions to impoliteness based on Bousfield (2008) impoliteness model and found out that men and powerful characters react more offensively, while women and less powerful characters react defensively.

 

3. Methodology

3.1. Terkourafi’s Division of Linguistic Behavior

Terkourafi defines unmarked politeness as making use of an expression in a context in which face constituting behavior is expected. “It constitutes the addressee’s face (and, through that, the speaker’s face) directly – that is, without first recognizing the speaker’s intention” (Terkourafi, 2008, p. 69). She defines unmarked rudeness as a conventionalized expression which is face-threatening. “It threatens the addressee’s face (and thereby constitutes the speaker’s face) directly – that is, without first recognizing the speaker’s intention” (Ibid.p. 70). Marked politeness “occurs when the expression used is not conventionalized relative to the context of occurrence; it constitutes the addressee’s face (and, through that, the speaker’s face) following recognition of the speaker’s face constituting intention by the hearer” (Ibid.). Terkourafi’s marked rudeness or rudeness proper is an intentional face-threatening expression or action perceived by the hearer and which is not conventionalized to the context. It threatens the addressee’s face as well as the speaker’s face. In her definition of impoliteness the addressee’s face (hence that of the speaker) is threatened unintentionally.

 

3-2. Method

The dialogues of the play are investigated to find out each character’s frequencies of the linguistic behaviors identified by Terkourafi, and then they are inserted in special tables prepared for this purpose. In order to specify the dominant linguistic behaviors of the characters in inferior and superior positions, those dialogues were chosen wherein a participant was either in power position. Their relative frequencies were inserted in different tables. Using the data in the tables, the questions are answered. 

 

4. Results

After investigating Pellekan based on Terkourafi’s (2008) model of linguistic behavior, it was found out that the characters made use of marked rudeness more than the other types (marked rudeness=47, unmarked rudeness=26, marked politeness =7, impoliteness=6 and one unmarked politeness). Generally, the superior characters’ dominant linguistic behavior is marked rudeness while those of the inferior characters are more varied, still with an inclination toward unmarked rudeness. The characters in inferior positions made use of unmarked rudeness when they are encountered with their superiors’ marked rudeness. Their use of marked politeness behavior is an indication of their inclination to construct their superiors’ face. The dominant linguistic behavior of the protagonist of the play is impoliteness in inferior position and the more he goes up the ladder to power, the more his linguistic behavior tends towards marked rudeness.

Keywords: (un)marked politeness, impoliteness, (un)marked rudeness, Face, Terkourafi, Pellekan

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