The Study of the Effect of Addressee’s Power and Gender on the Choice of Politeness Strategies in Encouragement Speech Act in Persian

Document Type : مقالات علمی پژوهشی

Authors
A. A. Ahangar 1
S. Mojahedi Rezaeian 2
F. Esfandiarpour 3
1 Professor in Linguistics, University of Sistan and Baluchestan, Zahedan, Iran
2 Ph.D. in Linguistics, University of Sistan and Baluchestan, Zahedan, Iran
3 M. A. in Linguistics, University of Sistan and Baluchestan, Zahedan, Iran
10.52547/LRR.13.2.13
Abstract
The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of the addressee’s power and gender on the choice of the type and number of encouragement strategies employed by Persian male and female university students based on Brown and Levinson’s (1987) theory. A number of 60 M.A. students (30 males and 30 females) from the University of Sistan and Baluchestan participated in this study. Discourse completion test and role play technique were utilized as two data gathering instruments. The data were analyzed using the Chi-square and Independent-T test (p<.05). The results indicated there was a significant relationship between the addressee’s power and the type as well as the number of encouragement strategies employed by male and female university students. The most frequent strategy type was the “negative politeness” giving deference for the addressee with higher power (the professor). As to the number of strategies, the most and less frequent ones were the combination of two and nine strategies, respectively. The addressee’s gender had an effect on the type of the strategies used by male students in three situations; while it didn’t have any effect on the number of strategies used by male students and also on the type and number of strategies employed by female students. The most frequent strategy type used by female students was the “positive politeness” and the combination of three strategies for male and female addressees; by male students: “positive politeness” for male addressees and “negative politeness” and the combination of two strategies for female addressees.





1. Introduction

Interpersonal interactions and how they are formed play a significant role in human social life. One way to interact is through using different speech acts. Many factors can involve in making use of politeness principle in interacting and communicating. In life and social interactions, human beings use various speech acts such as request, agreement, disagreement, swearing, giving advice and encouragement in order to express their meaning. One of the most important and effective theories in pragmatics field is Austin’s speech act theory. He believes that every sentence may have a performative feature and also it has an action within it; therefore, every sentence should be considered within its context (Austin, 1962). Employing the speech acts depends on various factors such as language characteristics and socio-cultural frameworks. Among these factors, politeness is one of the crucial factors in interpersonal communications in different societies and cultures. Politeness can be represented in various aspects of behavior based on the factors such as the addressee’s social status, power, and gender in using speech acts. One of the most widely used speech acts among their various range in interpersonal interactions is the encouragement speech act. If this speech act is appropriately used in the right context, it will have important effects on relations between individuals as well as on saving face based on power and gender of the addressee. Thus based on what is mentioned and according to the importance and impact of the encouragement speech act in every person’s social life, the type and number of encouragement strategies and the effect of the addressee’s power and gender on the use of this speech act by Persian language male and female university students can be investigated and analyzed based on Brown and Levinson’s (1987) politeness theory. The research data were gathered via two data collection tools including discourse completion test (DCT) and role-play technique. The hypotheses of the present study are as follows:

1. Due to the addressee’s power, there is a significant difference in the useage of the type of encouragement speech act strategies among Persian-speaking male and female university students.

2. Due to the addressee’s power, there is a significant difference in the usage of the number of encouragement speech act strategies among Persian-speaking male and female university students

3. Due to the addressee’s gender, there is a significant difference in the usage of the type of encouragement speech act strategies among Persian-speaking male and female university students.

4. Due to the addressee’s gender, there is a significant difference in the usage of the number of encouragement speech act strategies among Persian-speaking male and female university students.



2. Literature Review

By considering linguistic, cultural, and social characteristics of language, different speech acts have been examined by many researchers. Rahimpour and Yaghubi Noutash (1999) investigated the impact of gender and subject on speech act in English language learners. Amou Ali Akbari Najafabadi (2007) has conducted a research to examine the Social-interpersonal power and politeness strategies in Persian. Pishgadam and Rasouli (2011) examined the persuasion speech act strategies among Iranian language learners by considering speaker’s gender. Zeynali Dastuyee (2012) studied the effect of addressee’s power and gender on the type and number of apology and refusal strategies employed by Sarawani university students. Shafaghi (2013) investigated the promise speech act and the use of promise in political discourse. Pishghadam and Attaran (2015) studied the speech act of argumentation in English and Persian advertisements. Azarparand (2019) has investigated changes in addressing strategies based on Brown and Levinson's Politeness theory. This case study research has been conducted in Tehran University among Iranian lecturers and students.



3. Methodology

In the present study, the effect of the gender and power of addressee variables on the choice of politeness strategies in encouragement speech act in Persian language is investigated. This study is a descriptive-analytical research. A number of 60 M.A. students (30 males and 30 females) from the University of Sistan and Baluchestan participated in this study. Their age was ranged from 23 to 34 years old. They had an average age of 25 years. All subjects were randomly selected, were monolingual, and Persian-speaking postgraduate students who were studying in different fields of study. Discourse completion test (DCT) and role play technique were utilized as two data gathering devices. The questionnaire which was used in the study was a researcher-made one. The data were analyzed using Chi-square test, Analysis of variance (ANOVA), and Independent T-test.



4. Results

The present study examined the encouragement speech act based on two determining variables including the power and the gender of the addressee in different contexts. The findings of the study show that the addressee’s power can be an important and effective factor in the selection of the type and number of the encouragement strategies. The most frequent strategy type is the “negative politeness” strategy. In addition, the addressee’s power has an effect on the number of the encouragement strategies employed by male and female university students. As the power of the addressee increases, the use of more complex strategies becomes more and simple strategies are utilized in dealing with the addressee with low power. As to the number of the strategies, the most frequent and less frequent ones are the combination of two and nine strategies respectively. The results also indicate that the gender of the addressee affects the type of the encouragement strategies used by male university students while, it doesn’t affect the number of strategies used by male students. It also doesn’t have any effect on the type and number of the strategies used by female university students. Also, data analysis reveals that there is no significant relationship between the addressee’s gender and the number of the encouragement strategies. In other words, the addressee’s gender has no effect on the number of the encouragement strategies used by male and female university students

Keywords

Subjects

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Language Related Research
Volume 13, Issue 2 - Serial Number 68
May and June 2022
Pages 401-434