The speech acts of "offer" and "refusal" in the communicative behavior of Persian native speakers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.17721/1728-242X.2022.28.17-24

Abstract

The ethno-specific functioning of the speech acts of "offer" and "refusal" in the Persian-speaking communicative space is analysed. The division into positive and negative face, offered within the theory of linguistic politeness by sociolinguists P. Brown and S. Levinson is specifically applied in the context of the Persian politeness system ta'ārof, which is of fundamental importance for understanding the communicative behavior of Persian native speakers. This is due to differences in some cultural values in Western and Oriental societies, in particular, the collectivist nature of Iranian society, where the interests of the community prevail over the interests of an individual. The high context of Persian linguistic culture is demonstrated by the fact that offers and refusals, qualified by the theory of linguistic politeness as face-threatening acts (FTA), are not perceived by Persian native speakers as those, since they are used as means of expressing politeness and contribute to the harmonization of relations between communicators. Special attention is paid to the analysis of ritual or ostensible offers and invitations, which are not supposed to be accepted immediately, but should demonstrate care and respect to the interlocutor. Ignorance of the rules of communication or neglecting these may cause the loss of speaker's face before his interlocutor. Refusals, like offers and invitations, can also be real or ostensible. The article considers only ostensible refusals, which in Persian cultural complex ta'ārof serve as means of face-works and are regarded as integral parts of polite communication. It is thought that initially any offer or invitation should be rejected to demonstrate thus the readiness to follow the appropriate social convention, with any offer to be accepted only after tenacious insisting from the initiator's side. The refusal should be done in a gentle and reasonable way to avoid threatening the addressee's face. Meanwhile, not-native speakers of Persian may regard ostensible speech acts as imposing and hypocritical, since their true motivation is hidden from direct observation. Sometimes even native Iranians can hardly distinguish between real speech acts and ostensible ones. Therefore, a careful study of the specifics of their functioning is the key to successful intercultural communication with them. The analysis of offers and refusals functioning in various Oriental communicative cultures reveals many common features, which may provide remarkable perspectives for comparative researches in this field.