Overpoliteness Among the New Generation of Iranian Youth: Ta’ārof and Rudarbāyesti in Focus
摘要
Over-politeness, compared with (im)politeness, among the new generation of youth, who are immensely influenced by technological devices, is an underrepresented topic in interpersonal pragmatics. Drawing upon conversation analysis and theory of (im)politeness as social practice, this chapter examines the ways through which over-politeness is interactionally achieved among the new generation of Iranian youth (mainly university students) in two cases of “ta’ārof” and rudarbāyesti in co-constructed discourse. The data came from 18 h of classroom and campus interactions among 25 male freshmen (ages 18–20) in Farhangian Teacher Education University in Tehran, Iran. The author used conversation analysis (CA) to examine specific interactions developed in co-constructed discourses in young adults’ talks. The results of data analysis revealed the instances in participants’ interactions that afford their evaluations of over-politeness to the social practices. Moreover, the results indicated the factors that are conventionally subject to evaluations of politeness. Moreover, it is demonstrated that the context of the new generation youth interaction is co-constructed by the participants’ evaluative practices, including over-politeness, along with their joint accomplishment of meaning and action. The present study findings have implications for sociolinguists, those interested in Iranian culture and Persian language, and language teachers.