Emotion and sincerity in Persian discourse: accomplishing the representation of inner states

Abstract

This paper deals with the presentation and evocation of emotion in performative face-to-face linguistic communication in Iran. Performance in linguistic communication is shown to involve the speaker's need to convey an impression of his or her own inner states. Since aectivity is one of the most dicult things to convey in face-to-face interaction, it is posited that a person employing successful linguistic performance skills must have a series of strategies available for demonstrating that he or she is truly conveying a speci®c intended emotion. This involves a two-stage process in which the speaker ®rst signals that a message conveys an emotion, then signals the nature of the emotion being conveyed. In order to accomplish this, culturally prescribed symbolic elements are presented by the speaker that must be performed for others to``read'' the emotional content of a communication. Added to the performative skills needed by the speaker is the requirement that the emotion conveyed be perceived as``sincere.'' This paper continues earlier research (Beeman 1986) demonstrating the eectiveness of speakers in Iran in creating the contexts for the interpretation of their own strategic communication. Performance, emotion, and linguisticsFormalist linguistics is greatly hampered in its ability to handle aectivity, because expressions that demonstrate states of human inner feeling are not merely cognitive in nature. They must be performed to be adequately communicated and understood. For this reason, performance is an essential component of emotion in language.

Persian honorifics and im/politeness as social practice

“…According to Beeman (2001), Persian is akin to Japanese in terms of honorifics, but differs from it in that Persian has simple grammatical forms but a very complex morphological system. This complex morphological system makes the Persian language tedious and circumlocutionary, but it is well conventionalized and ritualized.…”

“…Grammatical honorifics in Persian include the use of plural pronoun (plural form of T/V) to address a singular addressee and a referent, plural form of the verb to implicate a singular person to agree with plural (respected) subject, and switching the second person to the third person pronoun to refer to the addressee. These grammatical honorifics are often combined with a rich constellation of lexical honorifics that involve using the deferential alternative of neutral verbs and nouns, to convey the deferential form of the language, which is used to lower the 'self' and elevate the 'other' (Beeman, 1976(Beeman, , 2001Sharifian, 2008) in the form of an extremely hierarchical conversation between a servant and a lord.…”

Politeness in Persian and English Dissertation Acknowledgments

“…Since Persian is a language of Adab (politeness/respect), one may draw upon the schema of "Shekaste-nafsi" to gently evade compliment, so that it does not make the listener feel inferior and also it does not make the speaker feel arrogant. In fact, it is used in line with the policy of "self-lowering and other-raising" (Beeman, 2001, p. 41) which is counted as the manifestation of Adab (politeness/respect) in speech among Persians.…”

The effect of age on cultural schema: The case of Shekaste-nafsi (modesty) in Persian

“…Regarding the literature, there has been a good effort to explicate some cultural schemas among Persian speakers (Assadi 1980;Beeman 1986;Beeman 1988;Beeman 2001;Koutlaki 2002;Sahragard 2003;Németh 2008) or to compare them with their western or eastern counterpart schemas (Asjodi 2001;Eslami 2005;Sharifian, 2005;Salmani-Nodoushan 2006;Sharifian & Jamarani, 2011). For example in her article, Koutlaki (2002) described the nature and practice of a famous Persian verbal ritual for politeness called taa'rof in interpersonal communications.…”