'Self-lowering' and 'other-raising' strategies as reflected in Persian political discourse : implications for ELT

Abstract EN

As two common types of strategies in the Persian politeness system, 'self-lowering' and 'other-raising' forms may be broadly considered as stylistic devices which reflect the speakers' humility, on one hand, and their deference to their interlocutors, on the other hand.

By analyzing some formal political speeches made by a number of former members of Iranian Parliament when they discussing the impeachment of the then-minister of the Iranian 'Ministry of Islamic Culture and Guidance' and the subsequent statements made by him to defend his policies, this paper has identified, categorized, and elaborated on the linguistic forms (i.

e.

, pronominals and verbal expressions, in this case) reflecting each of the above-mentioned politeness strategies in the realm of formal political discourse.

The frequency of occurrence of the exponents bearing on each of the two strategies in question has also been computed.

Finally, as such politeness strategies seem to be language-specific, i.

e.

, unique to the Persian language, the probable implications for the field of TEFL also have been discussed.

Key Words: Theory of politeness, Politeness strategies, Compliments, Self-lowering/Other-raising, Forms of address, Political discourse, ELT