Indirect Complaint as an Act of Rapport-Inspiring Speech Behavior: The Case of Iranian Students in the University Context

Salimi, Esmaeel Ali; Khazaee Kouhpar, Meysam

doi:10.22077/ali.2023.6612.1019

Indirect Complaint as an Act of Rapport-Inspiring Speech Behavior: The Case of Iranian Students in the University Context

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Esmaeel Ali Salimi ¹

Meysam Khazaee Kouhpar ²

¹ Associate Professor in Applied Linguistics, Department of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Persian Literature and Foreign Languages, Allameh Tabataba'i University, Tehran, Iran

² PhD Candidate in Teaching English as a Foreign Language, Department of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Persian Literature and Foreign Languages, Allameh Tabataba’i University, Tehran, Iran

10.22077/ali.2023.6612.1019

Abstract

Indirect complaints (ICs) most often serve as rapport-inspiring speech behavior, whose affiliation by the recipient of complaint preserves solidarity among peers. The purpose of the present paper was to investigate the themes and response strategies used by Iranian students as an act of IC in the university context. Drawing on a mixed methods research design, the result of a thorough thematic analysis of the collected conversational data revealed that the themes Iranian students tend to use as an IC are not independent of their gender. In addition, two new IC response strategies were identified, namely attribution and admonishment. Hence, in order to account for all of the strategies used by Iranian students to respond to ICs, the existing categorizations are to be expanded. It was also discovered that only through explicit or embedded commiseration there is more potential of longer interactions among participants of conversations. The present study sheds some light on the pragmatics of the Persian language.

Keywords

Indirect complaint

IC themes

IC response strategies

Rapport-inspiring speech behavior

Speech act of complaint

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