Developing intercultural competence in the foreign language classroom: The case of the Persian politeness system, ta’ārof

Abstract

In the age of globalisation and multiculturalism, the need for developing students’ competence in intercultural communication in foreign language classes, including those of South West Asia and North Africa (i.e. the SWANA region), is steadily growing. This issue becomes especially important in the context of East-West relations, which have recently been marked by plural, intersecting geo-political tensions. This paper explores the problem of developing the pragmatic and intercultural competence of Ukrainian students, specifically in the Persian language – especially as regards the corresponding multifaceted cultural system, ta’ārof. It seems that without knowledge of this system, successful communication between non-native Persian speakers and native Persian speakers is impossible. Ta’ārof includes a broad, complex of behaviours permeating Iran’s social and cultural life, and is used for both marking differences in social status and harmonising the communications of speakers/listeners who are equal in social status. Methodologically, in this study the communication behaviours of Persian speakers is analysed based on the theory of speech acts, in particular as interpreted by Brown and Levinson (1987), respectively the American and British founders of the linguistic politeness theory whereby individuals can either ‘lose face’ or ‘save face’. The current research, however, finds that some speech acts identified by these Western researchers as ‘face-threatening’ are not when understood via the Persian politeness system.