Cross-generational Perceptions of Impoliteness of Refusals among Native Speakers of Persian

Impoliteness is a part of social interaction and its interpretation depends on the context and the utterance. Every verbal and non-verbal act that causes interruption in interaction and social disharmony results in impoliteness. Despite the importance of impoliteness, few studies have investigated the perceptions of impoliteness across generations. To fill this gap, this study aimed to explore impoliteness in the production of refusals and the perceptions of impoliteness across different generations. Sixty native speakers of Persian from different generations, ranging in age from 13 to 55, participated in this study: teenagers aged 13-19, young people aged 20-35, and middle-aged people aged 36-55. A discourse completion task (DCT) consisting of 8 scenarios of refusal and the response to each was given to them, and they were asked to rate each of the DCT responses on a five-point scale and give comments on the reasons for its impoliteness. The results of the frequency counts revealed the differences among the generations in the selections of impoliteness criteria which will be discussed. For instance, the answers of the teenagers to most of the situations were not at all impolite . Moreover, young people believed that the answers to the situations were tosome extent impolite , and finally middle-aged people considered the situations both not atall impolite and to some extent impolite . The present study also revealed that age can be considered significant factors for evaluating the degree of impoliteness reflected in speech act production

کلیدواژه ها:

Impoliteness ، DCT ، Cross-generation ، Persian Speakers ، Refusal