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Thanking expressions in Persian: Frequency, combination and gender-linked differences
The present study is a research into the frequency, combination and gender-linked differences in thanking forms and strategies in Persian. The investigation is based on a corpus of 450 naturally occurring tha...

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Thanking expressions in Persian: Frequency, combination and genderlinked differences

By: Zahra Farajnezhad

Thanking expressions in Persian: Frequency, combination and gender-linked differences

Abstract The present study is a research into the frequency, combination and gender-linked differences in thanking forms and strategies in Persian. The investigation is based on a corpus of 450 naturally occurring thanking exchanges, collected through an ethnographic method of observation. The results revealed that (1) Four explicit expression of thanking (Kheyli mamnoon, Daste shoma dard nakone, Merci, moteshakkeram) was the most common thanking strategies in Persian; (2) People thank more in return for getting/taking something than for others actions and they use single forms rather than larger stretches; and (3) Males use more nonstandard forms of thanking than females do; however, preferences for using these forms seem to be culture-specific. Key words: thanking, common form, gender, difference, preferences

Introduction One of the speech acts that has long attracted the attention of scholars dealing with social and cultural patterns in language is thanking. Recent research has underscored the importance of gratitude to psychological and physical wellbeing, and has shown that gratitude can help facilitate the development of close relationships (Cameron 2010). A substantial amount of research has been carried out on the analysis of expressions of gratitude in informal, everyday speech. These expressions are traditionally seen as speech acts and politeness markers. Communicative acts or simply speech acts have proved to be one of the attractive areas in pragmatics and sociolinguistics. With a more inclusive view of speech as a

form of communication, one may start with the analysis of speech act in terms of its components or the functions. An interesting point about Iranian society today is that it is highly multiethnic. The present study is an attempt to explore the realization of thanking speech act and to examine the frequency, combination and gender differences of thanking strategies in Persian to see how the universality of thanking should be treated in this language. I consider the pedagogical implications of the way this function can be acquired in a second/foreign language with the help of the findings.

Literature review Froh, Yurkewicz and Kashdan (2008) Examined gratitude among 154 students to identify benefits from its experience and expression. Students completed measures of subjective wellbeing, social support, prosocial behavior, and physical symptoms. Positive associations were found between gratitude and positive affect, global and domain specific life satisfaction, optimism, social support, and prosocial behavior; most relations remained even after controlling for positive affect. They concluded: “Gratitude demonstrated a negative relation with physical symptoms, but not with negative affect. Relational fulfillment mediated the relation between gratitude and physical symptoms. Gratitude demonstrated strong relations with the following positive affects: proud, hopeful, inspired, forgiving, and excited. The relation between gratitude and family support was moderated by gender, indicating that boys, compared with girls, appear to derive more social benefits from gratitude.” In another study Jan Pedersen (2009) investigated the Sweden society and observed how they thank one another. He found that in Sweden people thank each other a lot and the reasons for this are partly linguistic, as the Swedish tack (thank) is different from e.g. English thanks. It encompasses both the meaning of ‘thanks’, and that of ‘please’. More interestingly, he found that there are cultural reasons for this.

“For ethnic Swedes, there are some higher-order cultural scripts, such as equality, self-sufficiency, consensus seeking and conflict avoidance, which make people say tack a lot in order to show that they agree, and in order not to be indebted to other people. For ethnic Swedes, it is culturally important to pay your way, to return favors to retain the equilibrium between individuals. If this practice is not observed, the equilibrium is disturbed, and you end up in a debt of gratitude, which can be very unpleasant for an ethnic Swede. This means that s/he thinks that s/he loses her independence and the equilibrium between him/her and the other person. This may result in ethnic Swedes seeming inhospitable.” Therefore thanking exchanges seem to play a pivotal role among folks of the society absence of which may harm the fundamental role relationships. Aijmer (1996) distinguishes between simple and intensified thanks/thank you. The intensified thanking expressions occur in nearly half of her examples. The act of thanking is typically boosted by intensifying adverbs e.g. thanks/thank you very much (indeed), thank you so much, thanks awfully, thanks a lot, etc. Thanking can also be intensified with what Aijmer calls ‘‘compound thanks’’, i.e. ‘‘combinations of different thanking strategies’’. For instance, speakers can express appreciation of the addressee (e.g. thank you, that’s nice of you), or they can express appreciation of the act (e.g. thank you, that’s lovely). All of these strategies can be combined with each other and the thanking expression itself to create an almost infinite number of thanking forms. Koutlaki (2002) in his research started with a review of Goffman’s notion of face and its reformulation by Brown and Levinson in their politeness theory. She then described some aspects of social organization in Iranian society that have a direct bearing on the analysis of Persian face, which consists of two interrelated aspects, shakhsiat (pride) and ehteram (honour). Using data from two recorded, casual conversations and interviews with native speakers, Koutlaki focused on offers and expressions of thanks, the main manifestations of Persian ritual politeness (ta’arof) and demonstrated how considerations for both aspects of face and for both interlocutors are the underlying factors in managing polite communication in Persian.

There are many gender-link differences in different areas of language all over the globe. Much research has been dedicated to the differences between men and women’s styles of speech. Because one aim of this study is to find out the differences between women’s patterns of thanking and that of men I allocated part of the literature review to gender-related issues. Reid’s findings (1995) indicate that there are some gender differences in speech at discourse level between same sex pairs, the analysis of mixed pairs indicates that this is neutralized by linguistic convergence, a concept of the Interpersonal Accommodation Theory. Michiko Yaguchi, Yoko Iyeiri, Yasumasa Baba (2009)explored the sociolinguistic functions of adjectivemodifying very and real/really, intensifiers commonly used in American English speech, through examining their distribution in the Corpus of Spoken Professional American English (CSPAE). It is proposed that the distribution of very and real/really characterizes the nature of American English public speech: “in expository speech frequent use of very and rare appearance of real/really is observed, whereas in exploratory talk real/really appears relatively frequently. Also, it is demonstrated that frequent use of real/really in the predication position marks the style of exploratory talk. Gender distinctions in regard to the use of these intensifiers show that in women’s speech patterns, real/really is amply used and very and real/really frequently appear in the predicative position, compared with the speech patterns of their male colleagues.” Wardhaugh (2006:322) sets out a list of what she calls ‘sociolinguistic universal tendencies’: 1. Women and men develop different patterns of language use. 2. Women tend to focus on affective functions of an interaction more often than men do. 3. Women tend to use linguistic devices that stress solidarity more often than men do. 4. Women tend to interact in ways which will maintain and increase solidarity, while men tend to interact in ways which will maintain and increase their power and status. 5. Women are stylistically more flexible than men.

Method and data collection It has been suggested that the data obtained through observation seem to be more representative of the language used in natural settings. As a preliminary step, it seems sensible to observe as wide a range of situations as possible to obtain some idea of the range of thanking strategies that are used, their frequency, combination and position. This study is based on a corpus of 450 thanking exchanges, in spoken Persian, collected through an ethnographic approach to observation, with the data written down rather than recorded. The data were produced by interlocutors of different genders, ages and social classes. Since collecting thanking in natural settings is time-consuming and as there is a risk that enough samples may not be collected during a specific period of time, the author decided to use the help of some assistants in data collection. It was made sure the assistants were familiar with, and interested enough in the subject to follow the data collection procedures precisely. Two volunteers, an MA in translation studies and an MA in ELT, helped with data collection. They were briefed in advance. The author informed them that they were going to investigate how Persian speakers thank in everyday life situations and, more specifically, what words they use to make thanking. For example, what would they say when they want to thank in return for getting something or somebody’s help? Then, they were asked to note down the dialogues containing common thanking expressions in Persian in some forms prepared beforehand. These forms consisted of three parts including demographic information about interlocutors (gender, age, education, and occupation), contextual details (where, when, who thanks to whom, and why), and the exact words of the actual conversations. The observers were advised to write down the exact words used in the thanking exchanges spontaneously. The researcher and their assistants were taking notes of thanking exchanges in everyday life situations like home, workplace, university, shop, street, outdoors, and even on the bus or taxi during a period of over two months. The observers had to wait until thankings were performed to write them down.

Analysis and results The results show that Persian speakers employ a wide variety of thanking expressions. It includes almost 37 different forms that is a large number compared to forms used in English. But there are certain forms which compose the largest proportion of data: A. Mamnoon/ mamnoonam/ xeyli mamnoon B. Daste shoma dard nakone/ dastetun dard nakone C. Merci (merci) D. Moteshakker/ moteshakkeram The table below summaries the percentages of the each work for which people thank.

type

percentage

Getting something

64

Asking for information

17

Benefiting from something

19

Table (1) percentage of each work for which people thank

As the table shows, more than half of the thanks (64) in the corpus were performed because of getting something from someone while the fewest thanks were done for asking for information from someone. In addition, it might be interesting to note that 44% of thanking forms were exchanged between strangers, 31% between friends, and 25% between intimates. That is, thanking is more required when both interlocutors are strangers while two intimates may not need to thank very often or thanking may appear more in non-verbal mode like nodding or a sort of gesturing which indicate their gratitude. With regard to stretch of discourse thanking expression fall into three categories of: 

Single word

A: Excuse me, could you close the window? B: Yes, of course A: Mamnoon (thanks)



Single sentence

A: Can you give me a hand with this box? B: Sure. C: Lotf Kardin ( It was nice of you)



Larger forms

A: I wonder if you give me a ride. I’m in a hurry. B: No problem

A: Kheyli Mamnun, Zahmat Keshidin, Enshallah jobraan konam( Thank you so much, You did really a favor, I’ll make it up to you)

Larger forms included at least two single words/sentences with usually an expression of compensation (ishalla jobraan konam: I’ll make it up to you)

Thanking type

percentage

single word

57

Single sentence

31

Larger forms (combined)

12

Table (2) categories of thanking in terms of stretch of discourse

As the table(2) shows within 450 thanking exchanges analyzed in this study, single word form with 256 times of occurrences was the most common form in the corpus (57%).On the other hand, larger forms as the least frequent thanking form was used 54 times (12%). It should be noted that context seems to play an important role in the selection of form in Persian; depending on the nature and the context of the work deserving thanking, formality of situation, the relation between interlocutors (relative power and social distance), Persian speakers may use different forms to thank. In formal settings, for instance, the interlocutors try to thank more but not with a casual tone. Combined forms used in situations which the speaker has received a great favor. This does not mean that using single forms is impolite but the larger forms of thanking seem to be more impressive. As expected, a small portion of data was composed of some foreign/borrowed thanking forms like thanks/ thank you. With regard to these expressions, once borrowed into the recipient language these terms lose much of their speech act potential. That is, they do not supplant native (inherited) terms for expressing the speech acts of thanking. This is consistent with Terkourafi ‘s work which investigates the semantic/interactional import of three expressions, ‘thank you’, ‘sorry,’ and ‘please,’ when these are borrowed from English into other languages.

“Borrowed politeness markers are generally ranked lower than inherited ones in terms of both their appropriateness to be used in formal settings, and their ability to convey the sincerity of the feeling expressed. Negotiation of sensitive topics would seem to call for greater speaker commitment and the use of native (inherited) terms: when the stakes are high, borrowed politeness simply does not cut it.” Regarding the gender-linked differences the findings show that males use much more nonstandard forms of thanking (like damet garm, damet gheij, and etc.) than females do.

male

female

Standard

41

59

Non standard

64

36

Table (3) percentage of the use of standard/non-standard forms by each sex

The explanations for these differences can be categorized as belonging to either the 'dominance approach' or the 'difference approach' Wardhaugh (2006). Proponents of the dominance approach interpret the differences as reflecting male dominance and female subordination, while those who support the difference approach attribute the variation in communicative competence to different but equal 'sub-cultures' or 'genderlects'. It has been argued that the difference between men and women’s speech patterns is a cultural difference. Under the difference approach it has been claimed that men base their conversational style on competitiveness, while women base theirs on cooperativeness. A more recent theory argues that in order to get a holistic view of gender "difference and dominance should be seen as simultaneously composing the construct of gender". (Kubota 2003)

Pedagogical implications, limitations, and suggestions for further research Expressions of gratitude often occur as functional lexical chunks such as those given (Kheyli Mamnoon, Merci, Daste shoma dard nakone and etc.) Recent research has illustrated the key role of formulaic sequences in language-teaching context. Wong (2010) focused on the use of such units and longer formulaic sequences of gratitude such as thanks a lot and thank you very much, relying on data from the Hong Kong component of the International Corpus of English (ICE-HK). As Schmitt and Carter (2004:10) point out, it is important for learners to use formulaic sequences appropriately in their conversations with native speakers since ‘‘interlocutors expect them, and they are the preferred choice. Formulaic sequences are not only useful for efficient language usage; they are essential for appropriate language use’’. They assert that the job of the language learner is to learn these familiar word sequences based on the assumption that ‘‘speaking natively is speaking idiomatically using frequent and familiar collocations’’ Findings of the present study may be helpful to the learners of Persian who need to know the popular forms of thanking as well as the situations in which these forms may be used to communicate effectively and appropriately in Persian. Moreover, the results of this study may be compared and contrasted with that of similar studies on other languages with the aim of discovering similarities and differences in the realization of thanking across languages in order to promote Persian learners to be cautious about inappropriate transferring of these norms to target language, which may lead to misunderstandings in cross-cultural communication. As mentioned earlier, the present study was based on a corpus of naturally-occurring thanking exchanges collected through written observation. Certainly, it was more desirable if the data were taperecorded because in this way suprasegmental features of speech sounds, as an important aspect of thanking exchange, were available. Nonetheless, the study provides a useful source of information on the range of thanking expressions.

Conclusion The present study was aimed at exploring and describing thanking expressions in spoken Persian, based on a corpus of 450 thanking exchanges. The results indicated that Persian speakers employ a wide range of forms but thank through certain forms more than others.

Therefore, it seems that in Persian, thanking forms are as formulaic as in other investigated languages, yet preferences for using these forms seem to be culture-specific. Cross-cultural differences are closely tied to the Persian way of thanking. That is, different cultures have shown significant differences between the ways in which gratitude was expressed. The results confirm previous findings supporting the scholars who emphasize the culturespecific aspect of language. Beside the main results other interesting findings appeared in the course of this study which need more investigation.  A tendency for young women to sound like men ( young women use ‘damet garm’ that typically belong to men)  lesser response to thanking (like you’re welcome or It’s all right) by men in cross-gender conversations  Specific forms belonging to specific folks (for instance ‘ajrakomollah’ used only with clergymen)

References 1) Aijmer, Karin. (1996). Conversational Routines in English. Longman, London. 2) Cameron, L. (2010). Have you thanked your spouse today?: Felt and expressed gratitude among married couples. Personality and Individual Differences 50 (2011) 339–343 3) Froh, J, Yurkewicz C, and Kashdan, T (2009). Gratitude and subjective well-being in early adolescence: Examining gender differences. Journal of adolescence, 32 (2009) 633-650 4) Koutlaki, S.A (2002). Offers and expressions of thanks as face enhancing acts: ta’arof in Persian. Journal of Pragmatics, 34 (2002) 1733–1756 5) Kubota, R. (2003). New approaches to gender, class, and race in second language writing. Journal of Second Language Writing, 12 (2003) 31–47 6) Pedersen, J. (2009). The different Swedish tack: An ethnopragmatic investigation of Swedish thanking and related concepts. Journal of pragmatics,...