Revisited interpretation of Ta’ārof

Abstract

Speech acts used in doing ta’ārof (Iranian system of politeness) have been conceptualized in terms of both positive (i.e. sincere or genuine) and negative (i.e. ritual or ostensible) meanings. This study aimed to revisit the interpretation of the negative meaning by concentrating on ta’ārof (ritual) offers produced by characters in Iranian films. First, these items were identified and distinguished from their genuine counterparts based on the strategies used in their structures and analysing their contextual features respectively. Then, the researcher proposed a model in which she adopted the notion of Leech’s (1983) meta-implicature (indirect implicature) to explicate the negative meaning of ta’ārof offers. She grouped a series of effective factors in working out these meta-implicatures. Finally, a tentative hierarchy of stages for identification and interpretation of ta’ārof offers in Iranian films were proposed.