The Effect of Expectation of Compliance on the Preferred Request Strategy

Cross-cultural and Situational Variation in Iranian and American Speech Communities

Bibliographic Data

ID12059079
AuthorsParisa Abdolrezapour (0000-0002-1008-5218, University of Isfahan, corresponding author)
Year2012
Volume32
Issue3
Pages383-404
Publication date2012-08-09
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueAustralian Journal of Linguistics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0726-8602 • E-ISSN: 1469-2996
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/07268602.2012.705580
OpenAlexW1981980371
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited39

This study examines one type of directives—requests—and analyses the (socio-) pragmatic variation in two socio-cultural contexts—i.e. Persian and American—with regards to expectations of compliance and preferred request strategies when requesting in four different social situations. The main focus of the study is on perceptive data elicited from both interlocutors (i.e. the requestor and the requestee) when they use such strategies. Role-play interactions, stimulated recall procedure and questionnaires based on the interactions were used to collect the required data from 45 American and 55 Iranian native speakers. As for indirectness, a cross-cultural comparison revealed that conventionally indirect requests are the preferred strategy in these two cultures. Also, the results of the questionnaires showed that more indirect strategies resulted in more certainty of compliance in both cultures. However, the perception of social power and social distance variables differed in these cultures. Whereas, the Americans were more influenced by the social distance between the interlocutors, the Iranians were more concerned with the social power of the requestee than the Americans

Compliance (psychology · Cross-cultural · Linguistics · Situational ethics · Sociology · Variation (astronomy · Anthropology · Digital Communication and Language · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies · Psychology · Psychology of Social Influence · Social Psychology