Directness vs. Indirectness: A Study of the Linguistic Choices of Persian Speakers When Giving Advice

Abstract

Considering lack of research in communication style in Persian and drawing upon Tannen’s conversational style theory (1984), this study aimed at investigating the degree of indirectness in Persian by focusing on the giving-advice speech act. To this end, the data were collected through a multiple choice Discourse Completion Test (DCT), developed and designed by the researchers. The results indicated that, except for gender, other variables such as age, status, and social distance of the interlocutors had a significant effect on the linguistic choices of the participants and on their directness score. The findings, thus confirmed the efficacy of Tannen’s conversational style theory in justifying the functions of indirectness in Persian.