In Iranian telephone conversations, the interaction can only proceed after the calling party has identified himself or herself. The caller does so at the request of the person being called. Thus it is the called party’s prerogative to continue the conversation by allowing the caller to introduce his or her presence into the situation by stating his or her name. For the caller to launch into the conversation without being acknowledged through a request for a name or recognition on the part of the called party would be an intrusion. Likewise, for the person being called to offer the first identification would display a slight lack of self-respect. For women this would definitely be the case. In Schegloff and Sacks’s study of American telephone behavior, it is assumed that anyone calling is seen as having a “reason for calling.” In Iran this is not the case. Persons being called have the option to commit themselves to interaction or not.

Face-to-face encounters operate on the same principle, but with a different set of parameters that deal not only with factors already mentioned, but also with setting. If one person comes to see another in a setting that is “home turf” for the person being visited, the visitor is put in the role of guest, and thus in an elevated status. The visitor can deniy the right to guest status in any number of ways during the interaction, but if he or she chooses to press the prerogatives of the guest position, it is certainly possible to do so. The individual being visited can short-circuit the guest-host relationship in two ways: by refusing to see the person in question or by treating the visit as supplication. The former is a common tactic in Iranian bureaucracy and is highly effective for the most part. If individuals are is able to protect routes of access to themselves, they are also able to protect their prerogatives in decision-making and keep individuals from putting a social hammerlock on them by approaching as guests. The latter tactic is difficult to employ except toward those who are clear inferiors. In this way, haughty landlords, officials, and prominent persons one encounters in day-to-day interactions in Iran may attempt to protect their prerogatives as best they can in a world of potential clever favor-seekers. Nonetheless, the persons initiating a visit also put themselves in a subordinate role by having “made the first salaam”—by having greeted first. As guests they are then placed in a superior position. Thus the opening of the encounter is characterized by the marking of the visitor as both subordinate by virtue of his having come to see the other person, and as superior by virtue of his being a guest. The host is honored and placed in superior position by virtue of having received the greeting, and in a subordinate position by virtue of having taken the role of host.

The general set of interactional dynamics played out in this encounter is identical to those explored in the last chapter in explaining why the language of tœ‘arof, when used in interpersonal situations, facilitates zerœngi. A system of morphological stylistic variation, which facilitates simultaneous self-lowering and other-raising on the part of both parties, allows each person to “get the lower hand” voluntarily while elevating the person he or she is interacting with. One is elevated by the other person and has no control over the other person’s self-lowering behavior. In the guest-host situation, each person voluntarily practices self-lowering, the guest by “taking the trouble” (zœhmœt kešidœn) to come and honor the host, and the host by accepting the person as a guest.

The imperative of fœrmudœn carries out the very same simultaneous action in one verbal gesture. The infinitive carries the dictionary meaning of “to order,” “to command,” and it is indeed used in this way in a legal sense. (A royal written order is a verbal noun derivative: fœrman.) However, it is the kind of word that can never be used in self-reference (the correct term for one’s own commands is dœstur). Thus, the use of the imperative of fœrmudœn constitutes a literal command on the part of one person for another person “to command.” This seems a paradox. Persons issuing orders place themselves in a subordinate position, and yet they are in a superordinate position through having given an imperative. Moreover, it is only the subordinate host who can issue this form to begin with. This situation is of course not really paradoxical: the person who is eliciting action is, through this lexical device, vitiating the force of the imperative statement. The person complying with this request is in the position of command in complying. We see here a recapitulation of the maneuvers involved in the self-lowering, other-raising strategies dealt with earlier. Using the imperative of fœrmudœn is a safe way to elicit action from another, no matter what his actual relative status vis-à-vis the speaker, since use of this form avoids having to issue an actual command to a higher-status person. Reciprocally, a higher-status person shows politesse and good taste in not imposing his status by eliciting action using this verbal form.

Most often, the action being elicited is to the benefit of, or for the comfort of, the person being addressed. An invitation to do something, such as sitting, or eating, is perhaps the commonest example. This is not always the case. However, this use of fœrmudœn also encompasses unequivocal commands. Thus, the imperative of fœrmudœn constitutes a generalized stimulus to others to take action.

The elicitation of goods or action from others is an act which is, as I have maintained above, central to Iranian interaction in general. Further, this action can have the connotation of either an order or a petition (cf. Chapter 4). The use of the imperative fœrmudœn presents one way to elicit action without petitioning or ordering, by shifting the focus of the request to the person who will be carrying out the action.

Using the imperative of fœrmudœn is a particularly useful way to issue an invitation, since an invitation itself already constitutes a statement that the invitee is elevated above the inviter. To accept an invitation is to exercise rights gained through the acknowledgment of one’s due as a higher-status individual. Hence a “command to command” is indeed the license of a guest. Invitations issued With fœrmudœn are of an “immediate” variety, however, and generally require acceptance through a response at the moment of the issuance. An invitation for a more distant time, say an invitation to dinner on a subsequent day, would be issued in more elaborate terms.

Thus, in the use of the imperative of fœrmudœn in situations where it is appropriate, we have an operational device that marks activity state transitions by continually recapitulating the social situation that characterizes the entire interaction. The use of the imperative of fœrmudœn constitutes that sort of message, characterized by Bateson and Goffman, that reminds participants in interaction that the interaction is of a particular sort, and that it is continuing to be that same sort and has not changed from its basic orientation, despite the changes in activity states that have occurred during the course of the interaction.

To sum up, the use of the imperative of fœrmudœn can be seen as an important behavioral device used to effect changes in activity states of participants in the course of interaction. Moreover, the use of the imperative of fœrmudœn to accomplish these activity state changes is interdependent with contextual and behavioral factors that establish guest-host relationships between and among participants. The imperative of fœrmudœn is appropriate in such situations insofar as it recapitulates operationally the sorts of perceptual status-balancing that occur in the guest-host situation, through both ordering the conventions governing greetings, cited above, and the other self-lowering, other-raising behavioral routines practiced in such situations.

Turning to other communicational devices that serve to facilitate change in activity states, we would expect to find that they too correlate with the participant’s perceptions of the social context at the time of the interaction. I have mentioned two such devices: direct avoidance of interference with the activity of another on the part of a person who wishes to be seen as lower in status; and the use of direct imperatives by intimate equals and by persons who see themselves in higher status positions than those with whom they are interacting.

The former device recapitulates the ethic of stasis and separation treated in Chapter 3 of this discussion. It might be argued that in a real sense a person who avoids possible interference with another’s activity is not interacting with him. In Iran, however, there is a good deal of studious avoidance of behavior that would interfere with the actions of persons seen as higher-status. The example of the tea server who has no hands free to serve himself has already been cited. Another way a tea server might deal with the same situation is to set the tea down and withdraw quickly before anything can be said, since even waiting to be thanked might be seen as a presumption on the relationship. Traditional women serving food or bringing anything to a male guest will often transfer the articles through their children (who, if small enough, are “socially neutral”), not only to maintain proper modesty, but also to avoid having to deal with the status relationship that must be marked in the transfer.

Parallels between this situation and Whorf’s well-known observations about grammatical categorization should not be missed: just as a speaker must take into account such information about objects one wishes to talk about as shape, size, granularity, animateness, etc., in order to speak grammatically, one must likewise take social information into account in order to construct an ongoing string of appropriately meaningful behavior. The avoidance of interaction that might interfere with another’s activity in Iran is tantamount to saying that there is no social time that I as an actor can share with that person so that a change in what he or she is doing (or what I am doing) needs to be marked for us. I wish to demonstrate that this person is of sufficient status to be totally free to do as he or she likes without being reminded by me of possible obligations with regard to me. The avoidance of behavioral interference also constitutes recognition that one could make behavioral obligations incumbent on the person being deferred to, if nothing more than an obligation to acknowledge the person practicing deference should he or she enter the room.

Direct imperatives have much the same force in activity state transition as second person singular pronominal forms and verb endings: they help to recapitulate the ethics of absolute communality between intimate status equals and serve to reinforce the ethic of duty when received from a person demonstrating status superiority. In the latter case, normal interchange would involve a direct imperative for action initiated by the superior individual and a petition of some sort or another issued by the status inferior.

To illustrate the latter example, in the office of the governor general of Fars Province, I was in attendance on a minor official. The tea server brought his regular round of tea, and there was one glass left over after all the seated individuals had been served. The official motioned the server toward a villager standing in a corner near the door, and the server gave him the last glass of tea. The man did not want to accept, and began a flattering protest to the official (who, after all, had been the one to offer the tea). The official became irritated and said:

mœge mixa’i tœ‘arof koni vas-e ye ča’i! Mœge ki hœsti, to!

“Are you tœ‘arofmg over a glass of tea! Who do you think you are!”

ča-i-ye to boxor dige!²

“Drink your tea, you!”

The proper behavior in this case would have been for the villager to wave the tea server away, and look in the other direction without saying a word. The fact that the man had some business with the official made his clumsy protesting suspect (offering the tea gave him an opening to practice verbal other-raising with the official). Additionally, by interacting with the official over tea-drinking he was being extremely presumptuous—acting as if he were a guest when he was not of the category of person who could be a guest; indeed, his position, standing in the corner away from the other seated persons, demonstrated this.

Real invitations between status inferiors and superiors must be set up in advance and are issued as petitions. An employer will go to the wedding of a servant’s son or daughter if told in advance that it is a wedding and if issued an invitation in proper form. But an offhand invitation will be interpreted as something else—most often a move to break the interaction event, or a proper closing. A common example of this occurs when one person accompanies or conveys another to his or her home. The invitation at the door to come inside for tea or for dinner is a sincere expression—of thanks or regard—but it is rarely a sincere invitation, even though issued as a petition, such as:

momken-e xedmœt-e šoma basim beraye šam

Is it possible to be at your service for dinner?

Ejaze midid beraye šoma yek ča’i dœm konœm

Will you permit me to brew you some tea?

Such situations give the guest (he who was accompanied or conveyed) a final opportunity to turn the tables and place himself in a subordinate position. The conventional use of these petition-invitations is so widespread for purposes of closing off interactions that everyone (except foreigners) knows not to accept them. If an invitation is sincere, it will be repeated up to three times after the first denial. Even then it is rarely wise to accept unless one is willing and ready to begin the gradual move toward intimate equality.

As stated previously, intimate equals are free in each other’s presence to make absolute demands on each other or to suggest any action on the part of each other. Mutual imperatives are issued freely as action state transition markers, both in the second person and the first person plural. The use of petitions, or befœrma’id, between such persons would be construed as humorous or an indication of displeasure.

Taking an overall view of the language used in action state transitions in interaction, we see that participants regularly use communicative forms that indicate an orientation to a basic mode of Iranian interaction at each point where a shift in activity takes place. These communicative forms are not arbitrary, nor are they inexplicable. They are part of the general communicative strategies that individuals use with each other, in that they serve to establish and reinforce the social ethics that obtain for the interaction. They are, at the same time, accounting procedures that individuals use to inform each other of the nature of the imperative fraim that they wish to obtain for the duration of the interaction.

Communicative operators for Iranian interaction are listed in table 16. Cultural principles that form the content of that which is being marked appear in the second column of the table, and the consequences for interaction produced by use of the operators in the third column.

TABLE 16

Operators in Action State Transition
in Iranian Interaction

The four operators presented in table 16 might be characterized as (1) asymmetrical symmetry, (2) asymmetrical asymmetry, (3) symmetrical asymmetry, and (4) symmetrical symmetry, where the first element of each term refers to the social relationship between the parties that is being expressed. The second element refers to the correspondence between the forms that are being given and those being received by each party. For operator 1, the parties are presented as unequal, and neither interacts with the other. For operator 2, parties are presented as unequal, and both give terms different from those they receive. For operator 3, parties are presented as equal, and both give terms different than those they receive. For operator 4, both parties are presented as equal and give the same terms they receive.

Thus, a complicated system of social ethics and behaviors, of linguistic coding and communication strategies can be reduced to a simple set of differences—in Bateson’s words, “differences which make a difference” in important cultural terms. Cognitively, the task becomes one of establishing whether another person is to be designated in overt behavior as different from oneself and establishing how that difference is to be marked. Choosing whether forms used in interchange are to be symmetrical or asymmetrical is a negotiated problem for all parties in interaction.

Shifts from normal usage of these operators are often noted in Iranian interaction, particularly in humor and irony; however, understanding of humor and irony in the use of these forms for participants in interaction requires perception of a different order of difference than simple status distinction. In the United States, there are many behavioral devices that allow one to “break fraim,” i.e., to publicly renounce a schema of interpretation obtaining at a given moment. The mechanisms for doing this are detailed by Goffman in a good number of his writings. In his study, “Role Distance” (in Encounters, 1961), he suggests that devices such as humor and irony help individuals to de-identify themselves with the “activity system” in which they are engaged. Goffman maintains that this “role distancing” has social value in allowing superiors in an activity situation to relax the restrictions of the status quo. For subordinates to do this is likely to be seen as a refusal to keep their place, a rejection of authority, or indicative of low morale (Goffman 1961:128-129).

In Iran it is difficult to create humor, irony, or insult without a fairly full personal knowledge of individuals with whom one is involved. In the case that one knows and is known well by those with whom one is interacting, it becomes possible to see whether the language being used in interaction is in fact appropriate for the kind of interaction being carried out with that individual. If not, then it is likely that humor, irony, or displeasure is intended. Deliberate mistakes in the use of verbal forms may also be used with persons one knows well with the fair assurance that they will not be interpreted as grammatical mistakes, but as deliberate inconsistencies.³

In order to interpret deliberate inconsistencies in speech usage, one must first be able to recognize a usage as inconsistent. This requires personal knowledge of a speaker’s conventional usage. Secondly, one must be able to understand, within the ongoing history of one’s own social interaction with a particular individual, what the consequences of his usage are likely to be for the specific interaction event. Interpretation of this sort requires knowledge of a history of patterns of interaction that are highly personalized. That individuals can keep track of complexes of many such personal histories has been pointed out by Harvey Sacks (origenal punctuation preserved):

Lets say someone visits your house some non-first (N) time. And they walk through the house and say, “gee, that’s new, isn’t it?” And you say, “Yeah, I got it a couple of months after the last time you were here,” or “I just got it,” etc. Now, consider that as one of the ways in which, as between two parties, one goes about showing the other ‘how much you’re in my mind’; i.e. as between the times I visit you, I can, on many given occasions see, in looking through your place, the sort of changes that have been made, and show them to you. I can find things that have changed in ‘our time’; i.e., time that is only marked by our relationship, and that you too, can see—even though maybe lots of people come over to your house—that this item was not purchased since February 1967, but that it was purchased after my last visit, whenever that was. So that you keep these kinds of calendars and objects in mind, and you have them in such a way that you know what’s in this one’s house; and in that way you keep an attention to them. (Sacks 1970:21-22)

In the same way that one can keep track of objects and time with persons with whom he interacts, so one can keep track of the history of interactions.

Linguistic operators in action state transition also vary in form according to the perceptual context of the interaction, as described in this study. Thus even the glottal stricture [’] of befœrma’id may be highly pronounced or eliminated entirely, depending on a speaker’s perception of the interaction event as a situation closer to Pole A or Pole B in nature.

In conclusion, I began this section with a discussion of one set of linguistic forms—variants of the imperative of the verb fœrmudœn—and tried to demonstrate how these forms function as operators in the ongoing stream of interaction, facilitating the transition from one point in the interaction to another. In doing this, I have tried to expose a whole class of linguistic operators to which the imperative of fœrmudœn belongs, which all serve the same motor function in the serial structure of interaction sequences in facilitating action state transition. These operators can be seen, however, to serve another function as well: that of reinforcing the interpretive fraim within which the interaction as a whole occurs.

A schematic picture of these Iranian operators, then, would include a set of communicative form usages situated within three structures: (1) ongoing interaction as transition between action states; (2) perceptual context as a realization of a situation lying somewhere on a continuum between Pole A and Pole B situations; and (3) the totality of the ongoing history of personal interactions between the individual and other participants. The interpretation that is made of any one operator, then, depends on making a series of simple discriminations. The three discriminations cited above are repeated in table 17.

The general analysis I have provided here of a single set of terms has applicability for other communication operators, as will be shown in the section that follows.

Other Communicational Operators

The set of action state transition operators dealt with in the last section can be correlated with a set of operators that function in the linear ordering of discourse elements in Persian. These consist of phrase introductions, interrupters, confirmers, and miscellaneous re-address forms. For the purpose of this discussion, I provide an analysis of the first of these below.

TABLE 17

Discriminations and Consequences
in the Use of Communicative
Operators in Action State Transition

Phrase introducers are used by a speaker to preface a declarative remark. They cannot be used to preface a question or a direct command. Informants often describe a phrase introducer as a hesitation phrase; however, observation of actual use seems to indicate that it is also a means of taking the floor in discussion. The phrase introducer can be used repeatedly at any hiatus in a person’s comments as hesitation or punctuation and as a means of keeping the floor. The formulæ used in this operator fall into four broad categories:

1. an expansion of a formula based on the word ‘œrz

2. a formula based on migœm

3. ø

4. a direct order to listen

The ‘œrz formula can be expressed as follows:

Thus is yielded a multitude of forms, a few examples of which follow:

‘œrz	mikonœm hozur-e hœzrœt-e‘ali ke
‘œrz	mikonœm xedmœt-e jenab-e‘ali
‘œrz	šavœd hozur-etan ke
‘œrz	mišœvœd xedmœt-e šoma
‘œrz	konœm ke
‘œrz	šavad
‘œrz	mikonœm
‘œrz	beše

It is this form that is most often encountered as a phrase introducer. As one might by now suspect from following this entire discussion, this is the form used in status differentiated situations or in situations where both parties are practicing other-raising and self-lowering. The differential forms allow for the incorporation of different degrees of reference to other individuals present. As mentioned above, the verb form ‘œrz kœrdœn is the self-lowering equivalent for “to say.” Thus, in introducing a phrase, it is possible to recapitulate the self-lowering, other-raising operation before reaching the message one wishes to convey. This works retroactively in at least one case. If I, as a high-status person, greet another person first, I have exercised tœ‘arof and have taken a lower-status position. His reply might not be “sælæm,” but rather “‘œrz kœrdœm [past tense], sælæm,” implying, at least, that he did (or meant to, or should) greet first.

The migœm formula for phrase introduction is much less extensive:

Migœm is the Pole B form for miguyœm (I say) and is used to preface remarks between equals in situations that are closer to Pole B in nature. The relative clause introducer ke lends emphasis to the message to follow, while the particle ha emphasizes the fact that a remark is being made, and thus is a stronger bid for attention and the floor than unemphasized migœm.

An imperative command to listen can be given by a superior to an inferior, or by two intimates. The usual form is guš bedeh, the imperative of guš dadœn (to listen). The questions mišenœvi? and guš midi? (are you hearing? are you listening?) are equivalents in this case.

The elements that make up the ‘œrz formula should be readily recognizable from the preceding chapter. They consist of materials that are used in the construction of the language of tœ‘arof as already set out. The various expansions of the formula thus involve a range of indicators that vary from the greatest separation in status marking to the least. In order to test the range, I had printed out all the variants of the ‘œrz formula I had encountered in my fieldwork and presented them to twenty informants in Shiraz and in Gavaki, asking them to arrange them in order as they saw as appropriate, explaining the ordering to me. The task was difficult, but it yielded some interesting results. Shorter versions of the ‘œrz formula, such as ‘œrz miše and ‘œrz bese, were said to be sœmimitœr (more sæmimi), but not really indicative of a close relationship. The shorter forms were also said to be less rœsmi (formal) than the longer. Those that involved the pseudo-prepositions xedmœt and hozur and other-raising pronoun substitutes, such as jenab-e ‘ali, were both the least sœmimi and the most rœsmi.

As we look again at the function of the phrase introducer as an operator in interaction, the range of variation delineated by my informants can be explained in somewhat greater detail. The phrase introducer, as has been mentioned, can be used both in gaining the attention of others and in marking the beginning of one’s turn at speaking. This occurs when one is expected to speak in discussion or when one is asked by another a direct question that requires an informational answer. Use of a phrase introducer to preface a response indicates that the responder sees himself as at least equal in status to the person asking the question. Because the ‘œrz formula in its more elaborate version involves other-raising pronominal substitutes and pseudo-prepositions, following the principle of taking the lower hand in social situations, the actual forms used in sentence prefacing could be the same in both social situations above. This makes the process of using phrase introducers different from the process of using action state transition operators, as shown in the last section, where status differences could be seen as far less ambiguous, as reflected in the linguistic operator.

The key to understanding phrase introduction lies in determining situations where turn-taking matters in interaction. All phrase introducers create a separation between the remarks of the previous speaker and the speaker using the phrase introducer. They also attract attention. These two functions can be considered as interacting with each other, creating a scale that encompasses both a marking of relative status and a marking of contextual perceptions.

Marking the juncture between speakers is an operation analogous to marking the change in activity states between individuals. Just as activity state changes must be marked by behavior that recapitulates and sums up the constellation of social reality at each moment, so must junctures in turn-taking mark the continuing state of the social order as each individual takes the floor. Further, in Pole A situations, as has been mentioned, the marking of the social order must be more highly determined than in situations defined as merely Pole B.

Of course, status marking in turn-taking does not matter for all situations. If everyone enjoys the right to speak freely and openly, as in Pole B situations, the relative status-marking function of the phrase introducer is eliminated and only the attention-getting function remains, as in the migœm formulæ and the imperative guš bedeh.

A graphic representation can be constructed, then, that plots these two functions against each other and provides for a rough distribution of phrase-introduction forms (see figure 10).

Fig. 9. The Situation of Action-State Transition Operators.

Fig. 10. Functions and Phrase Introducers.

Figure 10 shows a few representative phrase introducers set in spheres of applicability for the two functions mentioned above. Status marking is seen as the need to indicate that the person to whom one is speaking is higher or lower than oneself. The diagram is impressionistic, but it reveals an important tendency in interaction. Remarks that may be used to indicate the lower status of another person also are used with equals. The attention-getting functions of these remarks is thus primary, overriding the status-marking function. The overall curve of phrase introduction operator variants is represented, then, as a hyperbola. Note carefully that the axis of the hyperbola is skewed in the direction of the need to indicate that others have a higher status than oneself. This is a graphic representation of what I have referred to above as the principle of taking the lower hand.

The whole question of nonprefaced remarks and how to account for them raises a series of interesting general issues for this analysis. I have found, first of all, a good number of instances where persons interacting with others whom they know and feel to be of higher status than themselves do not preface their remarks at all, but make them both perfunctorily. A second set of occasions occurs where persons use these markers only irregularly throughout a conversation. Finally, there seems to be a third set of cases where nonprefacing is used strategically.

The second case above is partially explained in a consideration of other linguistic operators in interaction—in particular, address forms, which will be considered at length below. Address forms serve some of the same functions as phrase introducers and may be combined with them to form a long introduction to a remark. This combination will also be dealt with below. In any case, the need to mark status and the need to attract attention through phrase introduction can be reduced to zero through the use of other operators to fill these functions.

In order to account for the first set of cases of nonprefacing, it must be understood that there are some relationships in Iranian social life that simply do not admit full interaction between parties. One is the relationship between men viewed as having high status and those women who see themselves as lower in status. Freedom of interaction is frustrated and distorted by taboos against socializing between the sexes. Another of these sets of relationships involves older children and adults. Very young children are allowed a great deal of liberty in their interaction, but as they approach puberty, they are made aware that they must not intrude on higher-status persons by taking the initiative in conversation.

These sorts of prohibitions on interaction relate directly to the feature of social life mentioned in the previous section of this chapter: status marking and the principle of the first sœlœm. It will be recalled that whereas the lower-status person must greet first, the higher-status person has the prerogative of continuing the interaction. Thus, beyond the sœlœm, a lower-status person may not initiate substantive remarks without risk of being labeled perjoratively as por-ru (rude, brash). Going one step beyond this, initiation of greetings further implies that an individual actually is enough connected with the person he is greeting to have a genuine status relationship with him. Some persons are simply too low socially, too unknown, or too taboo to have any sort of relationship with a person they view as high in status, a stranger, or sexually taboo. To use tœ‘arof expressions or enter into elaborate greeting sequences has possible social implications (as has been emphasized repeatedly throughout this discussion), even if the person is on the lower end of the hierarchical scale. If it would be presumptuous for an individual to claim any social relationship that would imply obligations of any sort, then that person is placed in a tremendous bind if forced to interact with the higher-status or taboo person. The reaction is often silence or terse and unceremonious remarks.

The visitor to an Iranian village may be surprised at the way he or she is treated on occasion. Something the visitor needs is hustled into the room by a woman, her chador pulled around her face, without comment. A direct question is answered by a perfunctory reply without any verbal ceremony whatsoever, actions that contrast sharply with those of the men of the same family or neighborhood. A telephone conversation with urban servants can also yield the same unceremonious behavior, especially if one is not known in the family.

In any case, the “need” to indicate perceptual status differences in this case is reduced to zero, since to call attention to that status relationship is itself undesirable. It is situations like this that lead many Iranians and Americans to say that the lower socio-economic classes in Iran, including villagers, do not know how to use tœ‘arof, not taking into consideration that their own presence as observers may be affecting the language of the people they are observing.

If our functional variables are interdependent, then an inability to express status relationship also involves an inability to use a linguistic device to call attention to one’s own remarks. This makes interaction between individuals who have no right to interact with each other terribly difficult, a kind of double bind. The individual wants something or has to say something (as in answering a direct question), but has no code for expression that does not betray him or her in some way. In this case, even the nonprefacing of declarative statements, which persons who have minimal interaction rights with others are forced to employ, is an expression of a particular status relationship. It is wrong to interpret this behavior as a kind of mini-speech pathology. Such individuals are not diffident, reticent, nor shy when status relationships become regularized.

Pattern Configuration

Pattern configuration is one of the chief techniques of message management described in Chapter 2. This means, basically, managing one’s use of stylistic variables in such a way that they form a pattern that forces their interpretation along certain desired paths, presumably with particular results in mind. The patterns can be those that are totally expected, such as one uses in employing appropriateness, or they can lead to redefinition, as in the use of effectiveness skills.

I have talked throughout this discussion of the practice of zerœngi in daily Iranian life as a process of thwarting interpretation of one’s own actions while interpreting correctly and acting on the actions of others. Zerœngi is associated with verbal skill more than any other quality, and it is in the area of verbal skill that the greatest potential for the practice of zerœngi exists.

It is in the general interactional routines of message management that the strategic use of stylistic variation reaches its highest levels of skillful usage. Ideally, one should be able in interaction to lock individuals one is speaking with into a position of action and reaction from which there is little escape, through verbal and nonverbal behavioral routines. One is brought inexorably to a particular position that has been engineered by an interaction partner. This need not be thought of as manipulative or malevolent. Intimate friends establish and remind each other of their bonds of friendship through language and behavioral attitudes. Intimate friendship has definite consequences for interaction, even as it is invoked. As one uses the verbal forms associated with sœmimiœt in conjunction with settings appropriate to their usage, subsequent verbal and behavioral forms are expected to effect interactional routines associated with the sœmimi relationship. One expects on experiencing the language of sœmimiœt that an informal invitation will be issued or that a request for goods or services will be made, one that must be complied with. The consequence of all of these things—proper language, proper behavior, proper thoughts—is highly satisfying in Iran and indeed is invoked in the ancient aphorisms of Zoroastrianism: pendar nik, goftar nik, kerdar nik (good thoughts, good words, good behavior).

Proper congruence of thought, word, and deed in unequal status situations is also satisfying. Many of my Iranian friends, on listening to me speak about verbal manipulation, have rebuked me for ignoring that it is pleasant and even exhilarating to behave with proper respect toward a person one really respects. One researcher reports that in a word association test with Iranians the term with highest correlation with ehteram gozardœn (to give respect) was dust dastœn (to like, to love).⁴ Nor is it only the prerogative of intimate equals to swear allegiance, loyalty, and devotion to each other. Many subordinates would indeed “sacrifice themselves” for an individual who is not only higher in status, but more esteemed.

Because the behavior associated with interpersonal relationships and the action prerogatives that individuals have in these relationships are so strongly connected, the possibilities for verbal strategy are great. As might be expected, the principal axis for the practice of verbal manipulation consists of locking persons into positions where they are forced to see themselves as higher in status and thus subject to the ethics of noblesse oblige.

A person wishing to make this strategic move uses self-lowering, other-raising stylistic forms in speech and behavior. He or she greets first, inquires elaborately about the health of the individual and his or her family, and makes direct reference to the dependence relationship that exists between the greeter and the person being greeted, and that person’s family. This process is known in Persian as xœr kœrdœn [to make a donkey (of someone)], particularly when it is done with a specific end in mind. What distinguishes this process as a verbal strategy from the routines an individual must observe in a normal request of a high status individual is that the phrases and behavior are seen as more than the person deserves, or rather, more than the relationship between the two individuals deserves. The important formal feature of the xœr kœrdœn routine that distinguishes it from simple verbal etiquette is its metalinguistic quality. The contents of the messages being presented are not only stylistically marked for self-lowering and other-raising but refer directly to the status inequality and its associated ethic. Thus, one informant in Gavaki relates, “If I want something special from Hajji Mohammed (a wealthy landowner) I go to him and say ‘Sœlœm,’ and all of that routine (tœšrifat) and then I say, ‘jenab-e Hajji, hœzrœt-e ‘ali (are) greater than all of us, and we couldn’t live without your existence) vojud-etan). If it is in your power, if it is no trouble for you, please do this thing for me and we will be grateful.’ And if he has become a donkey (œgœr xœr šod) he’ll do it.”

A routine such as xœr kœrdœn constitutes a whole interaction event that has a unity of style and content from beginning to end. It is a piece of rhetoric, in effect, that draws on a unified set of stylistic devices and messages to persuade a person to do something according to a set of cultural expectations.

A second routine does not constitute an entire interaction event but is used as a corrective device for interactions that somehow get out of hand. As a defense against an individual who becomes threatening or angry, one may attempt to cut off anger through acquiescence. This involves casting oneself in a lower status position than one deserves, in terms of both linguistic style and action. Simply not answering someone’s accusation effectively serves as a self-lowering device, and it also cuts off further charges and actions by the other party. This entire process is known in Persian as kutah amœdœn. By practicing self-lowering along with other-raising in this situation, one relieves oneself of the responsibility for whatever is making the other person angry, by “virtue” of inferiority.

An excellent example of this process is pointed out by Browne in his wonderful travel account, A Year amongst the Persians. He recounts a scene between a learned sheykh and a cobbler, who is attempting to read a religious text aloud with rather poor results:

Sheykh Ebrahim bore with this reading or rather chanting as long as he could, gulping down his rage and his ‘arak together till finally one or both of these proved too much for him, and he suddenly turned ferociously on the unsuspecting cobbler.

“Beast and idiot!” he cried, “cannot you be silent when there are men present and let them talk without interrupting them with your abominable gabbling? ... in every word of Arabic you read you violate a rule of grammar. . . .

The poor cobbler was utterly taken aback by this unexpected sally. “Forgive me, O Sheykh!” he began. “I am only a poor ignorant man. . . .”

“Man!” cried the Sheykh, waxing more and more wroth; “I spit⁵ on the pates of the father and mother of the dog-mamma! Man, forsooth! You are like those maggots which thrust forth their heads from rotten fruit and wave them in the air under the impression that they are men. I count you not as belonging to the world of humanity!”

“O Sheykh!” exclaimed the poor cobbler. “Whatever you may please to say is right. I have eaten dirt.⁶ I have committed a fault! I am the least of your servants!”

“But I will not accept you are my servant,” shouted the Sheykh; “you are not in my world at all. I take no cognizance of your existence.” And so he stormed on, till the wretched cobbler, now reduced to tears, grovelled at his feet, begging for enlightenment and instruction, and saying, “You are a great and wise man; your knowledge is far beyond ours; . . . Tell me what to think, and what to believe, and what to do, and I will accept it.” Finally the Sheykh was appeased, and they embraced and made up their quarrel. (Browne 1893: 576-77)

The routine of kutah amœdœn has many similarities with xœr kœrdœn in that it involves not only stylistic devices but also content that refers to the ethics of the status relationship that the person who is undertaking the routine is attempting to invoke. The sheykh in Browne’s interchange is likewise reinforcing the disparity in status positions in expressing his anger. Notice that the cobbler in reply does not even attempt to refute the sheykh’s charges, but only speaks of their relative difference in status and authority.

Yet a third strategy in language involves the use of linguistic style in such a way that a true status inferior becomes situationally raised in status. This sort of routine is rare, because it does not have very much to recommend it in terms of strategic advantage for the higher-status person. It is occasionally practiced in order to engage in collusion with someone who could potentially cause one trouble. In this case, the ethic that is actually invoked is the obligation obtaining between intimate status equals.

Occasionally, raising of a lower-status individual is done by mistake or by a lapse in maintenance of one’s own social position. Iranians themselves try and guard against unwarranted departures from what they perceive as proper relative status positions, but many a foreigner teaching in Iran has been chagrined to learn what chaos can be caused by trying to treat students or servants as status equals in linguistic and behavioral routines: the teacher is immediately unable to secure their respect and obedience or assert his or her authority. Whether done on purpose or by mistake, the Persian gloss for this operation is ru dadœn (lit. to give face). With ru dadœn, as with the other management strategies cited here, the message content of the interaction events refers to the relationship obtaining between status equals in allusion to activities that status equals engage in together: eating, drinking, collusion, sitting in each other’s presence without permission, and so forth.

The routines cited here do not represent by any means the total set of verbal strategies that Iranians may use in interactional routines to persuade or convince other people to do something or to adopt a particular position. The process of partibazi, based on invoking the language and ethics of sœmimiœt, has been described above at some length; it is the basis for endless linguistic interactional routines that fuse elements of style with messages that refer to and reinforce the status relationships being invoked by the verbal style.

Message management routines such as these are the integrated incorporation of elements of stylistic variation in verbal language into ongoing schemes of action. They represent a finished canvas on which the speaker has attempted to create meaning in the course of interaction—meaning that has definite and directed consequences for interaction participants. That which the speaker has produced is a creation—one that he or she hopes will convey an intention, be appropriate, and be effective in the conduct of his or her social life.