Compliment Clauses: A Study of their Themes, Functions and Effective Elements on it in the Play Shab Ruye Sangfarshe Khis (A Night on the Wet Cobblestone)

Politeness is an important phenomenon in the social interactions, and although its definition, factors and limits are bound to the cultural contexts of the societies’, it can be regarded as a proper and appealing act which does not hurt others, and is shaped according the situations and feelings of the audience. Compliment is also a type of politeness strategies and a type of speech act, whose subject is approving or applauding the positive qualities of the participants in the dialogue. The ultimate goal of this article is collecting and analyzing the relevant data on compliment in Persian, and checking the effect of gender and social factors on them, as well as their function in the Persian dramatic texts. The reason why the play A Night on the Wet Cobblestone was chosen is the realist style of its writer (Akbar Radi), and the characters of this paly who are mostly the members of the elite level of the society, who naturally make lots of uses of compliments in their daily talks. The results of the data analysis of this play reveal that men have made use of compliments much more than women. Women’s compliments mostly have affective functions, and concern the characters of the audience, while men’s compliments have referential or informative functions, concerning with the skills and abilities of the hearer. Also, the decrease of the amount of compliments (especially the affective ones), and the use of sarcastic referential compliments can be regarded as a means for showing the clashes between the characters and approaching the point of crisis in drama.