Cultuling Analysis of “Devaluation” in the Iranian Culture

Based on multifarious levels of social status, education, and occupation, people have certain values which construct and reconstruct their identity. In the Iranian culture, “Devaluation” means blemishing these values that make people ignore individuals’ val ues and virtues through certain linguistic expressions. Studying these expressions, one can achieve its dominant culture in Iranian society. Therefore, the current research is an attempt to study Devaluation Cultuling (culture+language) in light of the conceptual model of cultuling analysis. By integrating the components of Hymes’s (1967) SPEAKING model, emotioncy model and cultural models, the conceptual model of cultuling analysis is the most comprehensive model for studying cultulings of the Persian language. Studying 712 linguistic structures and expressions containing devaluation cultuling and interviewing 140 individuals, the authors found that devaluation cultuling is commonly used in Iranian culture with high frequency, and individuals have negative feelings toward this cultuling. Iranians employ devaluation cultuling for various purposes such as destructing and belittling others’ achievements, insulting, questioning the culture of community members, flattering and hiding their weaknesses. Findings demonstrated that this cultuling could represent cultural models of indirectness, high context, low trust, and holistic thinking of Iranians. Informing people about devaluation cultuling enables us to modify and change this defective cultural gene.