Investigating Politeness Strategies in Classroom Conversations from the Perspective of Sociolinguistics

Creating an effective language communication requires mastery of verbal and non-verbal skills. One of these verbal skills is politeness in social interactions. The current research has investigated the ways of observing politeness in classroom conversations based on Brown and Levinson’s (1987) theory of politeness. The data of the study were collected during several meetings that were held in some educational institutions in Bushehr including Azad and Payame Noor universities. The results indicate that negative politeness strategies have been used almost twice as much as positive politeness strategies, and in some cases positive politeness strategies have been used along with negative politeness. The highest frequency of negative politeness belonged to the four strategies "be conventionally indirect", "question, hedge", "give deference", and "apologize", and "notice, attend to the interests, wants, and needs of H", "exaggerate", "seeking agreement" and "give reasons" had the highest frequency of positive politeness. Examining the components of politeness in classroom discourse is effective in identifying this discourse as an academic discourse. In addition, these findings can be used in teaching foreign languages, which requires a comparative comparison of cultures and traditions.