Persian honorifics and im/politeness as social practice

• Demonstrates how Persian honorifics are linked to im/politeness as social practice.
• Demonstrates how im/politeness evaluations arise in talk.
• Demonstrates how honorifics dialectically connect and separate interactants.

Im/politeness has recently been conceptualized in terms of evaluations that not only arise in social practice but also form a social practice (Haugh, 2013 and Kádár and Haugh, 2013). This necessitates the analysis of politeness to go beyond the analysis of language to the analysis of social actions and meanings. This paper examines the role of Persian honorifics (the language which is conventionally associated with politeness) in the im/politeness evaluations that arise in localized interactions. Conversation Analysis is used to analyze two cases of honorifics-included social interactions in Persian. The implications for im/politeness theory are discussed in conclusion.