What Do Iranian EFL Learners and Teachers Think of Teaching Impoliteness?

Every language involves friendly and polite as well as hostile and impolite situations in which language users have to use the context-appropriate language. However, unlike politeness which has generated a great number of studies, few studies have been conducted on impoliteness especially in EFL contexts. The present study aimed to see whether language learners and teachers hold the same idea concerning teaching impoliteness in an Iranian EFL context. One hundred EFL learners and 70 EFL teachers were surveyed through a questionnaire. The results indicated that the language learners and teachers differed significantly in their attitudes towards most of the issues related to impoliteness. However, gender was not a determining factor in this regard, as the only aspect of impoliteness in which gender made a significant difference was the level of proficiency deemed appropriate for teaching impoliteness.