When Politeness Meets Politics: The case of President Rowhani s Political Rhetoric

The present study investigates the politeness and facewok as employed by the Iranian President Hassan Rowhani during his election campaign as well as after his election to presidency in June 2013. The analysis traces the development of Rowhani’s political rhetoric and his use of politeness strategies and facework as witnessed in a corpus consisting of his election campaign promotional videos, televised and non-televised interviews and speeches delivered in different Iranian cities prior to and after the election. The frameworks employed for analysis included major previous works on face (Goffman, 1967) and politeness (Brown Levinson, 1987; Leech, 1983). Two major politeness strategies characterized Rowhani’s political rhetoric: a) off record politeness, and b) positive politeness (PP). While off record politeness was expressed through avoiding direct reference to and criticism of the political and foreign policy strategies adopted specifically by the Ahmadinejad administration, PP was achieved by means of frequent use of the inclusive first-person pronoun, i.e. ‘we’, formerly in reference to the policy pursued during his office in charge of the nuclear negotiator team, and recently with the aim of claiming a common point of view with his political rivals. Known as a moderate cleric, Rowhani utilized this rhetoric with the intention of expressing and fostering solidarity rather than power. In conclusion, Rowhani s mixed use of various politeness strategies and his clever avoidance of direct encounter with his serious rivals reveals his mastery over political rhetoric.