Fw:Article From NY Times

[Dr. Mark Peterson]

For extended an extended discussion of taarof by a linguistic
anthropologist, see William O. Beeman's Language, Status and Power in Iran
(Indiana).  For its relevance to contemporary Iranian politics, see his
The Mad Mullahs versus the Great Satan.

> The Fine Art of Hiding What You Mean to Say - New York TimesThis was in
> today's Week in Review section of the New York Times.
>
>
> *************************************************
> It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary
> depends upon his not understanding it. -- Upton Sinclair
>
> *************************************************
> Ken Ehrensal
> Associate Professor, Management Department
> Kutztown Univ. of PA
> ehrensal at kutztown.edu
> http://faculty.kutztown.edu/ehrensal/
> **************************************************
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
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> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> August 6, 2006
> Iranian 101: A Lesson for Americans
> The Fine Art of Hiding What You Mean to Say
> By MICHAEL SLACKMAN
> TEHRAN
>
> IT is certainly unfair to accuse all Iranians of being liars. The label is
> judgmental and reeks of stereotype. The more appropriate way to phrase the
> Iranian view toward honesty, the way many Iranians themselves describe it,
> is to say that being direct and telling the truth are not prized
> principles in Iran.
>
> Often, just the opposite is true. People are expected to give false praise
> and insincere promise. They are expected to tell you what you want to hear
> to avoid conflict, or to offer hope when there is none.
>
> There is a social principle in Iran called taarof, a concept that
> describes the practice of insincerity - of inviting people to dinner when
> you don't really want their company, for example. Iranians understand such
> practices as manners and are not offended by them.
>
> But taarof is just one aspect of a whole framework for communication that
> can put Iranian words in a completely different context from the one
> Americans are familiar with.
>
> "You have to guess if people are sincere, you are never sure," said Nasser
> Hadian, a political science professor at the University of Tehran.
> "Symbolism and vagueness are inherent in our language."
>
> This way of communicating is suddenly essential for Americans to
> understand. Increasingly, it appears that the road to peace, and war, runs
> through Tehran. And so hearing what Iranians are really saying, not what
> Americans think they are saying, has become a priority. Iran has outsized
> influence with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. It has profound influence
> with the newly empowered Shiites of Iraq. And it is locked in its own
> fight with the United Nations Security Council over its ambition to
> develop nuclear technology.
>
> And yet, understanding each other - forget about agreeing - is complicated
> from the start.
>
> "Speech has a different function than it does in the West," said Kian
> Tajbakhsh, a social scientist who lived for many years in England and the
> United States before returning to Iran a decade ago. "In the West, 80
> percent of language is denotative. In Iran 80 percent is connotative."
>
> Translation: In the West, "yes" generally means yes. In Iran, "yes" can
> mean yes, but it often means maybe or no. In Iran, Dr. Tajbakhsh said,
> listeners are expected to understand that words don't necessarily mean
> exactly what they mean.
>
> "This creates a rich, poetic linguistic culture," he said. "It creates a
> multidimensional culture where people are adept at picking up on nuances.
> On the other hand, it makes for bad political discourse. In political
> discourse people don't know what to trust."
>
> It is not a crude ethnic joke or slur to talk about taarof, but a cultural
> reality that Iranians say stems from centuries under foreign occupation.
> Whether it was the Arabs, the Mongols or the French and the British,
> foreign hegemony taught Iranians the value of hiding their true face. The
> principle is also enshrined in the majority religion here, Shiite Islam,
> which in other lands is a minority religion, often at odds with the
> majority. There is a concept known as takiya in which Shiites are
> permitted, even encouraged, to hide their belief or faith to protect their
> life, honor or property.
>
> "When you tell lies, it can save your life," said Muhammad Sanati, a
> social psychologist who lived for years in England before returning to
> Iran in 1982. "Then you can see the problem of language in this country."
>
> Diplomacy everywhere is the art of not showing your hand, and if Iranians
> have shown skill at forcing negotiations over negotiations, or winning by
> stalling, it would be an overstatement to say that it can be explained
> solely by a culture of taarof. But Western diplomats based in Iran say
> that Iran's cultural foundation gives it a leg up when dealing with the
> more studied negotiating skills of the Americans.
>
> Perhaps more important, such diplomats and Iranians themselves said,
> Americans need to understand Iran's approach to interpersonal
> communications in order to understand the complexities Iranians face in
> dealing with each other. Analyst after analyst said that after centuries
> of cloaking their true feelings, Iranians are often unsure whom they can
> trust when dealing with each other, let alone foreigners.
>
> One Western diplomat, who insisted on anonymity because that is standard
> diplomatic protocol, said it was possible that when Iran said it could not
> respond before the end of August to the West's offer on its nuclear
> program, that it was not only a diplomatic maneuver, but may also have
> been a nod to the reality of internal Iranian politics. Major decisions on
> the nuclear issue involve consensus at the highest levels of the political
> elite. But consensus can be hard to achieve when interpersonal
> communications, at least initially, are defined by taarof, mistrust and
> different political agendas, the diplomat said.
>
> At the same time, understanding the cultural/moral foundation of a
> community can also help Americans understand whether or not an agreement
> was actually reached, even when the Iranians seem to say that a deal is
> done. "You can translate words, but can you translate feelings?" asked
> Saeed Leylaz, a political analyst and former government official in
> Tehran. "British diplomats are more successful with us. They understand
> our ways and our culture."
>
> Indeed, Americans and Iranians speak two different languages. Americans
> are pragmatists and word choice is often based on the shortest route from
> here to there. Iranians are poets and tend to use language as though it
> were paint, to be spread out, blended, swirled. Words can be presented as
> pieces in a puzzle, pieces that may or may not fit together neatly.
>
> "In Iran, you praise people but you don't mean it," Dr. Sanati said. "You
> invite people for all sorts of things, and you don't mean it. You promise
> things, and you don't mean it. People who live here understand that."
>
> Today, Iranians are expecting the United States to take the time to
> understand its culture. It has seen America fail the test of cultural
> translation in Iraq.
>
> "It is up to America to understand us, because it is stronger," said Mr.
> Leylaz, the political analyst. There are differences of opinion about how
> much taarof, or indirection, or as some people call it, expediency,
> actually affects public discourse. People in Iran assume that when a
> politician offers something he knows he can't deliver, it is taarof. They
> don't call it a lie.
>
> But what about when President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sends a letter to
> President Bush. Is it sincere, or taarof? The letter has been interpreted
> by some Iranians as the president trying to follow the path of the Prophet
> Muhammad, who sent letters to his enemies, or of copying Ayatollah
> Ruhollah Khomeini, who sent a letter in 1989 to Mikhail Gorbachev. Some
> have called it naïve, or just bad politics. Certainly its import is
> unclear, but to all of these people, it seemed intended as a serious
> overture. Washington, in contrast, dismissed the letter as irrelevant
> because it did not address any of the substantial issues on the table. It
> wanted Tehran to be more direct.
>
> Dr. Hadian, who was a childhood friend of the president, suggested a
> different approach: "If you talk to Ahmadinejad you have to consider
> taarof."
>
> "Taarof is a sign of respect, even if we don't mean it."
>
> Muhammad Atrianfar, publisher of the reform-minded daily newspaper Shargh,
> said Iranians find Americans easy to deal with because they are
> straightforward. That, he implied, could give Iranians an advantage in any
> negotiations. But for Americans to understand Iranians, he said, they must
> recognize that with Iranians, "the mind thinks something, the heart feels
> something else, the tongue says something else, and manners do something
> else.
>
> "It doesn't mean people are lying," he said. "They are just dealing with
> you with a different character."
>
>
>
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