Social Distance

The current paper primarily provides an account of how apology speech acts are internally intensified in Persian. Moreover, the study checks to what extent contextual variables, namely social distance and severity of offense, may motivate the internal intensification of apology speech acts. To these ends, the study collected the required speech acts through a Discourse Completion Test (DCT) from among Persian male native speakers. The data was analyzed based on the coding scheme developed by Blum-Kulka, House, and Kasper (1989). The results revealed that apology speech acts are intensified in Persian in most cases through universal strategies of internal intensification. Moreover, the Persian speakers are sensitive to severity of the offense, as a context-internal variable, which motivates more internal intensifications of apologies. The findings, however, revealed that social distance as a context-external variable does not prompt the use of internal intensifications differently in situations where there is social distance between interlocutors compared to situations where there is no social distance between interlocutors.

Abstract Introduction and Objectives: Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 and the use of quarantine to prevent it have increased psychological reactions like depression, anxiety and stress in the general population. Hence, the need to identify variables that can affect these psychological reactions is felt more than ever. The aim of this study was to predict the rate of depression, stress and anxiety during quarantine based on psychological flexibility, dysfunctional attitude and coping styles. Method The research design was descriptive-correlational and the statistical population included all students who were active in the social media. A total of 501 students accessed the call for completion of questionnaires on online media, including Instagram, completed prepared questionnaires in the Google Form format. Measures included the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Questionnaire (DASS-21, 1995), the Revised Dysfunctional Attitude Scale (DAS-26, 1978), the Acceptance and Practice Questionnaire (AAQ-II, 2005), and the Lazarus and Folkman Coping Strategies Questionnaire (CSQ, 1984). Results Psychological inflexibility, dysfunctional attitudes, and maladaptive coping strategies predicted depression, anxiety, and stress in a positive way, but problem-oriented coping strategies only showed an inverse relationship with depression. In regression analyzes, the variable of psychological inflexibility had the greatest effect on explaining depression, anxiety and stress. Discussion and Conclusion It can be concluded that teaching psychological flexibility and cognitive reconstruction can be useful in reducing depression, anxiety, and stress during the quarantine. Teaching problem-solving strategies can also have positive effects on reducing depression.

Request is used quite often in Malaysian Chinese people’s daily life. Most previous researchers focused on request speech act in mainland Chinese language. However, very little attention is paid to the request speech act in Malaysian Chinese. This study aims to investigate the request speech act in Malaysian Chinese Mandarin. Role play method was employed to elicit data needed for this study. 25 Malaysian Chinese participants and 1 Malaysian Chinese interlocutor were recruited to role play 12 scenarios. The collected data underwent analysis using a revised framework for coding. The results unveiled that the most commonly utilized strategy was conventionally indirect strategy, followed by direct strategy. The least frequently used one was non-conventionally indirect strategy. More external modifiers were used than internal modifiers. Variables of social distance, and ranking of imposition had impacts on request speech act in Malaysian Chinese Mandarin. Social power did not influence the use of ‘query preparatory’ and ‘want statements’ strategy. This study can be of great value with regard to theory and practice. Theoretically, it revises and validates the CCSARP theoretical framework with Malaysian Chinese Mandarin data. Practically, it can improve communication skills in Malaysian Chinese people’s everyday interactions and help them maintain positive relationships.