Abstract :
This study investigated mitigation in the supervisory discourse of Iranian language
teacher supervisors to see what mitigation devices these language teacher
supervisors in Iran used to achieve a balance between message clarity and politeness
when delivering negative feedback. Using convenient sampling, 10 post-observation
feedback conferences from Iran Language Institute, Shiraz University Language
Center and Safir English Language Academy in Shiraz, Tehran, and Mashhad were
recorded and transcribed. The data were examined using Wajnryb's (1994) typology
of mitigation devices. The findings of the study indicated that Iranian language
teacher supervisors tended to use what Wajnryb (1994) called “above-the-utterancelevel”
mitigation, something between “hyper-mitigation” (highly mitigated
language) and “hypo-mitigation” (hardly mitigated language) though they could
have made more appropriate use of the host of possible mitigation devices to further
soften their rather directive language thereby promoting reflection on the part of the
teachers. The most frequently used mitigation devices included qualm indicators,
modal verbs, interrogatives, clause structures, and hedging modifiers respectively
with the rest of the mitigation devices considerably underused indicating that training
in supervisory discourse is essential for Iranian language teacher supervisors. The
findings hold implications for teacher education programs, language teaching
institutes, and language teacher supervisors to consider and work on mitigation
devices to be able to deliver negative feedback both clearly and politely.
