Refusing in Second Life

Abstract

This study analyzes the influence of a stay abroad on Spanish learners' refusal strategies. A group of 11 students were organized in pre and post year abroad dyads; they were instructed to complete a role-play activity in the virtual world Second Life. The students communicated via chat and were expected to refuse suggestions, requests and invitations as specified in the instructions. Similar role-play contexts to those in Felix-Brasdefer (2004) were used. The results yielded suggest that a stay abroad may increase both the level of indirectness and variety of the strategies, thus approximating students' refusal performance to that of native speakers.1 IntroductionThe last three decades have witnessed a growth in studies on Interlanguage Pragmatics (ILP). Within this body of research, and more specifically that of speech acts, some investigations have considered aspects such as effects of proficiency level in the development of the target language (Bardovi-Harlig and Domyei, 1998; Niezgoda and Rover, 2001; Taguchi 2006) or the results of explicit or implicit instmction in pragmatics (Alcon, 2005; FelixBrasdefer, 2008a; Martinez-Flor, 2006). However, not many studies have examined the influence of stays in the target language country as a variable for analysis. Furthermore, most studies that have considered the potential influence of a Study Abroad (SA) have analyzed languages other than Spanish (Felix-Brasdefer, 2004). No studies to date have examined the influence of SA in the development of Peninsular Spanish; in this regard this study is unique. Furthermore, the speech act under scrutiny has not as yet received much attention in the literature. It is argued that, while other speech acts such as apologies or requests (Blum-Kulka and Olshtain, 1986; Matsumura, 2003; Olshtain and Blum-Kulka, 1985; Schauer, 2006) have attracted considerable interest, refusals have received less attention, and even less so in Spanish as a foreign language (FL). Refusals are face-threatening acts that require the refuser to turn something down and hence, put the speaker's positive and negative face at risk. For that reason, successful refusals require good pragmatic competence and awareness.Apart from the fact that this pilot study is unique in dealing with Peninsular Spanish and also in considering a less investigated speech act and a somewhat overlooked variable, i.e., refusals and length of stay abroad, it is also rather novel in its approach towards data collection. In the past, authors such as Kasper and Dahl (1991) or more recently Felix-Brasdefer (2003; 2010) have written extensively on methods of data collection in pragmatic research. These methods usually refer to written or sometimes on-line production questionnaires (mainly Discourse Completion Tests (DCTs) or Discourse Elicitation Tests (DETs)), ethnographic data collection (based on observer's notes, diaries, logs), role-plays, verbal reports and on-line pragmatic tests. Traditional methods are rather strict in their application, as they require the subject to be present in order to take part in the study. Unless these are carried out online, there is a compulsory element of physical presence, but not only that, the contexts, even natural scenarios, become rather artificial due to the presence of recording devices. In this digital era, technology allows for much more flexible and efficient methods to be implemented, and yet the use of digital data collection is somewhat less documented. In our study we propose to use Second Life as a context for our students' interactions. The body of research using this platform for data collection is certainly limited, although the possibilities offered are considerable.Second Life is a virtual world that was created in 2003 by Linden Labs; it can be easily downloaded and accessed online, and anyone can create a user account for free. Over the past few years, there has been a growing interest in the use of this environment for learning and teaching; in fact, an increasing number of studies have been published on the subject (Bell, 2009; Bradshaw, 2006; De Freitas, 2007; Molka-Danielsen et al, 2007). …