The Effect of Social Status and Gender on Realization of Refusal of Suggestion among Iranian EFL Intermediate Learners

Abstract

The current study aimed at exploring the dependence of realized and applied strategies in refusal of suggestion on the people of different levels of social status (i.e., equal, low and high) and the gender differences. Teaching communicative rules, social conventions and values of the target nation can help EFL learners to avoid pragmatic failures. One of the important factors in realization of refusal strategies is the speaker's knowledge of the refusals usage to save the interlocutor's face and to be polite. The participants of this study consisted of 60 (30 females and 30 males) intermediate English Foreign Language (EFL) learners in Tehran, Iran. Discourse-completion test (DCT) with 18 situations was used. Chi- square indicated that learners employed more indirect strategies to people of equal social status. They used more direct strategies to people of low social status, and we can claim that they applied the same types of direct and indirect strategies to people of high social status. Learners utilized more adjunct strategies to people of equal social status and the frequency of realized and applied strategies in refusal of suggestion was not statistically different between the female and male participants in each of three levels of social status.