Abstract
The current study seeks to probe the use of refusal strategies and their frequency among Saudi EFL students of Bachelor of Science (BS) at Moon University (pseudonym), Saudi Arabia. Through a convenient sampling procedure, 20 students were selected, and Discourse Completion Test (DCT) was administered. This test comprised 12 situations eliciting refusals to suggestions, requests, offers, and invitations. Their answers were then coded using the refusal strategies categories laid down by Beebe, Takahashi & Uliss-Weltz (1990) and were analyzed via content analysis. Each participant’s refusal strategy for each speech act was analyzed using descriptive statistics, to discover exact frequency counts. The results indicated that the indirect refusal strategies were adopted by Saudi EFL students with greater frequency than the direct strategies even though Saudi culture is characteristically inclined towards directness resulting in numerous face-threatening acts. The results demonstrated the tendency towards the use of adjuncts by EFL students which to some extent indicated the cultural grooming of interlocutors. Moreover, lack of pragma-linguistic competence was reflected in flawed and ambiguous syntactic structures which impacted the clarity of meaning. The findings also suggested that in this globalized world where cross-cultural communication is unavoidable, the teaching of English should be geared towards the development of both pragma-linguistic and socio-pragmatic competence among EFL students.
Highlights
Pragmatic competence, defined as “the ability to use language forms in a wide range of environments, factoring in the relationships between the speakers involved and the social and cultural context of the situation” (Lightbown & Spada, 2013), has always been a debatable issue in foreign language teaching
The data of 20 participants were analyzed using descriptive statistics, providing several refusal strategies adopted for each speech act through a figure demonstrating refusal strategies in response to other speech acts followed by a comprehensive table given below
The current study describes the refusal strategies of Saudi EFL Students, considering the social standing of the participants in communication and the kind of speech acts adopted in such situations
Summary
Pragmatic competence, defined as “the ability to use language forms in a wide range of environments, factoring in the relationships between the speakers involved and the social and cultural context of the situation” (Lightbown & Spada, 2013), has always been a debatable issue in foreign language teaching. To make up for their shortcomings in pragmatic knowledge these students succumb to pragmatic borrowing from their first language to the target language. They use direct translation from their mother language and add their cultural perspectives during their communication in the English language. Their speech is replete with pragmatic errors—a situation that leads to pragmatic failure or communication breakdown. This is precisely why the integration of pragmatics with language teaching should be considered rudimentary
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