Indirect Refusal Research Articles

Refusal Strategies by Young Jordanian Speakers in Arabic and English

This study aims to investigate refusal strategies used among Jordanian Arabic speakers and EFL learners of English in Jordan. Two Discourse Completion Tests (DCT), containing scenarios of refusal, were completed by 43 Jordanian Arabic speakers along with 37 EFL learners of English in Jordan. Data analysis reveals three main refusal categories used in the data: direct, indirect and adjuncts to refusals. Jordanian Arabic speakers used 7% direct refusals, 57% indirect refusals, and 36% adjuncts to refusals. In contrast, EFL learners used 13% direct refusals, 62% indirect refusals, and 25% adjuncts to refusals. Additionally, strategies such as insisting, insulting, praising the other, and invoking the name of God were observed. In conclusion, both groups preferred indirect refusal strategies over other types. It was also noted that EFL learners used more direct and indirect refusal strategies than Jordanian Arabic speakers but fewer adjuncts to refusals. Both groups produced similar strategies in response to the four types of situations, indicating that cultural background significantly influenced the way refusals were performed, despite the different languages used.

Refusal and politeness strategies favoured among Iraqi and Malaysian learners in marriage proposals

The study targets exploring the similarities and differences between Iraqi and Malaysian learners of English in refusing marriage proposals. Also, it examines the favored politeness strategies that learners use to protect their interlocutors’ face, heeding both their social distance and status. Data were gathered by a Discourse Completion Task (DCT) which contained six marriage situations. Responses were analyzed based on Beebe et al.’s (1990) refusal taxonomy and Scollon et al.’s (2012) politeness system. The findings indicated that both the Iraqi and Malaysian learners preferred the indirect refusal strategies in marriage proposals, as well as the hierarchical politeness in the form of independence strategies regardless of the social status and distance between interlocutors. However, they differed in the sort of indirect strategies most frequently utilized. The Iraqi learners favored reason, regret, and non-performative statements, whilst the Malaysian learners preferred regret, non-performative statements, and reason.

“Finding a Way To Say ‘No’”: Library Employees' Responses to Sexual Harassment as Emotional Labour

ABSTRACTPatron‐perpetrated sexual harassment (PPSH) is a form of gender‐based violence and a pervasive problem in libraries. However, contending with PPSH requires the performance of emotional labour by library workers because of workplace cultures and professional values that prioritize patron and institutional comfort. To better understand library workers' emotional labour as they respond to PPSH, we analyzed 510 survey responses where participants shared their experiences of, their responses to, and feelings about, PPSH. Three responsive strategies emerged: acceptance, indirect refusal, or direct refusal. Overwhelmingly, library workers reported negative emotions about the incidents. Despite these negative feelings, library workers consistently responded to PPSH by performing emotional labour that upheld “polite and professional” values. Our findings raise concerning questions for the field of library and information studies about the implicit and explicit expectations placed on library workers to perform emotional labour in response to PPSH, particularly within the context of a feminized profession and with the knowledge that PPSH harms library workers. Our goal is to support library workers and their institutions to “find a way to say ‘no’” to gender‐based violence in the workplace.

GENDER AND POWER RELATION IN ENGLISH REFUSAL STRATEGIES OF ESL UNDERGRADUATES

Refusal refers to a face-threatening act (FTA) for it can risk one’s face in communication. It encompasses turning down someone’s request, offer or suggestion. The speech act of refusal has been one of the most prominent areas of interest for many scholars. However, there is a dearth of such study in Malaysia, particularly within the Malay community. Aimed to fill the gap, this study examined the refusal strategies used in English by Malay ESL undergraduates, observe the differences and similarities in the refusal strategies of male and female undergraduates, and analyse whether relative power has an influence on the choice of their refusal strategies. This study employed the Discourse Completion Test (DCT) which was distributed among sixty Malay ESL undergraduates, consisting of 30 males and 30 females where they were required to refuse requests from three addressees (lecturer, friend, junior) in five different situations. The collected data were then analysed quantitatively. The findings showed that 32 out of 41 types of refusal strategies were used by the participants. Both male and female students employed more indirect refusal strategies regardless of the person’s relative power. Furthermore, relative power did influence the participants' choices in refusal strategies.

The relationships between students' comprehension of conversational implicatures and their achievement in reading comprehension.

The most important thing in effective communication is understanding not only what is said, but also why it is said. Therefore, the development of pragmatic competence in another language is essential to be able to communicate effectively. Pragmatic competence plays an important role in enabling interlocutors to work out what is intended by what is said. In this sense, special emphasis should be placed on the pragmatic aspects of language in order to enable language learners to use language appropriately. In this regard, this study aims to investigate whether there is a relationship between students’ comprehension of conversational implicatures and their achievement in reading comprehension. To this end, the data were collected from first-year 122 students at one of the private universities in northern Cyprus with different bachelor’s degrees via the Multiple-Choice Discourse Completion Test (MCDCT) and the reading test. The quantitative data were analysed by means of A Pearson Correlational Analysis, Simple Linear Regression, and Canonical Correlational Analysis. The results of the study revealed that comprehension of conversational implicatures of first-year university students is positively related to their achievement in reading comprehension. Moreover, it has been depicted that among the eight implicature types, topic change, indirect refusal, and disclosure are more related (0.855) to reading comprehension. Therefore, these three implicature types provide the most contribution to the participants’ comprehension of conversational implicatures. As it is, they are more powerful predictors of reading comprehension. In addition to these results, there is only one high positive correlation among the six reading subskills; that is between the subskill to identify ideas and opinions of the writer and the subskill to scan a text to find specific information (0.749). In the light of the findings, this study yields crucial implications for language teachers, material developers, and curriculum designers to take full advantage of these associations for promoting EFL learners’ achievement in reading and comprehension of conversational implicatures in the target language.

A STUDY OF MALE AND FEMALE REFUSAL STRATEGY PERFORMED BY EMPLOYEES OF BCD TRAVEL INDONESIA

The objectives of this research are to analyze what refusal strategies performed by male and female employees of BCD Travel Indonesia and to identify the language features found in refusal strategies of male and female employees. The qualitative method, specifically using a case study is used in this research. The primary data source of this study was taken from a written document namely Discourse Completion Test (DCT) proposed by Beebe and friends (1990) with little modification. Questionnaires to collect the data, specifically the Discourse Completion Test (DCT) as the instrument are applied in this research. The findings show that from 132 utterances of male employees, 80 utterances are indirect strategy, 28 utterances are adjuncts, and 24 utterances are direct strategy. These results show that male and female employees have their own ways of delivering indirect refusal strategy. In the utterances of male and female employee’s refusal strategies, 5 of 10 language features, such as lexical hedges or fillers, intensifiers, ‘superpolite’ forms, avoidance of strong swear words and emphatic stress are investigated.
 
 Keywords : Refusal strategies, language features, male and female employees

REFUSAL APPLIED IN "ALADDIN MOVIE"

This descriptive qualitative research discovered to investigate the types of refusal in Aladdin movie. This movie was modified by the folklore Aladdin in the Walt Disney Pictures, the folklore was made by Terry Rossio. Then, there were the types of refusal, namely indirect refusal, direct refusal, and adjunct refusal. This study was applied the theory by Felix brasdefer, (2008) and Houck, (1999). The most common reason for using indirect refusal than direct and adjunct refusal because it can minimize the negative effect (FTA) of the hearer. This research was using an observational method and a non-participatory method by Sudaryanto's theory. Then, the data was analyzed using the pragmatics identity method. Meanwhile, the finding results of frequently of this research were found 21 data of indirect refusal, 13 data of direct refusal, and 9 data of adjunct refusal. Based on data source, the character of Aladdin mostly used indirect refusal statement.

Refusal Strategies Used by EFL Learners of English Study Program in Riau, Indonesia

This research shed light on the types of refusal strategies employed by the EFL learners of the English Study Program of Universitas Riau. This is using a descriptive qualitative study. The participants of this research involved 35 EFL students of the English Study Program selected by using the cluster random sampling method. The data was acquired using a DCT (Discourse Completion Task) as the instrument that contains some situations in which students were supposed to expressing their refusal. The result showed that the students used three kinds of strategies in giving refusals. Indirect refusal is the most strategy used by the students to interact in their daily life. One strategy which is not used by the students is direct refusal by using a performative statement.

Different Neural Responses for Unfinished Sentence as a Conventional Indirect Refusal Between Native and Non-native Speakers: An Event-Related Potential Study

Refusal is considered a face-threatening act (FTA), since it contradicts the inviter’s expectations. In the case of Japanese, native speakers (NS) are known to prefer to leave sentences unfinished for a conventional indirect refusal. Successful comprehension of this indirect refusal depends on whether the addressee is fully conventionalized to the preference for syntactic unfinishedness so that they can identify the true intention of the refusal. Then, non-native speakers (NNS) who are not fully accustomed to the convention may be confused by the indirect style. In the present study, we used event-related potentials (ERPs) of electroencephalography in an attempt to differentiate the neural substrates for perceiving unfinished sentences in a conventionalized indirect refusal as an FTA between NS and NNS, in terms of the unfinishedness and indirectness of the critical sentence. In addition, we examined the effects of individual differences in mentalization, or the theory of mind, which refers to the ability to infer the mental states of others. We found several different ERP effects for these refusals between NS and NNS. NNS induced stronger P600 effects for the unfinishedness of the refusal sentences, suggesting their perceived syntactic anomaly. This was not evoked in NS. NNS also revealed the effects of N400 and P300 for the indirectness of refusal sentences, which can be interpreted as their increased processing load for pragmatic processing in the inexperienced contextual flow. We further found that the NNS’s individual mentalizing ability correlates with the effect of N400 mentioned above, indicating that lower mentalizers evoke higher N400 for indirect refusal. NS, on the contrary, did not yield these effects reflecting the increased pragmatic processing load. Instead, they evoked earlier ERPs of early posterior negativity (EPN) and P200, both of which are known as indices of emotional processing, for finished sentences of refusal than for unfinished ones. We interpreted these effects as a NS’s dispreference for finished sentences to realize an FTA, given that unfinished sentences are considered more polite and more conventionalized in Japanese social encounters. Overall, these findings provide evidence that a syntactic anomaly inherent in a cultural convention as well as individual mentalizing ability plays an important role in understanding an indirect speech act of face-threatening refusal.

A Cross-Cultural Study of Refusal Speech Acts in China, Korea, and America

This study compared refusal strategies used by speakers from three cultural groups whose native languages are Chinese, Korean, and American English respectively, from the perspective of cross-cultural communication based on Discourse Completion Task (DCT). Results show that generally speaking, all groups employed indirect refusal strategy more frequently than direct refusal strategy and adjuncts to refusal strategy, but the American subjects used direct refusals and adjuncts to refusals significantly more frequently than Chinese and Korean subjects. Besides, it was also found that the Korean subjects tended to be more direct than the Chinese subjects and showed a tendency towards the American subjects. Finally, with regard to the refuser’s social status, it was observed that all the three groups employed adjuncts to refusal strategy more frequently to lower status interlocutors than to higher status interlocutors.

Pragmatic Transfer in Advanced Saudi EFL Learners’ Refusals

The present study investigated pragmatic transfer in the refusals of advanced Saudi learners of English as a foreign language (SEFL) in terms of the frequency and content of the emantic formulas, and whether their refusals correspond more to those of Saudi native speakers of Arabic (NSA) or native speakers of English (NSE). A total of 45 female subjects participated in the study and were divided into three groups: advanced SEFL as the target group (n = 15), NSA as a baseline data group (n = 15), and NSE as a baseline data group (n = 15). The study employed a mixed-method data collection approach consisting of a Discourse Completion Test (DCT) and semi-structured interviews. The collected data were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively using the chi-square test and descriptive statistics. The results of the study revealed that pragmatic transfer was evident in the refusals of the SEFL group in both the frequency and content of semantic formulas. Moreover, the SEFL group’s realization of the speech act of refusal corresponded more to the NSA group than the NSE group. The analysis revealed that the SEFL group’s use of the direct refusal strategies, indirect refusal strategies, and adjuncts to refusals either resembled or approximated the NSA group’s use of the strategies to refuse all of the four stimulus types: requests, invitations, offers, and suggestions. Both the SEFL and NSA groups used the direct refusal strategies in a similar pattern; they used the direct strategies significantly less with interlocutors of a lower and higher social status, and significantly more with interlocutors of an equal social status. Furthermore, the content of the semantic formulas used by the SEFL group corresponded more to the content of the semantic formulas used by the NSA group in terms of the degree of specificity and the choice of the type of specific excuses. The SEFL group significantly approximated the NSA group’s use of both specific and unspecific excuses; they used three categories of specific excuses in a similar frequency: family, health, and personal preferences or needs.

The Study of Native Surabaya Young People Refusal Strategy in English

Refusal often ends in misunderstanding and even anger, so people organize and maintain their refusal to avoid face threats. The people of Surabaya use the native Surabaya language, which is known as an open and blunt language, so a rejection strategy is assumed similar to this characteristic. This thesis aims to analyze what types of refusal strategies of native Surabaya young people use and how they use them in English. It examines how respondents refused invitation, request, offer or suggestion in various situations. This is a qualitative study with 21 native Surabaya young people, the EFL learners completing a Written Discourse Completion Test or WDCT, which contains several scenarios based on power and social distance. Data were analyzed using SPSS and the results showed that although the respondents came from Surabaya, which is known for its outspoken speaking style, in fact only 12.6% respondents used the direct refusal strategy, conversely most respondents used indirect refusal strategy (79.7%) in expressing their rejection, while the least used strategy was Adjunct (7.7%). The respondents continued to use the indirect refusal strategies, even though they had more power and less closeness or have the equal power and closeness to the interlocutors.

The Study of Native Surabaya Young People Refusal Strategy in English

Refusal often ends in misunderstanding and even anger, so people organize and maintain their refusal to avoid face threats. The people of Surabaya use the native Surabaya language, which is known as an open and blunt language, so a rejection strategy is assumed similar to this characteristic. This thesis aims to analyze what types of refusal strategies of native Surabaya young people use and how they use them in English. It examines how respondents refused invitation, request, offer or suggestion in various situations. This is a qualitative study with 21 native Surabaya young people, the EFL learners completing a Written Discourse Completion Test or WDCT, which contains several scenarios based on power and social distance. Data were analyzed using SPSS and the results showed that although the respondents came from Surabaya, which is known for its outspoken speaking style, in fact only 12.6% respondents used the direct refusal strategy, conversely most respondents used indirect refusal strategy (79.7%) in expressing their rejection, while the least used strategy was Adjunct (7.7%). The respondents continued to use the indirect refusal strategies, even though they had more power and less closeness or have the equal power and closeness to the interlocutors.

THE GENDER-BASED DIFFERENCE IN THE USE OF SPEECH ACTS OF REFUSAL: A STUDY OF THE KHOWAR LANGUAGE

Purpose of the study: Language, culture, and gender affect the ways one refuses an offer, suggestion, request, or invitation. Moreover, what we say and how we say may change the contextual meaning. Therefore, a study was conducted to examine the use of speech acts of refusal by the Khowar language speakers to know whether there is any gender difference. Methodology: The undergraduate level students, aging between 15 and 25, participated in the study. An open-ended questionnaire was used for data collection. The questionnaire contained four hypothetical situations and each situation required the use of speech acts of refusal by the participants. A refusal classification format devised by Beebe (1990) was used to analyse the data. Main Findings: The findings showed that both males and females used almost similar refusal strategies in all four situations. Direct and indirect refusal speech acts with pre-and post-refusal strategies were used in nearly the same quantity. The study also revealed that language, culture, and social status did not play an important role in realising refusal strategies. Application of the study: The study will help linguists, language teachers, and anthropologists to understand the nature of male and female Khowar language speakers. It will also add valuable literature on the use of language and gender differences. The originality of the study: The study is significant being the first of its kind that addressed the gender difference and language use in Khowar language speakers. The study is also vital as it will preserve a minor language spoken in one of the remotest areas of Pakistan.

Use of Refusal Strategies among Saudi EFL Students: An Investigative Study

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.

Expressions of indirect refusal in Vietnamese (compared with Russian)

In Pragmatics, verbal behavior is a behavior that is most interested by many linguists. One of the behaviors is the act of rejection, the universal behavior of all languages. In intercultural conversations, the act of rejection is a very important behavior. Politeness in communication is a general principle in the social interaction of each culture. It is not easy to be polite when performing the acts of refusing without losing the other person's face. Refusal is a common act in communication, especially in intercultural communication. In the case that the proposed invitations, suggestions or requests, etc. are not suitable to receive, refusal in a proper manner is needed. Moreover, choosing the form of indirect refusal is an effective way of responding. They both express the declination of requests and the face saving for the listener. Based on literary works either published or uploaded onto the internet, this study focuses on formulas expressing indirect refusals in Vietnamese (compared with Russian). Thereby, contributing to the efficiency enhancement of the learning of this speech act used for both Vietnamese learners of the Russian language and Russian-speaking learners of the Vietnamese language.

The Refusal Speech Act in "Me Before You" Movie

This study aimed at identifying the strategies in refusal in Me Before You. This movie was adapted by the novel and the writer’s name is Jojo Moyes. Refusal has two types, they are indirect and direct refusal. Indirect refusal is mostly used because it can decrease the negative effect (FTA) of refusal itself. The strategies of indirect refusal are found alternative, reason and explanation, request for aditional information, apology or regret, repetition of part previous discourse, and posponement. The study applied an observational method and non-participatory technique by Sudaryanto. Then, this study applied pragmatics method to analyze the data. The finding showed that there were 5 utterances that contained request for additional information and this strategy was mostly used by the characters in this movie.

Tindak Tutur Penolakan Bahasa Jepang oleh Mantan Kenshuusei (Pekerja Magang di Jepang)

This study is intended to describe the speech act strategy of rejection in Japanese language by former apprentices (kenshuusei). The descriptive qualitative method used in this research is under the approach of interlanguage pragmatic study because the participants are foreign speakers of Japanese. The data were collected using the oral-discourse completion test technique. The findings of this study have shown three types of refusal processes, namely 1) pre-refusal - main refusal - post refusal; 2) pre-refusal - the main refusal; and 3) major refusal - post refusal. In the refusal utterances, there are 2 forms of refusal, namely direct refusal and indirect refusal. The strategies used in refusing are apology strategy, refusal reason strategy, alternative statement strategy, hope statement strategy, future demand strategy, negation form, fukushi, and aizuchi. The refusal strategies mostly used by former apprentices are the excuse strategy for refusal and almost all refusal speeches also use apologies.

Issuing a Refusal: How Female Saudi Speakers of Arabic Say No

The study examines the refusal strategies used by Saudi female speakers of Arabic. More specifically, the study aims at exploring the most frequently used refusal strategies by those speakers and how directness might have an effect on that use. A modified version in Arabic of a Discourse Completion Test (DCT) that was originally developed and used by Beebe et al. (1990) is used to elicit the data. The written questionnaire consists of nine situations. The initiating acts are three requests, three invitations and three offers which were designed to elicit refusals. The situations specify the context and the social status of interlocutors. The data is analyzed using a modified version of a classification scheme of refusal strategies developed be Beebe et al. (1990). The analysis focuses on the semantic formulas used for each situation and the frequency of each refusal strategy. The results reveal that the order of the semantic formulas in the responses of the participants differed across the initiating acts and the status differences. ‘Excuse/Reason’, an indirect refusal strategy, is used the most by the participants in their refusals. The excuses/reasons that the participants give tend to be lacking detail and of an uncontrollable nature. ‘Negative Ability’ is another frequently used strategy. Although a direct strategy, the participants still show their awareness of the need to lessen the threat that their refusal poses on the interlocutor by using other indirect strategies and adjuncts to accompany the direct one. The participants used more indirect refusal strategies than direct which might indicate that the participants are trying to mitigate their refusals by being less direct.

Variation in refusal strategies produced by English and Serbian speakers

ABSTRACT The aim is to investigate refusal strategies used by English and Serbian native speakers in terms of two sociological variables: social distance and power. To this end, the participants of the conducted experiment completed a written Discourse Completion Test which introduced 12 everyday situations to which they were expected to respond by making refusals to requests. The obtained data were categorised and analysed statistically. Overall, the results indicated both similarities and differences between the two groups. Both groups reported significantly more indirect refusal strategies than direct ones – the most common ones being excuse and statement of regret. There were, however, some differences between the groups in the frequency of particular refusal strategies such as adjuncts, which were employed more frequently by the English participants. Furthermore, unlike their counterparts, the Serbian participants were shown to be sensitive to the power variable, reflected in the significantly higher percentage of direct refusals used when addressing a subordinate interlocutor than when addressing an interlocutor of equal or higher power. The obtained results not only describe the similarities and differences between refusal strategies in English and Serbian, but also highlight different properties of the two cultures reflected in the use of these strategies.