Speech acts: Refusals: Multilingual comparison

xujiajin

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Refusals: Research Notes

http://www.carla.umn.edu/speechacts/refusals/research.html

Refusals can be used in response to requests/invitations/offers/suggestions (Beebe, Takahashi, & Uliss-Weltz, 1990)

American Refusals
Classification of American Graduate students’ rejection of academic advisors’ suggestions (Bardovi-Harlig & Hartford, 1991)

Direct

Hm. Not actually, I’m avoiding it.
Well, I’ve decided not to take...

Indirect

Excuse, reason, explanation
That’s the one that conflicts with what I have to take.
Yeah but...

Statement of alternative
But anyway, I could look into the possibility of having that requirement waived...
What would I take in the summer if I didn’t do that? (question form asking for an alternative)

Acceptance that functions as a refusal

Unspecific or indefinite replay: Lack of enthusiasm
That might be a solution.
Avoidance: Hedging
I don’t know.
Avoidance: Postonement
Can I think about it? (question form)
Students’ rejections of their advisers’ suggestions in academic advising sessions is an out-of-status act which requires the use of status preserving strategies. It is important for students to take their own status into consideration and employ appropriate status congruent strategies (Bardovi-Harlig & Hartford, 1991). Native English speaking graduate students generally employ status preserving strategies and reject an advisor’s suggestion while maintaining the status balance.

Status preserving strategies include linguistic strategies (1 and 2 below) and nonlinguistic strategies (3 to 6).

Appear congruent with interlocutors’ status

Use downgraders

Use appropriate timing

Use appropriate frequency

Be brief

Use appropriate content
Giving an explanation is probably the most common strategy for rejection used by native- speaking American graduate students. The content should be appropriate and relatively brief. Here are some of the most common explanations the native speakers used.

Repetition of courses at the same institution (I’ve taken that.)
Schedule conflicts (That’s the one that conflicts with what I have to take.)
Lack of availability (Yeah but in Spain they don’t offer courses in the structure of language outside the European family.)
Ability (Yeah, but, the books are probably in German, and my German isn’t too good.)

British Refusals
Kitao, S. K. (1996)

Over half of British refusals include an expression of regret and an excuse/reason. The most common combination of refusal strategies is found to be an expression of regret followed by an excuse or reason (30%). Other variations of reason and regret occur one fifth of the time (20%). The breakdown of the variations is:

excuse/reason + expression of regret (19%)
expression of regret + excuse/reason + promise or suggestions of future agreement (17%)
expression of regret + excuse/reason + statement of negative willingness (8%)
Giving a reason is probably central to refusals in British English as in American English. A concrete and specific reason tends to be necessary. For instance, in response to a request for a ride home, specific reasons can include that the speaker was not going home directly and/or why s/he was not doing so. Some examples are:

I’m not going home straight away. I’ve got to go meet someone first.
I’m not going straight home tonight. I was going to do some late night shopping.
I’ve got to pick some friends up from out of town straight after work.
I’m meeting my sister at the apartment.
In response to a small request, an expression of regret is likely to be offered (over 50%) to equals in particular (64%), rather than people of higher status (36%) or lower status (53%). For a larger request, apologies are sometimes offered.

Chinese Refusals
Chen, Ye, & Zhang (1995)

Substantive Refusals
 
Chen, X., Ye, L., & Zhang, Y. (1995). Refusing in Chinese. In G. Kasper (Ed.), Pragmatics of Chinese as a native and target language (pp. 119-163). Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai'i Press.

Discusses the act of refusal in Chinese as it relates to the concept of maintaining mianzi and lian C ones face and public image. According to the authors, Chinese perceive it as imperative to "'liu mianzi' C preserve face for the refusee," and "'liu houlu' C leave oneself a way out for the refuser." In Chinese culture, refusal is seen as having a potentially negative impact on future interaction, therefore great care is taken to follow implicit rules of appropriate behavior that shows respect for each person's role in the interaction. The authors carried out a study to examine the way both substantive and ritual refusal are handled by native speakers of Chinese in a variety of interactive relationships. The subjects were 50 male and 50 female speakers of Mandarin Chinese who had lived in the U.S. for an average of 2.4 years at the time of the study. Data were collected by means of a 16-item questionnaire designed to elicit responses to four types of initiating acts: requests, suggestions, invitations, and offers. The first part of the study involved substantive refusals, and each item specified the speaker's social status relative to the interlocutor. A detailed analysis of the frequency with which each form was used and some examples of each were given. The second part of the study involved ritual refusal as a commissive-directive act, and the authors described the strategies used by the subjects to interpret and respond to offers.
The above is quoted from the url provided by dr.xujiajin! that is very interesting topic! does any one of C-pals have the copy of the article, please do inform me of it! can i have one copy of the article as well? i do dream to read the article very much! it is very interesting to notice that chinese and japanese have a lot in common in the way of refusing or turning down the others. i am not sure if there is any literature comparing the two countries' ways of refusing people from the perspective of pragmatics and syntatical features? if there is please share the source of the literature over the web! thanks a lot!
 
The best part of Chinese Refusal Strategies is already there on the page--the three tables.
 
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