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13© Chen, Shu-Chu, and Shu-hui Eileen Chen 2007
Research article
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Effects of social status on American and Taiwanese EFL learners' production of English refusals
Shu-Chu Chen1, Shu-hui Eileen Chen2
1 National Yunlin University of Science and Technology, National Cheng-Chi University, Taiwan.
E-mail: chensc@yuntech.edu.tw
2 National Taipei University of Education, Taiwan.
E-mail: shuchen@ms7.hinet.net
This study investigated cross cultural differences and the effect of social status on refusal strategies used by forty Taiwanese EFL learners and forty native speakers of American English in two situations of higher and lower status using Discourse Completion Task (DCT). Their responses were analyzed based on the taxonomy developed by Beebe, Takahashi & Uliss-Weltz in terms of their preferred refusal patterns, direct and indirect refusals. Results showed that Americans tended to use the refusal pattern with reasons and offering alternative in refusing someone's suggestion whereas Taiwanese EFL learners preferred using the combination of apologies and reasons. Additionally, both groups favored indirect refusals, however cross-cultural differences in the substrategies of indirect refusals were found. Secondly, social status affects their strategy choice for both groups. Americans used more apologies when refusing an inferior's suggestions whereas they used more alternative, avoidance or acceptance in refusing a superior's suggestion. For EFL learners, higher frequencies were found in offering alternatives, setting conditions for future/past acceptance, or dissuading interlocutor in refusing inferiors' suggestions. On the other hand, more reasons or avoidances were found when students refused his superiors' suggestions. Findings of this study can be used in EFL instruction and integrated into curriculum design.
Received: 10 February 2007
Reviewing editor: Andrey G. Kirillov Accepted: 1 March 2007
Published online: 15 March 2007
Abstract
Keywords
refusal speech acts; Taiwanese EFL learners; pragmatics
For citation
Chen, Shu-Chu, and Shu-Hui Eileen Chen. 2007. "Effects of social status on American and Taiwanese EFL learners' production of English refusals." Language. Text. Society 1 (1): e8-e26. https://ltsj.online/2007-01-l-chen-chen-01. (Journal title at the time of publication: SamaraAltLinguo E-Journal.)
1. INTRODUCTION
During the twentieth century, the research focus in linguistics and second language acquisition was on the scientific analysis of the language structures, and focused on the comparison of different languages. However a new trend started in the last decades of the twentieth century, social constructivists like Bergo Gleason & Weintraub (1976) suggested that researchers should focus more on the effect of learners' interactions with others and society. So this trend drew our attention to language as communication across individuals, and linguists started to look at discourse, interaction, negotiation and pragmatics, and the term communicative competence becomes a focus in SLA, and captures current trends in modern linguistics (Canale and Swain 1980; Bachman 1990).
This term communicative competence was proposed by Hymes (1967) and further defined by Canale & Swain (1980). Based on the view of language as communication, Hymes regarded communicative competence was aspect of our competence that enabled people to convey and interpret messages and to negotiate meanings inter-personally within specific contexts (1983, 9). He believed that Chomsky's notion of competence was too limited, so he distinguished linguistic and communicative competence (Hymes 1967) to highlight the difference between knowledge about language forms and knowledge that enabled a person to communicate functionally and to use language. Among this new trend in linguistics, one of the most compelling notions in the study of language use and language function is the study of learners' pragmatic competence (Blum-Kulka, House and Kasper 1989).
Pragmatic competence in an L2 involves not only linguistic or grammatical knowledge but also the ability to comprehend and produce socially appropriate language functions in context (Wolfson 1989). Research in learners' inter-language pragmatics is concerned with the study of native and nonnative speakers' production and comprehension of speech acts, and how speakers interpret and use utterances depending on contexts. Researchers have investigated non-native speakers (NNS) pragmalinguistic and politeness-related behaviors by contrasting native speakers (NS) and nonnative speakers (NNS) discourse, including expressions of gratitude (Eisenstein and Bodman 1993), apologies (Olshtain and Cohen 1983), complaints (House and Kasper 1981), request (Blum-Kulka 1982), and refusals (Rubin 1983; Bardovi-Harlig and Hartford 1993; Beebe and Cummings 1985; Stevens 1993; Felix-Brasdefer 2003; Robinson 1992; Beebe, Takahashi and Uliss-Weltz 1990).
These studies all indicate that learners in learning an L2 involves not only acquiring new vocabulary and rules of grammar and pronunciation (i.e. grammatical knowledge), but also the knowledge and ability to use these linguistic resources in ways that are appropriate to a
particular social context. In other words, the successful planning and production of speech act utterances of learners depend on certain sociocultural and sociolinguistic abilities. If EFL learners do not acquire these two abilities well and transfer their own sociolinguistic rules into the second language interaction, they might produce pragmatically inappropriate utterances thus result in pragmatic failure (Thomas 1983).
Although the importance of teaching sociocultural and sociolinguistic abilities is fully recognized, most textbooks and curriculum materials designed to teach spoken languages to L2 learners have shown little or no effort to provide natural pragmatically appropriate models for learners, and often fail to give a representation of the target language (Wolfson 1989). In light of the scarcity of this type of research and in order to fill in the gap, the present study aims to provide further insight into the pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic rules of speaking in the English language. The purpose of this study is to examine cross cultural differences and the effect of social status on refusal strategies used by forty Taiwanese EFL learners and forty native speakers of American English. The findings may contribute to an understanding of how refusals are performed by linguistically and culturally diverse speakers. In addition, the complexity and the uniqueness of refusal speech act realization will be better understood, and the results can be used as pedagogical materials for EFL language learners. Therefore, the process involved in the learners' speech act performance will be better understood.
2. LITERATURE
2.1. Speech act theories
Since Hymes (1972) introduced the notion of communicative competence including both the speaker's knowledge of the linguistic rules as well as the sociocultural rules for appropriate use, there has been an increasing interest in empirical research in the area and in practical applications of speech act studies (Eisenstein and Bodman 1993; Olshtain and Cohen 1983; House and Kasper 1981; Blum-Kulka 1982; Rubin 1983; Bardovi-Harlig and Hartford 1993; Beebe and Cummings 1985; Stevens 1993; Felix-Brasdefer 2003; Robinson 1992; Beebe, Takahashi and Uliss-Weltz 1990). These cross-cultural speech act studies have given us a better understanding of what a speaker needs to know in order to perform effectively and appropriately in communication, and the results can let learners more aware of the interplay of situational, sociolinguistic, and linguistic types of knowledge.
Working under the idea that language is communication, L2 researchers have analyzed the concept of speech act proposed by Austin (1962) and Searle (1975), and applied it to the study of language use. According to Austin (1962), many speech acts in English are closely related to the performative verbs that carry the semantic meaning in the speech acts. These verbs name the acts which are been performed. However, Searle has pointed out that the same speech function can be realized through the use of different verbs which differ in their semantic meanings. For instance, a request speech act can be performed by means of a command through the use of "close" (e.g. "Close the window"), or a more indirect request (e.g. "It is cold here"). Moreover, as Searle (1975) points out, speech acts can be realized indirectly by performing another one, and thus one form will have different functions based on contexts. For instance, an utterance such as
"It is cold here" could be interpreted to imply a request to close the window, a question for inquiring any heating equipment available, a complaint or just a factual statement.
Therefore for a speech act to be carried out satisfactorily, both the speaker and the addressee need to understand that there is no one-to-one relationship between form and function. In addition, they must share the linguistic realizations of the speech act in the language as well as the socio-cultural norms reflected by the context. Similarly, to be successful in the production and understanding of speech acts in the target culture, L2 learners also need to learn new speech act categories, new means for speech act realization, new contextual distributions of speech act (i.e. when to thank whom for what) and their corresponding norms in the target cultures (Kasper 1989, 42-43).
2.2. Refusal studies
Refusal speech acts are face-threatening, and they require a high level of pragmatic competence in communication. As a review of comparative studies on refusals across languages, we find that different cultures perform refusals differently. Their degree of directness in refusals, their sensitivity to social variables, and their performance in terms of the content of strategies might vary. So ESL or EFL learners, who lack appropriate pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic knowledge, are always at the risk of offending their interlocutors in performing refusals. Without appropriate pragmatic knowledge of the two kinds, they might have pragmalinguistic and/or sociopragmatic failure (Leech 1983; Thomas 1983).
According to Thomas (1983), pragmalinguistic failure refers to the situation that language learners translate an utterance from their native language into the target language but fail to get their meaning across because the communicative conventions behind the utterances are different. Sociopragmatic failure refers to the knowledge of what to say and whom to say it to, which differs by factors such as the degree of imposition, value judgment, and cross-culturally different assessments of relative power. Therefore the following paragraphs will present studies of different L1s and inter-language refusals in order to understand cross-cultural similarities/differences in inter-language refusal, and what factors might influence in their refusal behaviors.
In order to examine refusal and potential effects of social variables in Chinese, Chen, Ye, & Zhang (1995) investigate the refusal strategies in different situations embedded with different social variables. Fifty male and fifty female Mandarin Chinese native speakers, who have lived in the US. for more than 2.4 years, participate in their study. It is found that the most frequently used refusal strategies by Chinese are: reason, alternative, direct refusals, regret, and dissuading interlocutor. Furthermore, the choice of refusal strategy varies based on social status. For instance, using reasons as refusal strategies increases as speaker's social status decreases. Likewise, the choice of another strategy, alternative, is also dependent on relative status of interlocutors as well. A more frequent use of alternative could be found when interlocutors' status change from higher to equal and equal to lower (1995, 144).
A large-scale study on Mandarin Chinese refusal in Taiwan is conducted by Liao & Bresnahan (1996). In the study, the refusal speech act performance of 516 Americans and 570 Taiwanese university students are investigated through the use of DCT. The questionnaire
includes six situations, in which refusals are made to a person with higher status in one situation (i.e. teacher), to peers with equal status in four situations (i.e. friend), and to a person with lower status in one situation (i.e. younger sisters).
Based on their study, 24 strategies of refusals are identified in Mandarin Chinese. Their findings show that both Taiwanese and Americans use one of the refusal semantic formula — apology (e.g. I am sorry) — similarly in terms of frequency distribution. However, Americans are less likely to refuse a friend, while Chinese hesitate to refuse a family member. Americans and Chinese use different formulaic expressions in refusals. Chinese are using fewer strategies at making excuses. Therefore Liao and Bresnahan (1996) propose a politeness hypothesis of dian-dao-wei-zhi literally meaning 'marginally touching the point.' This "economy of strategy use" (1996, 724) in the oriental countries may be due to their concern to end an awkward refusal situation as soon as possible. In their conclusions, they suggest that both cultures are concerned about politeness; however the ways in which politeness is realized reflect the differences between western and oriental countries.
Inter-language refusal studies begin with Beebe, Takahashi and Uliss-Weltz's (1990) influential research on refusal. Their classification system of semantic formulas serves as an important tool for the follow up inter-language studies on refusals. Their refusal taxonomy includes two main categories: Direct and Indirect categories. Under the Direct category, there are two semantic formulas or strategies. One is termed as performative (e.g. I refuse), and the other is non-performative statement (e.g. I can't). Under the indirect categories, eleven semantic formulas are identified. In addition, four types of adjuncts of refusals include statement of positive opinion (e.g. I'd love to; that's a good idea), pause filler (e.g. well; uhh), gratitude /appreciation(e.g. thank you), alerters (e.g. address terms) etc.
According to Beebe et al. (1990), refusals are made up of different selections from these formulas in accordance with the status and power relationship between speaker and hearer. By using Discourse completion task (DCT), Beebe et al. (1990) compared refusals among 20 Japanese ESL, 20 Japanese NSs, and 20 Americans. Results of the study showed that when refusing someone's requests, Americans tended to begin by expressing a positive feeling, then expressing regret, followed by reasons when they refuse persons with both higher and lower status. In refusing a request from someone with an equal status, Americans usually began with an expression of regret, followed by a reason for refusals. On the other hand, Japanese groups tended to be more direct when refusing someone with lower status. In addition, when hearers were in the higher status, Japanese omitted apologies or regrets in their refusals to requests.
In refusing someone with lower status, Japanese refusers who are in a higher status do not use apology or regret. In refusing persons with higher status, Japanese use more mitigation strategies than in addressing persons with lower status. However, the native speakers of English use similar strategies in refusing all invitations, beginning with an adjunct, followed by an expression of regret, and an excuse. In their refusal to a friend, they also tend to add "thank you" at the end (Beebe, Takahashi and Uliss-Weltz 1990). To sum up the findings so far, an examination of the data presented in different L1 refusals and inter-language studies show that the notion of face applies to American culture, which abides by both Grice's and Brown and Levinson's theories. However solidarity or group face seems to better describe in societies like Chinese, Korean, Japanese and Mexican as reported in the reviewed refusal studies (e.g. Ide 1989; Gu
1990; Matsumoto 1988). Secondly, In terms of the factors that governed the performance of inter-language refusal studies, factors such as learners' perceived distance between their L1 and the target language (Takahashi 1996), learning context (e.g. Takahashi and Beebe 1987) might influence learners' refusal speech act performance. Another important factor influencing learners' refusal behaviors is learners' perception/production of social status (e.g. Felix-Brasdefer 2003; Brown and Levinson 1987; Takahashi and Beebe 1987).
As predicted by politeness theory (Brown and Levinson 1987), power relationship constrains communicative action universally, but actors' assessment of the weight and values of the factor varies substantively from context to context, intra- and inter-culturally (Blum-Kulka, House and Kasper 1989). Therefore it is worthwhile to investigate cross-cultural differences in using refusals, and the effect of social status on native speakers of American English and Taiwanese EFL learners.
3. METHODOLOGY
3.1. Research questions
The major research questions were:
1. What are the similarities and/or differences in refusal strategies between Taiwanese EFL learners and those of American English speakers?
2. How does social status influence refusal strategy choice of Taiwanese EFL learners and American speakers respectively?
3.2. Subject
Subjects in this study were two groups of college students. In terms of the learner group, data were collected from forty Taiwanese college students. In Taiwan, English is a required subject that most undergraduates have taken for at least seven years. Subjects from learners groups were freshmen and were chosen from National Yunlin University of Science and Technology, Taiwan. They were about the General English Proficiency Test (GEPT) intermediate level, reflecting a low to intermediate English proficiency. The Ministry of Education in Taiwan commissioned the Language Training & Testing Center (LTTC) to develop a fair and reliable English test, called the General English Proficiency Test (GEPT), for all English learners at all levels of proficiency. There are five levels in GEPT, Elementary, Intermediate, High-Intermediate, Advanced, and Superior, and including listening, reading, writing, and speaking components. Forty native speakers of American English were college undergraduate from University of Hawaii. Equal number of male and female students was chosen in order to exclude gender effect.
3.3. Procedures and instrument
The instrument used for the study was a discourse-completion task (DCT), which consisted of scripted dialogues that represented socially differentiated situations. The DCT involving two situations used by Beebe et al. (1990) in their study of refusal in Japanese and
American English was adopted and revised for the present study. The situations presented in the DCT required subjects to refuse suggestions, and by taking on the roles of students or teachers. In addition, social status, which has been proved to affect the speech act realization, was embedded in the situations (Blum-Kulka 1982; Blum-Kulka, House and Kasper 1989). In each situation, each dialogue is preceded by a short description of situations, specifying the setting, the social status between interlocutors, and followed by an incomplete dialogue. Respondents were asked to complete the dialogue, thereby providing the speech act aimed at. One situation is provided below.
You are a university student. During your advising session, your academic advisor, whom you are not familiar with, suggests that you should take a writing course, but you really don't want to. What would you say (in English) to refuse his suggestion? You:_
Table 1. Design of the situations
Item DCT Situation Stimulus Type Familiarity Refuser's status
(+ ---) relative to the
interlocutor (+--)
1 Give a new course Suggestion -- + (students suggest
teachers to offer a new course; teachers refuse)
2 Take a course Suggestion -- -(teachers suggest
students to take a course; students refuse)
3.4. Coding and Data Analysis
Descriptive quantitative analyses were conducted to examine written refusals for Taiwanese EFL learners and Americans. Data were coded according to the taxonomy developed by Beebe, Takahashi and Uliss-Weltz (1990) in terms of semantic formulas (i.e. strategy) and adjuncts to refusals for their frequency of occurrence in two situations. The refusal strategies were classified into direct and indirect strategies. Adjuncts function as external modifications to the main refusal head act in order to reinforce or protect the interlocutor's positive face. The types of adjuncts used in our study include positive opinion (e.g. that's a good opinion; I'd love to); statement of empathy (e.g. I realize you are in a difficult situation); pause filler (e.g. uhh; well); gratitude/appreciation (e.g. Thank you very much); and two new types of adjuncts: alerter (e.g look); and removal of negativity /solidarity (e.g. You are a nice guy). Frequencies for semantic
formulas as well as adjuncts were conducted for both groups, and Chi-square tests were conducted to examine differences with probabilities up to 0.05 considered as significant.
4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Refusal strategies can be classified into direct and indirect main categories. In the latter case, eleven substrategies were included. According to table 2, results showed that Americans and Taiwanese EFL learners have similar frequencies in terms of overall refusal strategies, indirect refusals, direct refusals and adjuncts, but Taiwanese EFL learners use less refusal strategies compared with those of Americans. It seemed to support the findings in Liao & Bresnahan (1996) in that Chinese were more economic at making excuses and used less strategies compared with that of Americans. It could be explained that this "economy of strategy use in the oriental countries may be due to their concern to end an awkward refusal situation as soon as possible" (1996, 724).
Secondly, compared with the frequencies of direct refusals, indirect strategies seemed to be a preferred choice for both groups. The motivation for using indirect instead of direct refusal can be explained from the motivation of face concern. Because refusals are face-threatening acts, speakers face the tensions when performing refusal. They want to go on record to refuse directly, but speakers may have the risk of hurting hearers' face by refusing directly. So in order to save hearers' faces and the desire to give hearers a way out, so speakers tend to use conventional indirectness. By doing so, the utterances go on record, and speakers express their intention indirectly. This also partly supports the claim that the form of conventional indirectness is universal as reported in Brown & Levinson (1987, 132).
Table 2. Frequency of refusals for both groups in two situations
American Chinese EFL learners P value
Overall (direct + 161 131 0.128 n.s.
indirect)
Direct 34 28 0.124 n.s.
Indirect 127 103 0.175 n.s.
Adjunct 41 40 n.s.
Note: n.s means not statistically significant.
A refusal is the second part of an adjacency pair and the choice of refusal strategy depends on the social role relationship between the interlocutor and the speaker as reported in literature. In Chinese society, since social hierarchy plays an important role in refusal strategy choices in, so how to act appropriately means to act according to one's social position or social status (e.g Chen, Ye and Zhang 1995; Gu 1990). This is clearly evident in our refusal data.
In terms of the effect of social status on Taiwanese EFL learners, more direct refusals, more indirect and overall strategies were found in situation 1in which a teacher refused a
student's suggestion than those in situation 2 where a student refused a teacher's suggestion. The use of direct strategies in two situations for EFL learners is similar to Beebe et al. (1990) in that Japanese groups tended to be more direct when refusing someone with lower status.
Secondly, adjuncts function as external modifications to the main refusal head act in order to reinforce or protect the interlocutor's positive face (Beebe, Takahashi and Uliss-Weltz 1990). In learners' data, we found less adjuncts were used when a person with lower status refused a superior's suggestions. A closer look on the types of adjuncts (Table 11), EFL learners chose strategies like gratitude (44%), pause fillers (22%), alerters (e.g., "look"; address term) when students said no to their teachers. The use of address terms for Taiwanese EFL learners reflects different conception in politeness between Americans and Chinese. The explanation will be discussed in the section of types of adjuncts.
Table 3. Pair t-test for Taiwanese EFL learners in two situations
Taiwanese EFL S1(refuse a student's S2 P value
learners suggestion)
Overall(Direct+ indirect) 76 55 0.000
Direct 16 12 0.378 n.s.
Indirect 60 43 0.018
adjunct 13 27 0.000
Note: n.s means not statistically significant.
Like the performance of EFL learners, Americans had similar tendencies in overall strategies, direct, indirect and adjuncts in situation 1 compared with their performance in situation 2 (Table 4). Significantly using more direct refusals and overall strategies were also reported when the interlocutor was in a higher social position than in a lower social position (i.e. teacher vs. student).
Table 4. Pair t-test for American in two situations
American S1 S2 P value
Overall (Direct +indirect) 94 67 0.000
Direct 25 9 0.002
Indirect 69 58 0.162 n.s.
adjunct 22 19 0.083 n.s.
Note: n.s means not statistically significant.
For cross-cultural similarities and/or differences for both groups in two situations, we found Americans tended to say more compared with the performance of EFL learners. Significant differences (p<0.05) were found in the categories of overall strategies and the use of adjuncts (Table 5). In the situation when a student refused a teacher's suggestion in S2, though both groups tended to use indirect refusals to refuse a teacher's suggestion, EFL learners used more direct refusal and more adjuncts than those of their counterparts (Table 6). The degree of weightiness of the social status seemed to vary cross culturally and lead to the differences in their refusal choice.
Table 5. Frequencies and statistics for two groups in situation 1(S1)
frequency American Taiwanese EFL learners P- value
Overall 94 76 0.018
Direct 25 16 0.653 n.s.
indirect 69 60 0.351 n.s.
adjunct 22 13 0.044
Note: n.s means not statistically significant.
Table 6. Frequency and statistics for two groups in situation 2(S2)
American Chinese EFL learners P- value
Overall 67 55 0.033
Direct 9 12 0.299 n.s.
indirect 58 43 0.125 n.s.
adjunct 19 27 0.027
Note: n.s means not statistically significant.
4.1. Substrategies of indirect refusals
Refusal strategies can be classified into direct and indirect main categories. In the latter case, eleven substrategies were included. Based on Table 7 and Table 8, the first two preferred refusal strategies for Americans in two situations were using reasons (37%; 45%) and avoidances (19%; 21%). For EFL learners, they used more reasons (38%; 41%) and apologies (23%; 28%) to refuse indirectly.
A comparison of the frequency in two situations, we can find the effect of social status seem to affect Americans in some sub-strategy use (Tables 7-8). Higher frequencies were found in using regrets/apologies (17%vs. 1%) when a teacher refused a student's suggestion (Table7) whereas more alternative (19% vs. 17%), avoidance (21% vs. 19%) or even acceptance (5% vs. 0) were found in a student refusing his teacher's suggestion.
A comparison of the frequency in two situations in learners' data for the effect of social status, comparatively higher frequencies were found in offering alternative (20% vs. 9%), setting conditions for future/past acceptance (2% vs. 0), dissuading interlocutor (2% vs. 0) or even offering indefinite reply as acceptance (7% vs. 2%) in situation when a teacher refused a student's suggestion. On the other hand, more reasons (41% vs.38%) and avoidance (14% vs. 5%) were found in the data in a student refusing a teacher's suggestion. In addition, similar to Beebe et al. findings (1990) in that Japanese omitted apologies or regrets in their refusals to requests when hearers were in the higher status. This tendency can applied to Taiwanese EFL learners in that fewer apologies were found when hearers were in a lower status.
Cross cultural comparison and contrast between two groups in situation 1 (Table 7), and we found that both groups do not use wish or philosophy as their indirect refusal strategies. However, differences can be found. Taiwanese EFL learners used more apologies, offering alternatives or even acceptance to refuse a student's suggestion while Americans tried to dissuade their interlocutors (9%) or using avoidance (19%) as main refusal strategies in S1.
Table 7. Frequency of substrategies of indirect refusals for both groups in S1 (higher to lower)
Indirect refusals sub-classes American Chinese EFL
1.II A Regret, apology 12 (17%) 14 (23%)
2. II B Wish 0 0
3. II C Reason, excuse, explanation 25 (37%) 23 (38%)
4. II D Alternative 12 (17%) 12 (20%)
5. II E Set conditions for Future/past acceptance 1 (1%) 1 (2%)
6. II F Future/past acceptance 0 1 (2%)
7. II G Principle 0 0
8. II H Philosophy 0 0
9. II I Dissuading interlocutor 6 (9%) 2 (3%)
10. II J Acceptance 0 4 (7%)
11.II K Avoidance 13 (19%) 3 (5%)
Total 69 60
Secondly, compared with the performance of EFL learners (Table 8), when Americans refuse a person with higher social status (e.g. teacher), Americans used more types of refusal
strategies including providing reasons (45%), alternatives(19%), dissuading interlocutor(9%), acceptance(5%>), and avoidance(21%).
Table 8. Frequency of substrategies of indirect refusals for both groups in S2 (lower to higher)
Indirect refusals sub-classes American Chinese EFL
1.II A Regret, apology 1 (1%) 12 (28%)
2. II B Wish 0 0
3. II C Reason, excuse, explanation 26 (45%) 18 (41%)
4. II D Alternative 11 (19%) 4 (9%)
5. II E Set conditions for Future/past acceptance 0 0
6. II F Future/past acceptance 0 0
7. II G Principle 0 1 (2%)
8. II H Philosophy 0 0
9. II I Dissuading interlocutor 5 (9%) 1 (2%)
10. II J Acceptance 3 (5%) 1 (2%)
11.II K Avoidance 12 (21%) 6 (14%)
Total 58 43
4.2. Major refusal patterns
Brown and Levinson (1987) indicated that people cooperate in maintaining face in interaction. Refusals are intrinsically face-threatening, and in natural conversation it often involves a long negotiated sequence (Beebe, Takahashi and Uliss-Weltz 1990). Thus what are the preferred and the major type of refusal patterns for both groups become another interesting point to be explored. For those frequencies which were less than 3 were not considered in our data.
As shown in the following table, Americans tended to use patterns like reason plus offering alternative in refusing someone's suggestion. While Taiwanese EFL learners favored offering apologies first (e.g. I am sorry), and were followed by reasons for refusing suggestions. This is another cross-cultural difference for two groups in terms of refusal patterns.
Table 9. Group refusal patterns in two situations
Frequency American Chinese EFL learners
Situation S1 S2 S1 S2
reason+ alternative
Statement of regret+ reason **5 ***10 ***7
Note: *** The most frequently used; **frequently used.
4.3. Types of adjuncts
According to Beebe et al. (1990), adjuncts function as external modifications to the main refusal head act in order to reinforce or protect the interlocutor's positive face. The types of adjuncts used in our study include positive opinion (e.g. that's a good opinion; I'd love to); statement of empathy (e.g. I realize you are in a difficult situation); pause filler (e.g. uhh; well); gratitude/appreciation (e.g. Thank you very much); and two new types of adjuncts: alerter (e.g. look); and removal of negativity /solidarity (e.g. You are a nice guy).
In Table 10 to Table 11, the first two preferred types of adjuncts in two situations used by Americans were the same. They were statements of positive opinions (50%) and showing gratitude (41%). For Taiwanese EFL learners, they preferred to use statements of positive opinions, more pause fillers (e.g. uhh; well) when role playing a teacher refusing a student's suggestion (Table 10). On the other hand, saying words with more gratitude, pause fillers, and using more address terms were the top three preferred adjuncts found in refusing to a teacher's suggestion (Table 11).
A cross-cultural comparison for both groups in Table 10, we found that different frequencies in the use of substrategies in pause filler, gratitude, and removal of negativity /solidarity (e.g. you are a nice guy) for both groups when a superior refused a student's suggestions. In this case, Americans used more positive opinions and gratitude while learners used more pause fillers and removal of negativity.
When a lower status refused a person with a higher status (Table 11), Americans used more gratitude (74%) and more statements of positive opinions (16%) as their first two preferred choice (Table 11). On the other hand, EFL learners chose strategies like gratitude (44%), pause fillers (22%), alerters (e.g. "look"; address term) when students said no to their teachers (Table 11). The use of address terms is evidence that shows politeness in Americans and Chinese is motivated by different concerns.
For using address terms is culture-specific in Chinese society, Gu (1990) proposed the address maxim which stated that one should address your interlocutor with an appropriate address term so as to show respectfulness. The use of address term "involves (a) S's recognition of H as a social being in his specific social status or role, and (b) S's definition of the social relation between S and H. It helps establish or maintain social bonds, strengthen solidarity, and control social distance" (Gu 1990, 248-249).
Usually the use of address terms in Chinese society is determined by factors which include (1) kin or non-kin; (2) politically superior or inferior; (3) inter-personally familiar or unfamiliar; (4) gender (5) age (6) formal or informal situation; (7) family members or non-relatives; (8) in public or at home; (9) professionally prestigious or non-prestigious (Gu 1990, 249). The use of address terms in a teacher student relationship is evident in our data.
Motivated by different conception of politeness, the ways Taiwanese EFL learners using address terms were different from those of Americans. Traditionally, the socially inferior tended to choose address terms which were more formal and used them as a means of showing respect (Gu 1990, 251). So in situation 2 (see Table 11) when a student refused a teacher's suggestion, he/she was threatening his/her teacher's positive and negative face. Since being a teacher is professionally prestigious, a student being in an inferior social position required using more words to soften the force of refusing and addressed his/her teacher with an appropriate address term so as to show respectfulness. However, using types of alerters like address terms was not found in American data. So in Table 11, more alerters (e.g. address terms) were used in S20 for EFL learners while Americans did not use address terms in the same situation.
Table 10. Frequency of adjuncts for groups in S1(refuse a student's suggestion)
Sub-classes of adjuncts American EFL learners
1.statement of positive opinion 11 (50%) 6 (46%)
2.statement of empathy 0 0
3. pause fillers(well; oh; uhh) 2 (9%) 5 (38%)
4. gratitude/appreciation 9 (41%) 1 (8%)
*5. alerter (e.g address terms) 0 0
*6. removal of negativity 0 1 (8%) /solidarity (e.g. You are a nice
guy)_
Total 22 13
Table 11. Frequency of adjuncts for groups in S2 (refusing a teacher's suggestion)
Sub-classes of adjuncts American EFL learners
1.statement of positive opinion 3 (16%) 4 (15%)
2.statement of empathy 0 0
3. pause fillers(well; oh; uhh) 1 (5%) 6 (22%)
4. gratitude/appreciation 14 (74%) 12 (44%) *5. alerter (e.g address terms) 0 5 (19%)
*6. removal of negativity 1 (5%)
/solidarity (e.g. You are a nice
guy)
0
Total 19
19
27
5. CONCLUSION
This study investigates cross cultural differences and the effect of social status on refusal strategies used by forty Taiwanese EFL learners and forty native speakers of American English in two situations of higher and lower status. Results showed that indirect refusals were preferred for both groups, but cross-cultural differences can be found. For instance, Americans tended to use the refusal pattern with reasons and offering alternative in refusing someone's suggestion whereas Taiwanese EFL learners favored using the combination of apologies and reasons. Additionally, social status affects their refusal strategy choice for both groups. This study showed power relationship constrains communicative action universally, but actors' assessment of the weight and values of the factor varies substantively from context to context, and cross-culturally (Blum-Kulka, House and Kasper 1989).
Since that language use by L2 learners in L2 speech act performance involves intricate interplay between use of target linguistic forms and perception of reflected socio-cultural values and function in the target language. This implies that the description of grammatical system of language learners can not be detached from the description of pragmatic development. The interface between different levels of linguistic structures in language learners' grammar system deserves better attention as modern linguists explore similarities and diversities in language use phenomenon across cultures in linguistic inquiry.
In addition, research to date has shown that learners' interaction with the target group in a meaningful communication and an active involvement with speakers of the target language are keys to approximate the norms of the target group (Kasper and Rose 2002). Therefore for future study, how and what are the ways to develop learners' communicative competence and activate their pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic awareness deserves more attention as well.
5.1. Implications
Therefore several implications can be drawn from the study. First, sociocultural knowledge of the L2 should be included in an EFL classroom in order to encourage learners to notice the strategies commonly used by speakers in the target language. Secondly, EFL teachers should design contextualized, task-based activities which expose learners to different types of pragmatic information along with the linguistic means used to perform a particular speech act. Thirdly, because of the function of different social variables (e.g. social status), students should be taught how to perform certain speech acts based on variations of the power differences.
5.2. Suggestions for future research
First of all, in terms of methodological suggestions, though DCT data can be used to complement observational data and to generate hypothesis that can be tested using other data gathering procedures (Hartford and Bardovi-Harlig 1992), it can't represent the oral natural production of real conversation. The present study does not investigate the realization patterns of speech acts in the context of speech event, as Wolfson (1989) has done with compliments and invitations in natural settings. Therefore, it is recommended that the future speech act study needs to include the context of the full speech event or conversation where speech acts occur. Secondly, for future study random subject selection instead of the intact group design will put the future research on more firm grounds and to make the claims generalizable to a wider subject population.
Furthermore, in terms of pedagogical implication, though the importance of avoiding communicating breakdown in ESL or EFL settings and uncover the languages differences in speech act performance is recognized, the teaching of relevant pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic knowledge is not well represented in the literature. In addition, most published textbooks used in EFL classroom are limited to provide L2 learners with enough linguistic information or strategies for the teaching of speech acts. EFL learners do not always notice the knowledge they already have, and do not transfer available knowledge and strategies to new tasks though they may get very specific pragmalinguistic knowledge for free (Rose and Kasper 2001; Carrell 1982; Schmidt 1995). Therefore it is strongly recommended for future study, it should place more emphasis on pedagogical intervention on speech act especially in EFL settings.
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Declaration of conflicting interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article. Author information
Shu-Chu Chen is an Instructor, National Yunlin University of Science and Technology & Ph.D student, National Cheng-Chi University, Taiwan.
Shu-hui Eileen Chen is an Associate Professor, Graduate Institute of Children English Education, National Taipei University of Education, Taiwan.
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