A Study Of Pragmatics: The Strategies Used By Chinese And American Students In The Performance Of Refusal Speech Act

The study was undertaken to investigate the choice of strategies in performing the refusal speech act by Chinese and American student for the purpose of finding out the similarities and differences of their choice and identifying the different cultural value orientations involved in their choices. The study was conducted from the perspective of cross-cultural communication within the theoretical framework of P. Brown and S. C. Levinson's politeness strategies and Gu Yueguo's politeness principles. The research questions addressed in the study were as follows:1. Do Chinese and American students perform the refusal speech act in the same way?2. In what way are they similar to or different from each other in the performance of the refusal speech act?3. What are the underlying cultural value orientations responsible for the choice of the strategies by Chinese and American students in performing the refusal speech act?The study was carried out among 40 Chinese college students and 40 American college students in the form of Discourse Completion Test Questionnaire. The speech act examined here was that of substantive verbal refusals. The initiating acts of refusing were: request, invitation, offer and suggestion. In the procedure of data analysis, the factor of social status was taken as a controlled variable. The results of the study were demonstrated and discussed on the basis of the data processed through independent sample t-test.The major findings from this study are as follows:1. There are both similarities and differences in the performance of refusal speech act by Chinese students and American students.2. The similarities lie in the selection of refusal strategies between Chinese students and American students. Both Chinese and American students opt to use more indirect refusal strategies than direct refusal strategies when performing refusal speech act because indirect refusals are considered to be more polite than direct refusals in both cultures. In addition, the indirect refusal strategies preferred by both Chinese and American students are characterized by the expression of excuses, statement of regret and suggestion of alternatives. By using such skills, one can mitigate the threat of refusals and thus save faces of both parties.3. The differences in the choice of refusal strategies between the two groups of subjects are that Chinese students utilize fewer refusal strategies than American students when performing refusal speech act. Besides, though both prefer indirect strategies, Chinese students show greater interest in indirect refusal strategies than American students. Finally, Chinese students exhibit obvious difference in the number or variety of the strategies used to make refusals to people of different social status while American students display slight difference in such cases.4. There are different cultural value orientations underlying the choice of strategies by Chinese and American students when performing the refusal speech act. Chinese students place more emphasis on"public image"while American students attach more importance to"self image". Chinese students value the maintenance of interpersonal harmony and are more sensitive to social status or power. By contrast, American students are more committed to individualism or the supposed equality.The significance of the study is that it will, to a certain extent, enable Chinese English learners to have a better understanding of appropriate refusal speech acts respectively performed by Chinese and English people and also help them to have a better knowledge of the cultural value orientations underlying the choice of the strategies when making refusals.