A Study Of Chinese Politeness: Refusal Strategies Among Female Speakers Of Mandarin Chinese

This thesis is an exploration of the use of refusing strategies in the process of conversational interaction performed by female speakers of Mandarin Chinese, with a view to explore the effective and tactful strategies in refusing situations for female Chinese. The theoretical background of the research is the face and politeness theories of Gu and Mao, together with the politeness theories advocated by scholars such as Brown & Levinson, and Scollon & Scollon. The data are collected through role-play situations and retrospective verbal report interviews. The theories in this thesis also include the Speech Act Theory and Politeness Theory. Speech Act Theory and Politeness Theory provide us with the starting point from which the author approaches the research question, and face and politeness in Chinese culture will be exploited as a tool to understand and explain the refuser's choice making process.Twenty-six Chinese female college students participated in six role-play interactions which involve suggestions, invitations and requests. The subjects refuse one suggestion, one invitation and one request from two interlocutors of higher or equal status. Each subject interacted with the researcher in formal situations and with one of other subjects in informal situations. The production data were supplemented by verbal reports to examine the subjects' perceptions of refusals. The findings show that in this community politeness is realized by means of formulaic/semi-formulaic expressions employed to negotiate face. An analysis of the refusal interactions indicates that among these subjects, the negotiation of face is accomplished largely by various indirect attempts at (re)negotiating a successful resolution. Also, face needs are oriented towards the group, emphasizing involvement over independence (Scollon and Scollon, 2001). Finally, the perception of effective and tactful refusals of the subjects' was presented.