Modern Chinese Refused A Preliminary Study Of Speech Acts

Language is the direct reflection of thoughts. In our daily life, when we face the requests or invitations, people will not accept them no matter what reasons or in any situations. In fact, people will usually meet the refusal speech acts and choose the refusal strategy. The experience tells us:If we don't use the refusal speech acts well, it will damage the relationship between two communicating parties. The appropriate use of refusal strategy will be helpful to reduce and avoid damages. It can maintain both parties in a good communication relationship. Based on this understanding, the reference of previous studies and the speech act theories, we make a comparative analysis of the system and discussion towards modern Chinese refusal speech acts.We carried out an investigation among people of different genders, education levels, occupations and cultural backgrounds. Then we summarized and compared the data which were collected and divided by the investigation. So the refusal speech act was divided into two parts:sincere refusal strategy and false refusal strategy. Investigators made an analysis of various reactions according to the different situations. At the same time, we also refer to the previous research achievements to make a classified analysis of the mental strategies people tend to use when they choose the refusal speech acts.The informants of this paper are mainly teachers, students, doctors and workers. Generally speaking, in our social background, people usually choose the refusal strategy as follows:if we refuse the unfamiliar relationship, people usually use the strategy of "apology and excuse". If we refuse the general relationship, the strategy usually is "apology followed by stated objective reasons". If we refuse relatives, for example when the elder refuses the younger one, the strategy usually is "criticism or education and postpone". Maybe only use the strategy of "criticism or education".On the basis of analyzing the cases, this paper discusses different individuals on the effect of refusal strategies, and obtains some understandings. From the methodology, this paper particularly in the form of a questionnaire survey is to reflect on the advantages and disadvantages of the mental strategies people tend to use and to put forward the corresponding improvement measures. We hope to provide further study for this topic.