A Comparative Study Of Refusal Strategy Between Chinese EFL Learners And The Native English Speakers

Different speech acts are performed differently in different culture. Therefore, lack of cultivating social culture communicative competence will lead to the communication failure. The refusal speech acts are special speech acts, the interlocutors from different culture background are influenced not only by the social status, distance, age and gender, but also the extent of politeness. Because refusal will threat others face, the refusal strategies are employed to lower the extent of face-threaten.From a pedagogical point of view, it is worth well studying refusals because the second language learners not only need to recognize the linguistic forms, but the social culture values that characterize the target community; that is to say the interlocutors should perform appropriately in certain situations. Since refusal is one of the complex speech act which involves an inherent threat to the interlocutors’face. It is generally considered a speech act that gives negative response to invitation, request, offer and suggestion. More skills are needed to perform refusal speech act, not only express refuse, but also lower the extent of face-threaten. Recent years, some researchers start some theoretical study from the Speech Act Theory, Politeness Theory, Adaptation Theory, but only little work has been done on the EFL learners’ competence of refusing in English.The objective of the present study is to investigate the similarities and differences in employing refusal strategies between Chinese EFL learners and English native speakers. The analysis is about the relationship between the choice of refusal strategies and social distance. Sixty students are involved in the study, they are divided into two groups(thirty subjects each), the Chinese EFL learners group are asked to response in Chinese and the native speakers are asked to response in English. The instrument used in this study is DCT questionnaire from that of Beebe et al.. The analysis of the data will take into account the frequency of and preference for refusal strategies and the role of social variables played in the directness level of refusal, and put a little emphasis on the EFL learners’production of refusal strategies and the influencing factors lying behind.Firstly, the refusal strategies study could help Chinese EFL learners to get a thoroughly understanding of the refusals which are used by the native speakers, and to enhance their cross culture communicative competence in refusal speech act with appropriate refusal strategies. Secondly, this study may help Chinese EFL learners to develop their communicative strategies and improve the pragmatic awareness. It is important of pragmatic competence to express Chinese EFL learners’ politeness and strategies. Politeness is very common in every culture; it is a principle in people’s communication. Thirdly, according to the findings of this study, it can provide the English teaching with skills and approaches in China. This study may help Chinese EFL learners to use English in an appropriate and correct way, it is important for Chinese EFL learners to combine the literary meaning with pragmatic meaning in the use of English including teaching and learning.The findings of this study indicate there are much more similarities than differences between the Chinese EFL learners and the native English speakers when they express refusal to the speaker in a certain situation. Both groups would rather employ indirect refusal strategies than direct strategies. In general, the Chinese EFL learners employ less direct strategies than the native speakers do in a lot of scenarios but not all. When it comes to refusal to requests, the native speakers was more likely employed much more direct strategies. However, when giving refusal answer to offers and invitations the Chinese EFL learners tend to employ a little more direct refusal strategies than the native English speakers did, they do this so as to softening the face of the interlocutor. The Chinese and native speakers groups show more similarities in refusing the intimates’suggestions.