The pragmatics of refusals in English and Japanese: alternative approaches to negotiation
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Miriam Eisenstein Ebsworth
Abstract
We examine refusals negotiated and understood by adult female native speakers of American English and Japanese. In open role-plays produced by 8 pairs of Japanese and 8 pairs of American English speakers, a request was refused. Semi-structured post-hoc interviews with participants and interpretations were triangulated with bilingual experts.
For all participants, a successful outcome involved a speech act set negotiated through several conversational turns. While both groups used fillers, softeners, hedges, and backchannels, fragmented utterances were more common among Japanese speakers. Americans frequently offered alternative plans and commented on the importance of honesty while Japanese participants often implied refusal, using postponement. Some American refusals were experienced as impolite by Japanese informants, while Americans identified the Japanese postponement strategy as problematic.
© 2011 Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/New York
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- Editor's Preface
- Cross-sectional associations of Spanish and English competence and well-being in Latino children of immigrants in kindergarten
- Self-reported use and perception of the L1 and L2 among maximally proficient bi- and multilinguals: a quantitative and qualitative investigation
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- The pragmatics of refusals in English and Japanese: alternative approaches to negotiation
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- Book reviews
Articles in the same Issue
- Editor's Preface
- Cross-sectional associations of Spanish and English competence and well-being in Latino children of immigrants in kindergarten
- Self-reported use and perception of the L1 and L2 among maximally proficient bi- and multilinguals: a quantitative and qualitative investigation
- Toward an understanding of Hebrew language education: ideologies, emotions, and identity
- Friends or foes? Communicating feelings through language in cross-cultural interactions
- The pragmatics of refusals in English and Japanese: alternative approaches to negotiation
- Language learner-teachers: evolving insights
- Non-native English-speaking teachers (NNESTs) and professional legitimacy: a sociocultural theoretical perspective on identity transformation
- Book reviews
