ACross-culturalStudyofChineseandAmericanRefusal.PDF

ISSN 1799-2591 Theory and Practice in Language Studies, Vol. 2, No. 2, pp. 247-256, February 2012 © 2012 ACADEMY PUBLISHER Manufactured in Finland. doi:10.4304/tpls.2.2.247-256 Chinese and American Refusal Strategy: A Cross-cultural Approach Yinling Guo Foreign Languages Department, Zhengzhou Institute of Aeronautical Industry Management, Zhengzhou, China Email: guoyinling66@163.com Abstract—This study investigated both Chinese and American refusal speech act from the perspectives of cross-cultural communication using a modified version of the discourse completion test (DCT) developed by Beebe et al. (1990). 60 US college students and teachers and 60 Chinese college students and teachers are interviewed. The findings indicate that there are more similarities than differences among the Chinese and Americans in making refusals. Both groups preferred to use indirect refusal strategies rather than direct ones and preferred the strategies of reason, statement of alternative and regret. However, the American groups utilized a greater proportion of direct strategies than did the Chinese subjects on average. The differences can be attributed to cultural differences between Chinese and American Culture. Index Terms—refusal, refusal strategy, speech act, cultural difference I. INTRODUCTION In cross-cultural communication, differences in language use have been noted to be a factor for communication breakdown or pragmatic failure. The differences can be attributed to the ways in which people of a speech community customarily