Emergence of Marked Semantic Formulas in Refusal Strategy Hierarchies

This paper discusses refusal strategies to invitation in relation to social status in five languages, namely Korean, Chinese, Persian, German and English. In addition, to account for refusal strategies in a uniform way, semantic formulas constituting a strategy are also facilitated.

In the speech act of refusal, the refusal to an invitation is particularly noteworthy compared to other refusal elicitation situations since the speech act of invitation is perceived differently in different cultures (Garcia 1992, 1996, 1999; Félix-Brasdefer 2003; Hong 2011,). In the study of politeness strategies of Peruvian speakers, Garcia (1992) in Félix-Brasdefe (2003), states that the refusal to an invitation consists of two stages: invitation-response and insistence-response. Insistence by the inviter is expected in Peruvian culture; otherwise, the invitation is not considered sincere (Garcia 1992: 237 in Félix-Brasdefer 2003). In the study of Venezuelan Spanish (Garcia 1999), a similar series of speech acts are involved in an invitation, extending an invitation, insistence-response, and wrap-up. Japanese speakers also share the same sentiment as Latin Americans regarding an invitation. The typical American way of invitation, “Come if you want to”, added to an invitation makes a Japanese invitee feel uncomfortable or suspect the sincerity of the invitation because persistent invitation of the inviter is the Japanese norm in invitation (Wolfson 1989). This tendency is common among Eastern cultures. According to Jia (2007), however, in American culture, insistence from the person inviting is viewed differently because “to invite others to a party is considered to ‘borrow’ other’s time” (Jia 2007: 42). An inviter’s insistence may be considered as an imposition on the invitees’ autonomy. In the American context, the Eastern way of insisting an invitation upon an invitee may even be considered offensive. Persians tend to use ostensible invitations in daily life as a way of ritual politeness (ta’arof) (Dastpak & Mollaei 2011), while ‘ostensible invitations are rare in most situations’ among English speakers according to Issacs & Clark (1990: 494). Ta’arof is a very important concept in Persian culture, whether positively viewed as a “Compliment”, ‘‘Token of Goodwill”, ‘‘Courtesy”, or display of ‘‘Good Manners”, or negatively perceived as an empty formality (Esmali 2005:457). Since invitations can be either sincere or ostensible, refusing invitations is difficult. Ta’arof requires multiple refusals before accepting an invitation. At the same time, the insistence from the inviter is expected, while both gratitude and a return of the act on the part of the refuser are usually offered. This complexity of ta’arof makes refusal especially difficult for those who do not understand Persian culture (Izadi & Zilaie 2014).

It has also been found that the variable of social status is another important factor in how respondents make refusals. Speaking to people of a different status affects the way people make refusals (Beebe, Takahashi & Uliss-Weltz 1990, Bardovi-Harlig, Hartford & Beverly 1991, Nelson et al. 1998, Hosseini & Talebinezhad 2014). Kwon (2002) in the study of comparing the refusal strategies between Americans and Koreans, finds Koreans tend to apologize much more to higher status (65%) than to lower status (28%) inviters, whereas Americans apologize noticeably less than Koreans do to both higher status (43%) and lower status inviters (27%). Also, Americans express more gratitude and positive opinion when refusing an invitation from a higher status person. Americans offer alternatives to the invitation only to status equals, while Koreans predominantly offer alternatives to people of a lower status. Research by Liao & Bresnahan (1996), Beebe, Takahashi & Uliss-Weltz (1990), and Allami & Naeimi (2011) reveal that Chinese and Japanese used different refusal strategies to people of different status, compared to Americans who do not demonstrate significant differences in their refusal strategies towards people of different status.

In this paper, the five most significant indirect semantic formulas are analyzed. The employment of the rest of the semantic formulas is insignificant, and therefore, will not be discussed. The number of studies with relevant data is quite limited. Most of the studies either combine all the semantic formulas (Keshavarz, Eslami & Ghahreman 2006; Hosseini & Talebinezhad 2014; Izadi & Zilaie 2014; Lin 2014) or do not categorize the data based on the situation of an invitation with the appropriate variable of social status (Chen, Ye & Zhang 1995; Liao & Bresnahan 1996; Beckers 1999; Chang 2009; Sahragard & Javanmardi 2011; Ghazanfari, Bonyadi & Malekzadeh 2013; Farashaiyanl & Muthusamy 2017). Given these reasons, the studies for this research are carefully selected, considering their relevance and representativeness. In discussing refusal strategies in terms of semantic formulas, the taxonomy of refusals will be amended accordingly for the discussion of this paper. The relevant semantic formulas are seen as in Table 1.

In order to pursue the aims of the present research, the following research questions are manifested based on the two assumptions: (1) different languages share certain universal refusal properties even though they facilitate their own peculiar refusal strategies; and (2) the distinctive refusal semantic formulas emerge and are ranked high in refusal strategy hierachies:

1. Are there similarities and differences among the five different languages (i.e., Chinese, Korean, English, German, Persian)?

2. Which semantic formula (i.e., direct or indirect tactics) is most frequently preferred, depending on languages?

This question aims to find out the most common refusal tactics that are used in languages. Especially, this research is interested in the frequency of refusal tactics employed in different languages.

3. What is a refusal strategy hierarchy employed in invitation circumstances in the five languages? What are the crucial semantic formulas that differ a language from the others?

Korean data are drawn from Lyuh (1992) and Kwon (2004), the most frequently cited studies on Korean refusal. In addition, they have a large number of subjects compared to other studies.

Consider Lyuh’s (1992) comparative study of refusals between Koreans and Americans in the native language settings, in which the total number of 175 subjects participated in the first phase of the study, 67 Americans and 108 Koreans. The strategies favored by Korean speakers to the interlocutor of higher status are shown in Table 2.

As seen above, Koreans’ five most preferred strategies are as following: strategies to higher status are “Explanation”(39.8%), “Regret”(13.3%), “Avoidance”(11.6%), “Direct”(11.6%), and “Statement of Positive Opinion”(8.4%), while to the interlocutors of equal status are “Explanation”(49.1%), “Direct”(14.3%), “Statement of Positive Opinion”(11.6%), “Regret”(8.5%), “Alternative”(4%), and “Avoidance”(4%). Strategies employed to lower status are ranked as follows: “Explanation”(40.5%), “Direct”(19.2%), “Statement of Positive Opinion”(10.7%), “Alternative”(8.8%), and “Avoidance”(2.8%).

The subjects of Kwon’s (2004) study are composed of 40 native Koreans in Korea and 37 Americans in the U.S. In Table 3, Korean responses are listed.

The results show that Koreans’ most frequently used response to interlocutors of high status in the situation of invitation is semantic formula “Explanation”(95%); it is followed by “Regret”(65%), “Direct”(38%), “Address Forms”(20%), and “Elaboration on the Reason”(20%). In response to equal status, the most frequently employed semantic formula is also “Explanation”(100%); it is also followed by “Regret”(48%). On the other hand, to those of lower status than they are, “Avoidance”(54%) and “Direct”(40%) are used more frequently than “Regret”(28%), and “Pause Fillers”(18%).

In spite of a number of studies on Chinese refusals, research with the data categorized according to the present analysis is not available. Therefore, both Guo’s (2012) study on equal and lower status and Hong’s (2011) study on higher status are considered in this paper. In Guo’s study, 120 subjects took part in the study: 60 native speakers of Chinese, 30 Americans college students in the United States, and 30 American teachers working in China. The subjects of Hong’s study were 30 native speakers of Mandarin studying at a university in the U.S. when they completed the DCT. The results of Guo’s and Hong’s studies are seen in Table 4.

As seen above, Chinese use “Explanation”(100%), “Gratitude” (87%), and “Address Forms”(87%) most to the interlocutor of higher status, followed by “Regret”(77%), “Alternative”(20%), and “Avoidance”(33%). The most frequently employed semantic formula to the interlocutors of equal status is “Explanation”(93.3%). “Alternative”(63%), “Regret”(23%), “Direct”(14%), and “Positive Opinion”(10%) are ranked lower than “Explanation”. They use “Explanation”(103%), “Alternative”(47%), “Statement of Positive Opinion”(33%), “Regret”(18%), and “Avoidance”(16.67%) to refuse lower status persons’ invitations. Different from other languages, Chinese facilitate “Direct” less frequently to lower status.

Allami & Naeimi’s (2011) study is chosen for the analysis of Persian data. This study is selected for its high citation rate and the relevant categorization of the data. The subjects of this study are 30 Persian speaking learners of English and 31 native Persian speakers. The Persians’ preference of the refusal strategies is indicated in Table 5.

The typical characteristic of Persian refusal is predominant utilization of the semantic formula of “Regret”. Apart from “Explanation”(93%, 93%, 67%), they consistently use “Regret” to the interlocutors of all status. In responding to higher status interlocutors, they use “Regret”(67%), “Direct Refusal”(37%), “Statement of Positive Opinion”(31%), and “Avoidance”(13%), while to equal status they employed “Regret”(48%), “Direct”(27%), “Gratitude”(17%), and “Set Condition”(17%). Most preferred refusal semantic formula to the lower status are “Regret”(48%), “Direct”(44%), “Avoidance”(27%), and “Statement of Positive Opinion”(20%).

In Beckers’s (1999) cross-cultural study of refusal strategies, 400 subjects, 200 native Germans and 200 native-born Americans, participated in the study. The results indicate that Germans use “Gratitude” and “Avoidance” more often than Americans do; they were very sensitive to status in refusing, concluding that German responses reflect the characteristics of collectivistic culture. Despite large number of subjects, this study is excluded from the analysis because the data are examined according to the directness of refusal strategies and the frequency of the employment of semantic formulas. Furthermore, there are no specified data on the situation of invitation with status variable. Therefore, the data for the analysis of this research is taken from Johnson’s (2013) study, even though it had a rather small number of subjects: only 15 native Germans and 15 Native Americans participated in the study. Johnson’s data are recent and contain an appropriate categorization for the analysis. The results of the study do not support that of Beckers (1999) in that these two groups have more similarities than differences. The results of the Johnson’s study in response to invitations are as follows in Table 6:

When refusing an invitation to a person of higher status, Germans utilize “Explanation”(27%) the most, followed by “Regret”(16%), “Alternative”(14%), “Gratitude”(14%). By contrast, to an equal status person “Explanation”(29%) is used most often, followed by “Alternative”(18%), “Regret”(15%), “Gratitude”(9%), “Statement of Positive Opinion”(3%), and “Future/Past Acceptance”(3%) in this sequence. Similar usage of semantic formulas is found toward a person of lower status: “Explanation”(38%), “Regret”(19%), “Future/Past Acceptance”(11%), “Gratitude”(8%), and “Statement of Positive Opinion”(8%).

Data for the analysis of American English refusals are adopted from the studies of Lyuh (1992) and Kwon (2004). The data in Lyuh’s study are collected from large number of subjects, which would better represent the American group than data from studies with a smaller number of subjects. The American data of Kwon’s study are also utilized for the discussion of Iranian refusals in Allami & Naeimi’s study, which is analyzed in this study. The use of the same data has the advantage of minimizing data distortion which can emerge from the difference in eliciting stimuli. Above all, the scarcity of appropriately categorized data for the study leads to select these two studies. American data are shown in Table 7 and Table 8.

As seen in the above tables, Kwon’s data demonstrate similar patterns to Lyuh’s study that Americans tend to use “Explanation”, “Regret”, “Direct”, “Gratitude”, and “Statement of Positive Opinion” when they refuse invitations. However, the preference of the employment of each semantic formula is slightly different depending on the social status. In Kwon’s study, Americans use “Explanation”(97%) the most, followed by “Regret”(43%), “Direct”(24%), “Statement of Positive Opinion”(22%), and “Gratitude”(22%) to those of higher status. As for the interlocutors of the equal status, the hierarchy is realized as “Explanation”(97%), “Regret”(35%), “Gratitude”(30%), “Direct”(27%), “Pause Fillers”(24%), whereas to the those of lower status, it is as “Explanation”(81%), “Direct”(32%), “Regret”(27%), “Gratitude”(14%) “Alternative”(14%), and “Statement of Positive Opinion”(14%).

In Section 3, the five language groups’ refusal tendencies are reanalyzed with means of semantic formula classifications of refusals based on Beebe, Takahashi & Uliss-Weltz (1990).