Anas Huneety; Bassil Mashaqba; Aisha Qandeel; Abdallah Alshdaifat; Luqman Rababah
Abstract
This research explored refusal strategies among 15 Ammani Arabic monolinguals and 15 English-Arabic bilinguals, aiming to uncover cross-cultural variations. Data were collected through a discourse completion test (DCT) following Beebe et al. (1990), featuring scenarios of requests, invitations, suggestions, ...
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This research explored refusal strategies among 15 Ammani Arabic monolinguals and 15 English-Arabic bilinguals, aiming to uncover cross-cultural variations. Data were collected through a discourse completion test (DCT) following Beebe et al. (1990), featuring scenarios of requests, invitations, suggestions, and offers. Participants respond to each scenario, refusing to individuals of equal, higher, and lower status, shedding light on diverse communication patterns in intercultural contexts. Results showed that Ammani Arabic monolinguals use more direct strategies than English-Arabic bilinguals in refusing requests and suggestions, especially when dealing with lower status. English-Arabic bilinguals use more adjunct strategies when dealing with higher-status people, while Ammani Arabic monolinguals use “care of the interlocutor’s feelings” strategy. Pragma-linguistic failures were observed, revealing differences in the length, content, and order of semantic formulas, showcasing potential challenges in cross-cultural communication. This study’s results can help understand the norms of both languages and be used in language teaching contexts.
Rawan Emad Al-Sallal; Madani Othman Ahmed
Abstract
This study intends to investigate the role of culture in the acquisition of pragmatic competence by EFL learners. It investigated the refusal of requests and offers used by Bahraini and Indian learners of English compared to those employed by native speakers of English. It also explored the similarities ...
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This study intends to investigate the role of culture in the acquisition of pragmatic competence by EFL learners. It investigated the refusal of requests and offers used by Bahraini and Indian learners of English compared to those employed by native speakers of English. It also explored the similarities and differences between refusal strategies used by Bahraini and Indian L2 learners on the one hand and native speakers of English on the other. The participants included 20 Bahraini and 20 Indian learners of English (ILE) and 12 British and American native speakers of English (NE). Two instruments were used to collect the data: a discourse completion test (DCT) and open-ended Role Plays. The data were classified using widely used refusal strategies classifications and were analyzed using descriptive statistics. The findings indicated that there were differences between the two EFL groups and the NE control group in the frequency and number of pragmatic strategies.