How EFL Learners Realise Refusal Speech Act: Evidence from the Students at the University of Dar es Salaam

Abstract

The current article investigates how students at the University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM), who use English mostly as a foreign language, manage the refusal speech act. This study is guided by two objectives: (1) to examine how students at UDSM perform refusal speech act, (2) to assess the extent to which status and social distance affect the choice of refusal strategies. This study was quantitative in nature as it employed numerical data to gain the insights of how UDSM students realise refusal speech act. The study used 100 students who were taking the English Pragmatics course during their third year of study. The researcher used convenience sampling to obtain the required number of participants for this study. Using the Discourse Completion Tasks questionnaire (DCT), consisting of 12 situations, students filled the questionnaire. The participants were selected using convenient sampling technique because the study was conducted during COVID 19. The participants who filled the questionnaire were those present during their seminar sessions. The data were analysed using Beebe et al. (1990) taxonomy guided by politeness theory by Brown and Levinson (1978). The collected data were coded into a semantic formula of direct, indirect and adjunct to refusals. The findings showed that 45.72% of the participants used indirect refusal strategies most frequently, while 27.8 % of the participants used direct refusals. The findings also revealed that 26.46%) of the participants employed adjuncts to refusals. In addition, it was discovered that whether interlocutors were of equal, lower, higher status or were of different social distance (intimacy, stranger or acquaintance) compared to their respondents, indirect refusal strategies were most frequently used than direct refusal strategies. Besides, reason/excuse/explanation was the most frequently used refusal strategy in all DCT situations. It was further found that the elicitation act affected the choice of the semantic formula that was employed during refusal. Therefore, the results suggests that most students employed polite refusal strategies which were indirect and hence preserved the face of both the speaker and the hearer. Since the use of English language is limited in daily communication and the use direct refusal strategies during initiation of refusals were found to be equally the same to indirect refusals, the study recommends the incorporation of pragmatics aspects such as refusals in the curriculum. Such pedagogical interventions which aims at providing leaners with opportunities to learn pragmatic aspects may promote pragmatic development.