Refusal Strategies of Saudi EFL Female Learners: Exploring the Interplay between Face-threatening acts and Social Variables | ||
| حوليات أداب عين شمس | ||
| Volume 52, Issue 3 - Serial Number 1, January 2024, Pages 369-386 PDF (329.04 K) | ||
| Document Type: المقالة الأصلية | ||
| DOI: 10.21608/aafu.2024.416304 | ||
| Author | ||
| Maram Abdulaziz Alhwairiny | ||
| Department of English Language and Literature, College of Languages and Translation, Imam Mohammad Ibn Saud Islamic University (IMSIU), Riyadh, KSA | ||
| Abstract | ||
| This paper explores the refusal strategies employed by Saudi female learners and the relationships between face-threatening acts (FTAs) and three main social variables: social power, social distance, and the degree of imposition. A mixed-methods approach was used to gather quantitative data using a Discourse Completion Task (DCT) administered to 40 participants, alongside semi-structured interviews with a subset of 12 participants to obtain qualitative insights. Findings indicated that participants relied most on indirect refusal strategies (75.5%), which were higher in social contexts (78.6%) than in academic settings (72.3%). The results appear to be a direct influence of social variables on participants’ choices: Indirectness was higher when addressing interlocutors of higher status or in high-imposition situations, but refusals to peers allowed for somewhat greater directness. Qualitative analysis revealed how the realization of cultural and gender norms as manifested through the participants’ strategic use of hedging, apologies, and explanations to soften refusals, particularly when interacting with authority figures or in hierarchical settings, brought forth participants’ adherence to politeness and face-saving strategies deeply situated in the collectivist nature of Saudi culture. Moreover, gender expectations played a crucial role in modulating indirectness, with female participants exhibiting heightened levels of mitigation and deference, especially in mixed-gender interactions where social conventions dictated a greater need for linguistic politeness and self-restraint. This tendency toward indirectness was particularly evident in formal and male-dominated contexts. Participants signaled the practical difficulties in aligning their refusal strategies with the communicative norms of English that create ambiguity or pragmatic failure. The study underscores the need for explicit instruction in pragmatic competence, using cultural comparisons and contextually related practice. Such findings bring new developments into the area of interlanguage pragmatics, with some instructional suggestions aimed at bridging the gap between the native cultural norms of Saudi learners and the pragmatic expectations found in natural English-speaking contexts. | ||
| Keywords | ||
| refusal strategies; face-threatening acts; sociocultural dynamics in the Saudi context; pragmatic competence; politeness norms | ||
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