Refusal strategies of Turkish pre-service teachers of English: A focus on gender and status of interlocutor

Abstract

In today's world, the great demand for using English entails language users to be pragmatically competent so that they could adapt themselves to differing requirements of various contexts. Within those contexts, some factors such as the culture of the target language, the speech act used in the interaction, status and gender of the interlocutors are accepted as essential components. Refusals, one of the most difficult speech acts to perform based on their face threatening nature, were chosen as the main concern of the present study. In an attempt to find out what kind of refusal strategies are employed by Turkish pre-service teachers of English, 27 first year students (14 males and 13 females) at Çukurova University were randomly chosen. Data for the study were collected via a Written Discourse Completion Test (WDCT) in which the participants were to respond nine scenarios (three lower, three equal and three higher interlocutors). Data analysis concentrated on two main variables: gender of the participants and the status of the interlocutors. In addition to those, refusal combinations utilized by the participants was another focal point of the study. The whole qualitative data were discussed through descriptive statistics and chi-square analyses, and "excuse, reason, explanation" was found to be the most frequent refusal strategy used by the participants. Another important finding is that males were found to prefer directly uttering "no" more frequently than females. It was also found that the number of the strategy combinations increases as the status of the interlocutor rises.

“Can we take a picture with you?” The realization of the refusal speech act with tourists by Emirati speakers

“…Interestingly, while the three most frequently used refusal components are similar between the genders, there are differences in the percentage of their use; for example, males used a statement of regret more than females, but females provided an excuse, reason, or explanation much more frequently than males. This supports previous research in that differences in the gender variable might be influenced by situational and socio-cultural factors (Nelson, Batal & Bakary 2002, Rezvani, Ismael & Tok 2017, Tuncer & Turhan 2019. However, it is also interesting to note the participants' limited use of linguistic devices for positive politeness purposes.…”

“…The same researchers also found that females utilized more adjuncts with lower, equal and higher status interlocutors. Tuncer and Turhan (2019) explored the refusal strategies used by 27 Turkish first-year pre-service teachers of English and discovered that males used "no" more often, while females employed "negative willingness" more regularly. Moreover, they noted that females tended to utilize more refusal techniques with lower and equal status interlocutors, while males used more with interlocutors at a higher status (2019).…”

The analysis of illocutionary acts of judges’ comments in America’s next top model and Asia’s next top model competitions: A cross-cultural pragmatic study

“…The way people produce speech act depends on the context. There are many influencing factors including gender (Tuncer & Turhan, 2019) and culture. Basically, someone's illocutionary words or actions will affect one's understanding of doing an action.…”

A Study of Male and Female Refusal Strategy Performed by Employees of BCD Travel Indonesia

“…Another gender study from the experts showed that the male Turkish preservice teachers of English tend directly uttering "no" more frequently than the females. It was also found that the number of strategy combinations increases as the status of the interlocutor rises (Tuncer & Turhan, 2019). Based on the above explanations, it can be inferred that females tend to use indirect refusal strategies and more polite than men do.…”