Communication has a crucial function in English language teaching because failure in communication will result in unsuccessful process. Therefore, it is important to investigate the styles of communication used in the classroom, especially by students. The focus of this paper is to explore the expressions used by a group of students to communicate in the classroom. This paper is based on a study conducted in 2015 at the State University of Makassar, South Sulawesi, Indonesia. This study focused on two English classes which employed classroom presentations as the learning strategy. To collect data, the researcher recorded the classroom presentations of the two classes. Twelve recordings from twelve groups of students were obtained, transcribed, and analyzed by using discourse analysis approach. The communicative styles used by the students were discussed based on the communication strategies of Dornyei and Scott (1997) and the students’ talk was analyzed based on Brown’s FLINT system (2000). Findings show that students employed various styles to communicate in the classroom presentations. Their communicative styles can be in the form of speech acts, discourse markers, language choices, address terms, and the inclusion of regional terms derived from the Bugis-Makassar language such as the pronoun - ko and softeners - mi and - ji. Findings of this study are relevant in the development of English language teaching, particularly in an effort to create effective classroom interaction. DOI: http://doi.org/10.17576/gema-2017-1701-13

https://ejournal.ukm.my/gema/article/download/11302/5250

Communicative Styles of English Students at the State University of Makassar

The present study aimed at investigating how Indonesian students refuse offers, invitations, and suggestions to persons having different social statuses. Refusal and politeness strategies were the focus of this study. The social variable involved in this study was the social status represented in lower to higher social-status (LHSS), higher to lower social-status (HLSS), and equal social-status (ESS) relationships. The data were obtained through discourse completion test (DCT) distributed to 161 students. The DCTs resulted in 2898 corpus data. Data analysis suggested that in general, the refusal strategy across social-status relationships and across initiating acts is consistently patterned, i.e. indirect strategy was more dominantly performed by the research participants. Criticizing, presenting other agenda, showing a preference, and stating self-limitation were the semantic formulas that were frequently used for refusing indirectly. Turning to politeness strategy, LHSS group used the highest number of redressive expressions, followed by HLSS and ESS groups. The politeness strategies occurring in the three groups were the use of redressive expressions and the use of wordy refusals. This study proved that social-status does not influence much to the choice of refusal strategy, but it contributes to the choice of politeness strategies.

Refusal and Politeness Strategies in Relation to Social Status: A Case of Face-threatening Act among Indonesian University Students

Pragmatic competence is one of the most important components of successful communication; also, it is the most difficult aspect of SLA. This study aimed to explore the effects of concurrent group dynamic assessment (G-DA) on Iranian EFL learners’ learning of requests and refusals, following a mixed method design. In the experimental part of the study, 2 intact classes were homogenized by a pretest, with 24 written discourse completion tasks (WDCTs), carried out by the participants as the treatment. Concurrent G-DA group received calibrated feedback, whereas the nondynamic assessment (N-DA) group was explicitly provided with pertinent assistance without considering their zone of proximal development (ZPD). Additionally, for the sake of a qualitative study, all the dialogues between the teacher and pairs of students under investigation were audiorecorded while they were receiving the treatment. Finally, a WDCT posttest was administered to both groups. Results of the analysis of the data, using t test, showed that the G-DA group performed significantly better than the N-DA group. Also, the qualitative microgenetic analysis of the dialogues between the learners and their teacher indicated the effectiveness of concurrent G-DA in learning requests and refusals, thus corroborating the efficiency of dynamic assessment (DA) in pragmatic instruction. Implications and applications are discussed in this study.

https://rals.scu.ac.ir/article_14720_ced4025f89203147ae863e7828cc24cd.pdf

Effects of Concurrent Group Dynamic Assessment on Iranian EFL Learners’ Pragmatic Competence: A Case of Requests and Refusals

The Use of Speech Acts in Angngaru of Makassar Society. The  objective of this research is to explore the use of speech acts in  Angngaru .  Through the framework of speech act  Searle (1969) , this paper focuses on exploring the types and functions of  Angngaru in Makassar society. To gain data,  Angngaru texts were collected and a na lyzed through the techniques of discourse analysis. To support the data analysis, some performances of  Angngaru  were observed. The performers of  Angngaru  were also interviewed. The results of the study show that  Angngaru has important roles in Makassar society.  The  types of speech acts were found in  Angngaru  such as representatives, directives, commissives, and expressives. The analysis of the types and functions in this language use remars the strong relationship between language and culture in a particular society.

/pdf/the-use-of-speech-acts-in-angngaru-of-makassar-society-4vixv04fxx.pdf

The use of speech acts in angngaru of makassar society

This paper discusses the commonly realised social speech act of refusal strategies in English among university students in the Southern part of Thailand, in explaining how they say ‘no’ to request and the effects of this speech act on the hearer’s face. Using Discourse Completion Test (DCT) to collect oral data in naturally-occurring situations, together with a qualitative analysis of the transcribed data according to Beebe, Takahashi, and Uliss-Weltz (1990) classification scheme of refusal, the study affirms that there are two major common ways of realising refusals to request in English among these students, namely: direct and, overwhelmingly, indirect refusal strategies. The findings also reveal that the last strategy of the classification scheme, adjuncts to refusals, was not found in the data. Similarly, not all the indirect refusal sub-strategies were found in the data. However, two novel sub-strategies: giving advice/explanation, and lack of empathy were found in the analysis. The findings have implications for better socio-cultural communication and interaction in a multicultural university context. Keyword: Refusal strategies, social speech act, Thai EFL university students Cite as: Boonsuk, Y., & Ambele, E.A. (2019) Refusal as a Social Speech Act among Thai EFL University Students. Arab World English Journal, 10 (2) 213-224. DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.24093/awej/vol10no2.17 Arab World English Journal (AWEJ) Volume 10. Number 2. June 2019 Refusal as a Social Speech Act among Thai EFL University Students Boonsuk & Ambele Arab World English Journal www.awej.org ISSN: 2229-9327 214 Introduction Speech acts or ‘social speech acts’ are expressions that serve a function in communication, such as apology, request, promising, refusing and greeting (Kasper, 1997; Reinard, 1994). These utterances are seen as essential elements of language which can better understand how human communication is carried out using linguistic behaviour (Austin, 1962; Olshtain & Blum-Kulka, 1985; Tanck, 2003). To be more precise, Tanck (2003, p. 2) opines that ‘speakers employ a variety of speech acts to achieve their communicative goals’ which include wider seminal speech categories (Searle, 1969) including commissives, declaratives, directives, expressives and representatives, in addition to more specific acts such as apologies, requests, complaints and refusals (Kasper, 1997). Since culture is regarded as communication, just as communication is culture (Al-Khateeb, 2009), this explains why various cultural and social interactions affect discourse language choices. Put differently, “cultural and contextual factors inextricably play a role in developing various ways of communication in a given speech community” (Ambele, 2014, p. 13). It is recommended that we observe social interaction rules that influence language choices, especially when expressing speech acts that affect human behaviour. To this notion, Sarfo (2011, p. 1) states that “one of such acts which influence human behaviour is refusals”. Due to its significance to daily interaction and communication, this social speech act of refusal is very crucial. Speakers can choose either to refuse or accept a request. The speaker may, however, risk offending the listener if the hearer whose request has been refused does not know how a refusal is made in the speaker's culture (Fishman, 1972; Meier, 1995, 1997; Richard & Schmidt, 1983). The research therefore aims, because of its importance, to explore the frequently used cultural-specific direct and indirect refusal strategy (among Thai university learners in Thailand). It also tries to study the connection between the message transmitted and its affect / emotional impacts on the hearer. In order to achieve this, the classification scheme of refusal approach by Beebe, Takahashi and Uliss-Weltz (1990) has been implemented. Refusal Study and Its Place in Thailand Searle (1969) defines the speech act of refusal as the negative counterparts to acceptance and consenting. Refusals are face-threatening (Barron, 2007; Brown & Levinson, 1986) as we refuse because of complex personal (Chen, Ye & Zhang, 1995) reason like gender, juniority, education, power and hierarchy (Ambele, 2014; Fraser 1990; Gass & Houck, 1999; Sarfo, 2011; Smith 1998). They are also often negotiated over several turns and involve some degree of directness and indirectness, usually depending on the status and age of the interlocutors and the cultural contexts (Sarfo, 2011). It seems, of course, that speakers have a challenge to be able to dismiss their requests. Refusing to accept request or saying ' no ' not only involves linguistic understanding, but also pragmatic understanding. It is more difficult in Thailand, because of its cultural diversity, to refuse requests. This is because each culture communicates rejection policies in a distinct way, as Al Kahtani (2005) has shown, who indicates that individuals from distinct cultural backgrounds reject the same language code (English). Differences like these could result in misunderstanding or pragmatic failure when people from different cultures need to interact with each other and one could risk offending the listener who might have had another cultural orientation (Sadler & Erӧz, 2001). The speaker must therefore understand the suitable type of refusal to use, its function and the time when it should be used, according to ethnicity and cultural-linguistic values. Arab World English Journal (AWEJ) Volume 10. Number 2. June 2019 Refusal as a Social Speech Act among Thai EFL University Students Boonsuk & Ambele Arab World English Journal www.awej.org ISSN: 2229-9327 215 Although culturally universal, it is hard to correctly use refusals in English, whether by native speakers or by foreign language students (Ilmiani, Wijayanto, & Hikmat, 2016). It could be misleading to deploy inappropriately, ruining the mood of the parties involved in the interaction. This communication breakdown, often triggered by the transcultural expectation of linguistic selection, perception, hierarchical differentiation, rights, obligations etc. is called \"sociopragmatic failure\" (Thomas, 1984, p. 226). When a person is perceived to have committed a linguistic error, it is easy to ignore the act because of the poor language skills of the speaker. However, the speaker could be perceived as rude or disrespectful if the act is perceived as a sociopragmatic error. Many studies suggested various approaches for refusal (eg, Blum-Kulka and Olshtain, 1984; Campillo, 2009; Kwon, 2004). However, the strategies suggested by Beebe et al. (1990), which offer the means of refusal speech-acts, of invitations, offers and suggestions, are acknowledged as the most advanced (Ilmiani, Wijayanto, & Hikmat, 2016). It was also commonly used and adapted to study refusals in distinct languages between native and non-native speakers (Al-Shboul, Gol, 2013; Maros, & Mohd Yasin, 2014; Sahin, 2011; Sahragrad & Javanmardi, 2011; Wannaruk, 2008; Wijayanto, 2011). In particular, Bebee et al. (1990) states that the refusal strategies are widely divided into two groups: direct and indirect refusal strategies, replaced with communicative supplementation indicating an unambiguous decline without uttering “I decline”. For Bebee et. al (1990), formulaic expressions of refusals consist either of a performative refusal (e.g., \"I refuse\"), or of a non-performative refusal (e.g. “I can’t”, “I don’t think so”, “No”). With respect to indirect refusal approaches, Bebee et al. (1990) suggest most popular, but not restricted, indirect refusal strategy as (I'm sorry.../I feel terrible...), wish (I wish I could help you...), excuse, reason, explanation (My children will be home tonight), and proposing alternatives (e.g. “I can do X instead of Y”, “I’d prefer ...”, “Why don’t you ask someone else?”), set conditions for future acceptance (e.g. “if I am not busy, I will...”), and make a promise of future acceptance (e.g. “I’ll do it next time.”). The difference between direct and indirect refusal is important because refusal is confronted with threatening acts which need to be mitigated with different communicative strategies (Ambele, 2014; Blum-Kulka & Olshtain 1984; Gass & Houck 1999). Knowledge is often required of culture-specific social interaction standards in order to express strategies of direct and indirect refusal appropriately. As stated above, the function of various rejection strategies is to reassure the hearer that he is still approved and thus mitigate the threat to the positive face of the hearer. The speaker can use multiple negotiations approaches to minimize the danger of causing an offense, such as the offer of an option, besides providing a decent sufficient reason for refusal. Apparently, many scholars have researched on the phenomena of pragmatic transfers in refusals (e.g., Al-Shboul, Maros, & Mohd Yasin, 2014; Amarien, 2008; Gol, 2013; Henstock, 2003; Kwon, 2003; Nelson, Carson, Al Batal & El Bakary, 2002; Sahin, 2011; Sahragrad & Javanmardi, 2011; Umale, 2008; Wannaruk, 2008; Wijayanto, 2011; Yamagasira, 2001). With regards to English as a foreign language (EFL) learners in particular have been studied based on how distinct cultural groups use refusal in several socio-pragmatic research in English as either native, second or foreign language (Al-Issa, 2003; Chen, 1996; Chen et al, 1995; Félix-Brasdefer, 2006; Garcia, 1996; Ikoma & Shimura,1993; Kanemoto, 1993; Laohaburanakit, 1995; Liao & Bresnahan, 1996; Moriyama, 1990; Nelson et al, 2002; Shimura, 1995; Takahashi & Beebe, 1987; Ueda, 1974; Arab World English Journal (AWEJ) Volume 10. Number 2. June 2019 Refusal as a Social Speech Act among Thai EFL University Students Boonsuk & Ambele Arab World English Journal www.awej.org ISSN: 2229-9327 216 Sadler & ErÖz, 2001). The studies show that learners’ L2 speech performances were significantly influenced by refusal strategies (Byon 2004; Hassall 2003; Huth 2006). For instance,

/pdf/refusal-as-a-social-speech-act-among-thai-efl-university-qu5d6nky9y.pdf

Refusal as a Social Speech Act among Thai EFL University Students.

Interlanguage Pragmatics: A Study of the Refusal Strategies of Indonesian Speakers Speaking English

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Interlanguage Pragmatics: A Study of the Refusal Strategies of Indonesian Speakers Speaking English