Date of Award
3-2010
Thesis Type
Masters
Document Type
Dissertation
Divisions
Faculty of Languages and Linguistics
Department
Department of English Language
Institution
Universiti Malaya
Abstract
The aim of this study is to identify the refusal strategies used by Malaysian students when they make refusals. The data was taken from 80 respondents in one of the universities in Malaysia, where conversations between the researcher and the respondents based on a task that was set by the researcher were recorded. The spoken data was analyzed based on Beebe et. al’s refusal strategies (1990) which consist of direct and indirect refusals. Data was then transcribed using Jefferson’s(1978) transcription conventions. This study found that most of the respondents employed the direct refusal when they refuse. Most of them tend to employ the non-performative strategy which consists of negative willingness/ability and a direct “No”. On the other hand, the indirect strategy which was used most by the respondents was avoidance-repetition of part of request. In addition, the researcher also found that the respondents’ language proficiency plays an important role in determining the strategy that they employ. It was found that respondents with low language proficiency tend to be more direct as compared to the respondents with high language proficiency.
Additional Information
Dissertation (M.A.) – Faculty of Languages and Linguistics, Universiti Malaya, 2010.
Recommended Citation
Primsuwan, Phaveena, "A study of refusal strategies used by Malaysian teenagers." (2010). Student Works (2010-2019). 125.
https://knova.um.edu.my/student_works_2010s/125
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Included in
Interpersonal and Small Group Communication Commons, Psycholinguistics and Neurolinguistics Commons, Semantics and Pragmatics Commons
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