한국, 중국, 인도네시아 영어학습자의 거절전략비교

Abstract

This study compares English refusals used by Korean, Chinese and Indonesian college students and aims to investigate the differences in their refusals and any difficulties that Koreans might have in using English refusals compared with others. Refusal strategies can differ according to sociocultural norms and cause pragmatic failure. The pragmatic failure caused by not meeting sociocultural norms can occur repeatedly and be common among the language learners. This study uses Discourse Completion Task composed of 12 refusal situations against requests, invitations, offers and suggestions toward a higher, equal and lower status interlocutor. The study examines the frequency, the order and the content of refusal strategies depending on the situation and the interlocutors' social status. The results show that preferred frequency of refusal strategies is [Excuse]> [Apology]> [Positive opinion] in Korean, [Excuse]> [Wish]> [Apology] in Chinese, and [Excuse]> [Apology]> [Nonperformative statement] in Indonesian data. Koreans are more sensitive to the hearer's social status than Chinese and Indonesian. Koreans prefer the order of [Apology][Excuse] in most situations while Chinese use [Wish][Excuse] and Indonesian use [Apology] [Nonperformative statement] following [Apology][Excuse]. The understanding of these differences depending on sociocultural norms will help to reduce the pragmatic failure in using English refusals