Intercultural Comunication: Malay and Thai University Students' Refusals to Request

Authors

  • Maryam Farnia
  • Hiba Abdul Sattar Qusay

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18485/bells.2010.2.5

Keywords:

intercultural communication, speech act, speech act of refusal, discourse

Abstract

This paper examines intercultural communication of the speech act of refusals between Malay and Thai undergraduates at Universiti Sains Malaysia, Malaysia. One question is addressed: what are the similarities and differences between Malays and Thais in the use of refusals strategies to requests. The corpus consists of responses to an open-ended questionnaire in the form of a Discourse Completion Test (DCT) including three different situations. The main aim is to outline the preferred linguistic realizations or strategies used when refusing a request to someone older, someone the same age, and someone younger. The corpus is analyzed and categorized according to the refusal taxonomy by Beebe, Takahashi and Uliss-Weltz (1990) to determine the strategies used and the frequencies of their use. Results show variation in the frequency and the content of strategies used by the group in relation to age factor. Finally, this study supports the idea that speech acts are culturally laden and their understanding can hinder or encourage communication across cultures.

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Published

2010-11-22

How to Cite

Farnia, M. ., & Abdul Sattar Qusay, H. (2010). Intercultural Comunication: Malay and Thai University Students’ Refusals to Request. Belgrade English Language and Literature Studies, 2(1), 113–132. https://doi.org/10.18485/bells.2010.2.5

Issue

Vol. 2 No. 1 (2010): BELLS - volume 2

Section

THEORETICAL AND APPLIED LINGUISTICS

License

Copyright (c) 2021 Maryam Farnia, Hiba Abdul Sattar Qusay

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