Expressing refusals in Korean and in American English

This study investigated refusals of forty Korean speakers in Korea (KSKs) and thirty-seven American English speakers in the USA (AEAs). Subjects' refusals were collected using a Discourse Completion Test (DCT) taken from Beebe, Takahashi, and Uliss-Weltz (1990). Data were analyzed in terms of semantic formula sequences and were categorized according to the refusal taxonomy by Beebe et al. (1990). Results indicated that although a similar range of refusal strategies were available to the two language groups, cross-cultural variation was evident in the frequency and content of semantic formulas used by each language group in relation to the contextual variables, which include the status of interlocutors (i. e., higher, equal, lower status) and eliciting acts (i. e., requests, invitations, offers, suggestions). For instance, Korean speakers hesitated more frequently and used direct refusal formulas much less frequently than did English speakers. Thus, Korean speakers' refusals at times sounded less transparent and more tentative than those of English speakers. In addition, Korean speakers frequently paused and apologized before refusing, while English speakers often stated positive opinion and expressed gratitude for a proposed action. Further, the two language groups differed in terms of the types of reasons used in their refusals; Korean speakers typically used reasons (e. g., referring to a father's 60th birthday when refusing a boss's invitation), which were not found in the English data. Evidence also suggested that Korean speakers tended to take a more mitigating approach in dealing with a higher status person as compared to other status types, whereas English speakers did not seem to be particularly sensitive to one status versus another in their refusals across the different situations. These differences in Korean and English refusals may cause pragmatic failure when Korean learners of English rely on their native culture-specific refusal strategies in interacting with native English speakers.