CROSS-CULTURAL COMPARISON OF ENGLISH AND CHINESE METAPRAGMATICS. IN REFUSAL

A study exploring native English-speakers ' and advanced Chinese English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) learners ' beliefs about how a face-threatening speech act, refusal, should be expressed is reported. The two major research questions of the study were: how native speakers of English and Chinese English as a Foreign Language (EFL) differ in their estimations of what is pragmatically appropriate for refusal; and what patterns, characteristics, attitudes, or beliefs are embedded in the differences. Three types of data were gathered: naturally-occurring refusals in daily conversation; data from a discourse completion task; and information from a metapragmatic judgment task. Subjects for the latter two data types were 26 graduate students, native English speakers of English and non-native speakers of varying linguistic backgrounds. Results suggest that, asserting individuality and stressing the linguistic function of the speech act, the native speakers considered truthfulness, directness, clarity, an