ABSTRACT

The aim is to investigate refusal strategies used by English and Serbian native speakers in terms of two sociological variables: social distance and power. To this end, the participants of the conducted experiment completed a written Discourse Completion Test which introduced 12 everyday situations to which they were expected to respond by making refusals to requests. The obtained data were categorised and analysed statistically. Overall, the results indicated both similarities and differences between the two groups. Both groups reported significantly more indirect refusal strategies than direct ones – the most common ones being excuse and statement of regret. There were, however, some differences between the groups in the frequency of particular refusal strategies such as adjuncts, which were employed more frequently by the English participants. Furthermore, unlike their counterparts, the Serbian participants were shown to be sensitive to the power variable, reflected in the significantly higher percentage of direct refusals used when addressing a subordinate interlocutor than when addressing an interlocutor of equal or higher power. The obtained results not only describe the similarities and differences between refusal strategies in English and Serbian, but also highlight different properties of the two cultures reflected in the use of these strategies.

摘要

目的是根据两个社会变量：社会距离和权力来调查英语和塞尔维亚语母语人士使用的拒绝策略。为此，进行实验的参与者完成了书面语篇完成测试，该测试介绍了 12 种日常情况，他们应该通过拒绝请求来回应这些情况。对获得的数据进行分类和统计分析。总体而言，结果表明两组之间既有相似之处，也有差异。两组报告的间接拒绝策略明显多于直接拒绝策略——最常见的是借口和遗憾声明。然而，两组之间在特定拒绝策略的频率上存在一些差异，例如英语参与者更频繁地使用的辅助策略。此外，与他们的同行不同，塞尔维亚参与者被证明对权力变量很敏感，这反映在对下属对话者进行直接拒绝的比例显着高于对同等或更高权力的对话者说话时。所得结果不仅描述了英语和塞尔维亚语拒绝策略的异同，而且突出了两种文化在这些策略的使用中所反映的不同特性。