Refusals and Complaints Performed by Undergraduate EFL Students - Essay Example

• • Abstract

Refusals and complaints occur in all languages which involve production of speech acts, such as refusing, making promises, offering apologies and asking questions. Learning a foreign language requires one to understand the pragmatics of the second language, since its speech acts rely on this. Understanding the social-cultural setting of the foreign language is vital for the EFL learner because refusal and complaint speech acts are dependent on cultural norms and practices. Various studies indicate that performance of these speech acts is dependent on indirect or direct strategies, where some EFL individuals prefer the direct approach to refusal and complaint acts, while some, most preferably the natives, prefer the indirect strategies of refusal and complaint. Linguistic pragmatics is very important to the EFL students and teachers should help the students blend with the cultural environment when learning the new language, so as to enable them communicate effectively and avoid being misunderstood.

Keywords: EFL, language, students, complaints, refusals, pragmatics

• Refusals and Complaints Performed by Undergraduate EFL Students
  • Introduction

Communication is very important in sharing of thoughts, feelings, information and also passing of ideas between individuals, which essentially helps in maintaining associations and relationships. Communication can take various modes that may employ either linguistic or non-linguistic approaches, such as body language and facial expressions, depending on the nature of the situation (Tanck, 2002). Therefore, good communication is born out of not only linguistic knowledge, but also the deeper insight of cultural and social factors relative to the nature of the situation. Communication is said to be dynamic and human communication is seen to have evolved over long periods of time with both women and men playing a role in how communication is carried out presently. It is in this regard that it seen that communication is influenced by our social, cultural norms and also our perceptions towards gender differences. For instance, women tend to be considered as being more polite than men thus you can find them being apologetic, thankful and courteous contrary to what can be said of men (Koczogh, 2012). Such acts are what are referred to as speech acts; hence, when one is communicating, they employ them forming the elements of communicative competence, which require individuals to have knowledge of how to perform the speech acts so as to communicate effectively.

Generally, individuals will employ various speech acts to achieve their communication goals. Since people express feelings differently; that is one can be unhappy, dissatisfied, or annoyed by the nature of things and different people are going to employ varying speech acts to make them express their feelings. Mostly, situations that are not appealing will always trigger expressions of complaint which depend on the level of dissatisfaction and also other social factors. Therefore, a complaint is a speech act that can be performed when one is confronted by a problem with the intention of improving the situation, venting out frustration, to open and or sustain conversations, and also share thoughts about any negative evaluation, so as to be in agreement and equally establish a relationship between individuals (Mofidi & Shoushtari, 2012).

In learning of second language, pragmatics is very important since the second language learners are supposed to understand the rules of speaking it, lexicon, syntax, and phonology. However, it is evident from studies that second language learners have a different L2 pragmatic system compared to their native speakers. In the process of learning a new language, the foreign language learners rely on their native social, cultural behaviors in trying to learn the new language (Fruitos & Cureli, 2015). This nevertheless presents a possibility of differences in the performing of speech acts between native a non-native speakers; hence the development of refusal as a speech act. The speech act of refusal has been identified as the main challenge to EFL learners because it can lead to unwarranted offense and thus communication breakdown. In most cases, EFL students are likely to offend their interlocutors in the process of performing the act of refusal, since the existence of linguistic obstruction is further convoluted by the threatening nature of the speech act (Flor & Juan, 2011). Performing refusal is a dis-preferred response that contradicts the expectations of interlocutors; hence the need for outstanding pragmatic competence to carry out refusal felicitously.

The act of refusal as a speech act has been thoroughly studied in inter-language and multicultural pragmatic linguistics. Refusals and complaints are very complex in nature because they are dependent on social, cultural variables such as education, gender, and social status. Refusal and complaints can be perceived differently, especially for EFL students in that they are prone to misunderstanding because they employ native language strategies to raise complaints or express refusal, rather than the second language simply because of lack of pragmatic social knowledge. This paper, however, reviews the available literature on the act of refusal and complaint as acts of speech that affect EFL learners.

• • Literature review

In recent times, researchers have studied various areas of pragmatics, especially the important aspects of speech acts, such as refusal and complaints, to draw an understanding of linguistics and how communication is carried out. Refusal as a speech act presents a series of challenges to EFL students because of social, cultural practices (Baba, 2010). Therefore, an understanding of speech at theory is essential in understanding how EFL students perform refusals.

Speech acts have three identification features. These are elocutionary, illocutionary and Perlocutionary acts, where they refer to an utterance, intended meaning of an utterance and the actual effect of something said respectively. Studies indicate that speech acts can be realized either directly or indirectly, and in most cases, they are performed indirectly so as to soften the weight of the speech act. Therefore, indirect performance of a speech act in its linguistic form does not represent the speaker's intention clearly, hence whoever is addressed needs to refer to the intended meaning of the utterance and consider it in a particular context (Chen, Chen & Chang, 2011). Equally, for one to appropriately respond, they also need to know the apt practices of speech acts of the EFL learners.

Refusals as speech acts are always considered to result in the form of negative responses to acts such as invitations, offers, requests, and suggestions. Some scholars however indicate that refusal can be considered to be commissive speech acts, although they may not always be part of that categorization because they are not rejections, but they can be part of negotiations where participants are not even aware of the outcome. When someone takes the initiative of accepting an act, there are normally three possible approaches of refusal, which are the postponement, rejection or suggestion of an alternative initiative (Sattar, Lah & Suleiman, 2011). However, refusal becomes face threatening to the individual who makes the request because it is contrary to their expectations, and can only be realized through indirect strategies, which require high pragmatic competence levels.

A study of refusal performance by Japanese EFL learners and American English native speakers in response to an invitation indicated that at first, there is an expression of regret, then an excuse and finally, an offer for an alternative. However, studies indicate that the Japanese EFL speakers and the English native speakers have the difference in the semantic formulae, its frequency and the content of the expression. Although Japanese speakers produced the same semantic components as native speakers, the quality of utterances however differed. Equally, similar studies of speech acts of refusal as performed by Chinese EFL learners indicate that direct refusal is not a common strategy among the individuals, regardless of their linguistic background (Moaveni, 2014). Cultural background can influence the act of refusal as studies indicate; for instance, the expression of regret common among English native speakers is not produced by Chinese EFL speakers, which may bring about mixed feelings, hence difficulties in communication within the American context.

Refusal strategies can be categorized into two; either semantic formulas or adjuncts, where the formula comprises a set of expressions, which can be sentences, words, or phrases and function as refusal, while adjuncts are those expressions that supplement refusal and cannot function as the refusal on their own (Eshreteh, 2015). Studies indicate that semantic formula has either indirect or direct mode of realizing refusals. Direct mode comprises the performative semantic formula, where the refusal act is explicitly expressed and the negative willingness to express one's self, which is non-performative. The indirect mode comprises of acts that are used to mitigate direct refusal using expressing regret or giving the reason for nonacceptance or providing an alternative (Chen, Chen & Chang, 2011). However, in research studies, the refusal responses are supposed to be coded according to their order, frequency, content of semantic formulae and adjunct, where the order is determined by the position of adjuncts and semantic formula and frequency is the number of occurrences.

The speech act of complaint is expressed when an individual reacts with annoyance or displeasure to actions that have affected them unfavorably. It is equally a face threatening act just like refusal, and it is often recognized through indirect strategies. For instance, studies on the speech act of complaint as performed by native and non-native speakers indicate that regardless of one's first language, they employ the approach of disproval, complaint, accusation and warning, and also a threat by avoiding the extremes of either being too confrontational or being too soft. In another study on how the speech act of complaint is performed by American native speakers and Korean EFL speakers, the researchers indicate the semantic formula to comprise of an explanation of purpose, complaint, justification and equally, offering an alternative solution (Sukyadi, 2012). There is however the high correlation between both speakers when it comes to some components of the speech act, such as the justification, explanation of the purpose and alternative solution, although they differed on the production of complaint. In this case, native speakers seemed to be producing complaints, while their EFL Korean counterparts produced some form of criticism, which can be considered to possibly offend the interlocutor, or rather do away with the interaction in an American context.

There have also been studies trying to draw the differences between native and EFL speakers in the performance of speech acts of complaint and refusal, where participants were subjected to a discourse completion test. The studies however indicate that although both speakers produced same speech set components, they were of different quality. Nevertheless, the EFL speakers' responses were found to be linguistically correct, although pragmatically, they were considered to be ill-informed, thus raising perceptions to form the listeners who considered them inappropriate.

A study carried out to investigate the use of speech acts by EFL students indicate that acquisition of pragmatic competence is reliant of speech acts, which show that individuals from different cultures find it difficult when producing negative responses to invitations, offers, suggestions and requests, because refusal is likely to cause inconsistency with the interlocutor's communication purposes (Koczogh, 2012). Therefore, inappropriate performance of the act of refusal can easily corrupt the interaction of interlocutors because there speech acts maybe be involved in some offensiveness. When individuals are communicating, they normally reflect the distinctiveness of the norms that are peculiar to their cultures, hence cultural background may likely affect the way individuals interact, interpret and comprehend information from each other (Sattar, Lah & Suleiman, 2011). Just like the other speech acts that employ specific strategies, refusal strategies vary among speakers depending on age, social background, gender, power and education level of interlocutors (Morkus, 2009). Therefore, there is the need for interlocutors to have sufficient knowledge about each other's cultural background, so as to enable them to employ proper refusal modes to alleviate the implications of direct refusal.

Recent studies focused on the realization of the act of refusal point out that changes in linguistics have brought significant changes in how language is learned and taught in a communicative approach, where learners have to realize grammatical and pragmatic competence within a given context. There is no exception however about the existence of refusal in various cultures, although strategies that may be employed vary. Nevertheless, studies indicate that there are differences between the acts across cultures, hence the need to identify these pragmatic failures performed by EFL speakers, as well as device ways of preventing them. Linguistic researchers indicate that direct complaint of EFL learners in the inter-language between Japanese and native speakers, and German and English speakers, show that native speakers express downgrades and employ less directness compared to EFL German speakers (Ghazanfari, Bonyadi & Malekzadeh, 2012). However, Japanese EFL learners are said to use severe complaints in English than Japanese in the same context because of discrepancies and lack of competency of the learner in downgrading the complaints.

Equally intra-lingual studies indicate that the strategies of performing the speech act of refusal or complaint differ in perspective about the context, gender of the interlocutors and their status. This presents a riddle on the principle that governs the speech in a multicultural setting, where the studies have been systematic. For instance, studies on speech acts between native speakers and Danish EFL speakers indicate that researchers want to draw the similarities and differences between the languages, whereas others are more concerned with drawing transfer patterns between L1 and L2. However, the studies indicate that the two languages, that are in this case English and Danish, employ similar strategies (Tanck, 2002). For instance, annoyance seems to cut across both languages, while some other things such as accusation and blame are less often (Tanck, 2002). Differences equally manifest themselves between the languages, as studies find that Germans EFL speakers for instance, express direct complaints compared to the English native speakers.

There have been studies to investigate the relationship between the Turkish EFL learners' performance of speech acts about their area of residence, with a focus on how they employ refusal strategies. The researchers used a discourse questionnaire to distinguish the possibility of preferred use of refusal strategies between Turkish EFL students and Native speakers, relative to their area of residence, either urban or rural. The study indicated that the groups produced same refusal strategies and with the interlocutor status having a significant effect on the strategies and preferences of speakers (Aksoyalp, 2009). Most of the speakers employed indirect strategies to be polite, although the EFL Turkish speakers chose direct strategies while performing speech acts of refusal, compared to the native speakers who were actually indirect in refusing. Similarly, a study aimed at establishing if there is any significant difference in refusal strategies between American English, Turkish and Turkish-English about the most applied pragmatic norms found out that the English native speakers' refusal statements were brief, compared to the Turkish native speakers and EFL Turkish speakers’ refusal statements (Aksoyalp, 2009). Nevertheless, both groups preferred indirect strategies of refusal, and although the semantic formula applied while refusing is similar across both cultures, the ways they express these pragmatic norms was found to vary across cultures.

There is however the existence of differences in the process of realizing complaints and refusals between EFL speakers and native speakers, despite the language under consideration. For instance, performance of a speech act of refusal by Chinese and Japanese EFL speakers has been found to be at times indirect and/or vague, and also lacking the required excuse expected in the American cultural context (Mofidi & Shoushtari, 2012). However, complaints on the other hand, have been found to be performed directly among Korean EFL speakers, where the subjects' of complaints are realized through direct criticism that serves to shut down any possible interaction. Nevertheless, refusals and complaints usually require the high level of pragmatic competence that is always attained by native speakers through narrow margins of appropriateness, thus learning to use them appropriately becomes erroneous for the EFL speaker. Therefore, pragmatics should be taught to EFL students so that they can be able to master the second language easily.

• • Importance of Teaching Pragmatics to EFL Students

Knowledge of inter-language pragmatics is very essential in understanding acquisition and use of linguistic patterns by a learner in a second language. Pragmatics understands language from the learner's point of view, with the elements that influence the non-literal and literal meaning of communication. Improving the EFL student's pragmatic knowledge is therefore very important, and the EFL teachers should be at the frontlines of pragmatic development. They also have the responsibility of EFL learners; hence, they should pursue their ability to think critically about language data and equally, the instances of use. Teaching pragmatics is therefore beneficial to the learners since it will help them be autonomous, which will enable them to solve communication problems, as well as boost their competence levels (Huwari & Al-Shboul, 2015). However, it is essential for the pragmatic studies to provide the necessary linguistic materials and tools to the student, so as to help them learn and understand the action in an appropriate manner.

However, because of the sheer number of speech acts, teaching pragmatics can be problematic. A large number of speech acts and language functions can make it unattainable, thus the teacher's focus should be on employing language in ongoing discourse, so as to make the student more aware of the existence of pragmatic language functions (Huwari & Al-Shboul, 2015). It is important to understand how the speech acts and their elements apply natural input for the EFL student for given content, purpose and as part of a strategy. The acronym SURE is used to guide EFL learners to see, use, review, and experience pragmatics in their lessons.

Sometimes, intercultural miscommunications can cause learners to fall back to their L1 socio-cultural practices, in the process of realizing speech acts in the foreign language, which are a form of pragmatic transfer. Therefore, EFL teachers are supposed to be aware of the ways in which pragmatic transfer manifests, since it can be of profound effect on EFL students, their inter-language development and equally, their experiences within the English speaking setups. Since using English in a socio-culturally appropriate manner is essential for effective communication and immersion into English setups and cultures, it is therefore important for the teacher to understand their role, and be aware of the L2 pragmatic competence and development of the student, which is very paramount. Therefore, the EFL teacher should be responsible for intervening in the devastating process that pragmatic failure can trigger for an EFL learner.

A practical teaching approach is therefore a requirement in developing grammatical and communicative competence; hence, the illustration interaction induction should be applied in developing pragmatic competence. The teacher should use real life examples from spoken language by interacting and analyzing them, before drawing inferences from the examples in the context of language use. By interacting with the language, it will enable them better understand and analyze its usage in the preferred context, which will help develop their pragmatic competence (Al-Shorman, 2016). Therefore, with the increase in dominance of English as a language, the teacher has a duty to ensure that the EFL students at the very least are aware of the socio-pragmatic effectiveness of language, because it is a complement to the genesis of effective communication and grammatical competence. In essence, this leads to improvement of English language skills among the EFL students; hence creating an enjoyable experience in an English speaking set up, as well as enhancing intercultural communication.

Teachers should improve the EFL students' understanding of the scope of interaction and the rules of politeness within the context of the target culture. Therefore, the teacher should ensure the student has the tools that are necessary for them to make pragma-linguistic decisions in the second language. Nevertheless, lack of this knowledge is likely to result in unsuccessful communication, hence resulting in a breakdown of the interpersonal relationship between EFL speakers and the native speakers (Han & Burgucu-Tazegul, 2016). In addition to emphasizing on grammar aspects, teachers should encourage EFL learners to be attentive to appropriate language use in various contexts, so as to avoid making pragmatic mistakes that may lead to a breakdown in communication. It is important to teach learners the socio-cultural rules of English and equally expose them to the natural environment and quality materials.

• • Conclusion

In conclusion, the performance of speech acts of refusal and complaints draws similarities in distributions and the combined strategy, and although they may differ in linguistic forms, the content applied by particular strategies will always be influenced by social and cultural norms of the L1 and L2. This however means that although there are general concepts and principles governing speech acts, the strategy preferences on the other hand, are subject to the cultural ethos and a specific way of speaking. For the speech act of complaint, the EFL learners realize it through strategies such as annoyance, accusation, blame and provision of an alternative solution. These strategies are exhibited differently depending on the context of communication, gender, social status and culture of an individual. Since various studies have contributed to the understanding of how speech acts are perceived culturally by linguistically diverse groups, it is therefore important to bear in mind that cultural values and norms play an important role in refusal and complaint strategies.

Reference

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