Refusals Produced by Japanese Learners of English

Author

Naeko Naganuma, St. Cloud State UniversityFollow

Date of Award

5-2001

Culminating Project Type

Thesis

Degree Name

English: Teaching English as a Second Language: M.A.

Department

English

College

College of Liberal Arts

First Advisor

Russell Arent

Second Advisor

Suellen Rundquist

Third Advisor

Margaret Pryatley

Keywords and Subject Headings

Pragmatics, Japanese learners of English, Refusals

Abstract

The present study investigates the production of the speech act of refusal by Japanese learners of English and by native speakers of American English at St. Cloud State University in closed, audio-taped, oral role-plays with an instrument based on the work of Hudson, Detmer, and Brown (1995). Twenty Japanese learners of English and twelve native speakers of English participated.

First, the results suggest that having a choice of opting out might have affected the obtained data and increased the validity of this study, especially for Japanese participant groups. There seemed to be some associations between the variables of power, familiarity, affect, age and the opting out choice.

Second, some questions of validity arose related to the instrument developed by Hudson et al. Each participant group held different views toward some of the situations used, and individual participants had different perceptions of the degree of influence for each situational variable. Some situations were rated as not likely to happen to participants, illustrating how hard it can be for researchers to design situations relevant to more than one culture.

Third, it can be suggested that Japanese learners of English did not produce the same types of responses as native speakers of English in several situations. These findings can be explained by negative pragmatic and linguistic transfer from the Ll to L2. The data suggest that fewer Japanese participants produced "no" than the American counterparts.

Since this study was small-scale and exploratory in nature, the generalizations presented are somewhat constrained. The discussion focuses on issues such as the choice of opting out, research methodology, negative transfer, and cultural stereotypes.

Recommended Citation

Naganuma, Naeko, "Refusals Produced by Japanese Learners of English" (2001). Culminating Projects in TESL. 65.
https://repository.stcloudstate.edu/tesl_etds/65