Tài liệu Refusal strategies by ctu english majored students

CANTHO UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF EDUCATION ENGLISH DEPARTMENT REFUSAL STRATEGIES BY CTU ENGLISH MAJORED STUDENTS B.A Thesis Field of study: ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING Supervisor: Lê Xuân Mai, M.Ed Student: Đặng Thị Ngọc Thủy Class: NN0652A2 Student code: 7062967 Cần Thơ, May 2010 CONTENTS Page Acknowledgements........................................................................................i Abstract........................................................................................................ii List of abbreviations....................................................................................iii List of tables................................................................................................iii List of figures..............................................................................................iii Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION...................................................................1-4 1.1. General statement of the problem.....................................................1 1.2. Statement of the hypotheses, objectives and research questions.......2 1.3. Definition of terms...........................................................................3 1.4. General organization and the coverage of the study......................3-4 Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 5-10 2.1. Related literature...........................................................................5-8 2.1.1 The pragmatic component in the models of communicative competence ........................................................................................................5-6 2.1.1 The speech act theory and the speech act of refusal...............6-7 2.1.3 The politeness principle............................................................7 2.1.4 The politeness principle in Vietnamese language..................7-8 2.1.5 Pragmatic transfer.....................................................................8 2.2. Related studies..............................................................................8-9 2.3. Justification of the present study.................................................9-10 Chapter 3: METHOD 11-16 3.1. Research design..............................................................................11 3.2. Description of subjects, instruments and materials....................11-14 3.3. Research procedures..................................................................14-15 3.4. Description of measures employed............................................15-16 Chapter 4: FINDINGS 17-29 4.1. Overview of the statistical procedures............................................17 4.2. Description of findings pertinent to each hypothesis, objective and question .................................................................................................................. 17-29 Chapter 5: SUMMARY AND DISCUSSION 30-33 5.1. Summary of research problem, method and findings................30-31 5.2. Conclusions....................................................................................31 5.3. Implications...............................................................................31-32 5.4. Limitations................................................................................32-33 Reference materials Bibliography Appendix ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor Le Xuan Mai for her inspiration, valuable suggestions and helpful advice. Second, I extend my special thanks to the English Department for offering me a chance to conduct this research, and to the teaching staff for their assistances and support. Third, I am especially grateful to Ms.Hollingworth for enthusiastically helping me with the hard work of data interpretation. Last but not least, I wish to acknowledge three volunteer teachers and all students of English class 33 and 35 for helping me complete the questionnaire with enthusiasm. ABSTRACT Although speech act is universal, it varies from cultures to cultures. Refusal, as well as other speech acts, reveals distinctive cultural features of an ethnic. Therefore, the similarities and differences in refusal by native speakers of English and Can Tho University (CTU) English majored students were examined in this study. Four native speakers of English (2 Americans and 2 Australians) and ten CTU third-year English majored students and ten CTU first-year English majored students were asked to complete a Discourse Completion Test (DCT) developed by Beebe et al. (1990), resulting 288 speech acts of refusal (SARs).The data were analyzed utilizing a Simple Concordance Program (SCP) and the Excel function. It was found that first-year students employed more SARs than third-year ones and the former were more direct than the latter in refusal. Also, Vietnamese students used more statements of regret and were more careful for the social status than the native speakers. Lastly, the evidence of pragmatic transfer could be found, and it was affected by these students’ level of proficiency. TÓM TẮT Mặc dù hành động lời nói phổ biến trên toàn cầu, nó vẫn thay đổi từ nền văn hóa này sang nền văn hóa khác. Từ chối, cũng như những hành động lời nói khác bộc lộ những đặc điểm đặc trưng thuộc về văn hóa của một dân tộc. Vì vậy, sự tương đồng và sự khác biệt trong cách từ chối của người nói tiếng Anh bản xứ và sinh viên chuyên Anh trường Đại học Cần Thơ được khảo sát trong bài nghiên cứu này. Bốn người nói tiếng Anh bản xứ (2 người Mỹ và 2 người Úc), mười sinh viên chuyên Anh năm ba và mười sinh viên chuyên Anh năm nhất được mời để điền vào bài kiểm tra hoàn tất tình huống (DCT) được phát triển bởi Beebe và các tác giả khác (1990), kết quả thu được 288 phát ngôn từ chối. Dữ liệu được phân tích bằng cách sử dụng một chương trình tương thích đơn giản (SCP) và chức năng Excel. Kết quả tìm thấy rằng sinh viên năm nhất sử dụng nhiều phát ngôn từ chối và từ chối một cách trực tiếp hơn sinh viên năm ba. Hơn nữa, sinh viên Việt Nam sử dụng nhiều lời nói chỉ sự hối tiếc và quan tâm đến vai vế trong xã hội hơn so với những người bản xứ. Cuối cùng, dấu hiệu của sự chuyển giao ngôn ngữ thuộc về mặt ngữ dụng học được tìm thấy và nó bị ảnh hưởng bởi trình độ của những sinh viên này. LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CTU: Can Tho University DCT: Discourse Completion Test SARs: speech acts of refusal LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Summary: Use of SARs by 10 First-year Students.....................................17 Table 2: Summary: Use of SARs by 10 Third-year Students...................................18 Table 3: Summary: Use of SARs by 4 Native Speakers...........................................23 Table 4: Summary: Use of SARs by 4 First-year Students......................................24 Table 5: Summary: Use of SARs by 4 Third-year Students.....................................25 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Native Speakers by Social Status..............................................................20 Figure 2: 4 Third-year Students by Social Status.....................................................22 Figure 3: 4 Native Speakers by Social Status..........................................................26 Figure 4: 4 First-year Students by Social Status......................................................26 Figure 5: 4 Third-year Students by Social Status.....................................................27 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1. General statement of the problem: Odlin (1989) states in his book “Language Transfer”, “misinterpretations may occur when native and target language word-order patterns differ and when cultural assumptions differ”. Therefore, practicing good communication skills, especially listening and speaking skills requires good sociolinguistics knowledge of the target language. Learners of English have to overcome the difficulties not only in grammar and pronunciation but also in the proper usage involved idiomatic expressions and cross-cultural norm of the target language. Refusal, as well as other speech acts, reveals distinctive cultural features of an ethnic. Each language has its own choices of strategies in refusal. Bringing the conventions of native language into English by learners of English usually leads them to difficulties and misunderstandings. As a result, they are not always successful when they interact with native speakers regardless of their proficiency in phonology, semantics, morphology and syntax. Hence, the researcher is strongly motivated to find the differences and similarities between the CTU English majored students and native speakers in their way to apply the use of refusal patterns in order to withdraw practical implications in English classrooms to help students better communicate in the target language. 1.2. Statement of the objectives, hypotheses, and research questions: 1.2.1. Objectives: The purpose of this research is to examine the similarities and differences between the first-year English majored students and the thirdyear English majored ones and native speakers when they apply the use of refusal patterns and some possible consequences for those similarities and differences. In addition, the researcher also aims to investigate the evidence of pragmatic transfer in CTU English majored students’ utterances and study whether the level of proficiency affects their pragmatic transfer or not. 1.2.2. Research questions: 1.2.2.1 When the first-year English majored students refuse in English, is their use of refusal patterns different from those used by the third-year English majored students? 1.2.2.2. When CTU English majored students refuse in English, is their use of refusal patterns different from those used by native speakers? 1.2.2.3 Does pragmatic transfer occur when CTU English majored students refuse in English? 1.2.3. Hypotheses: 1.2.3.1 The use of refusal formula by first-year students and third- year students will reveal some differences, though they also share some similarities. The researcher hypothesizes third-year students will employ more patterns of refusal than first-year students since the third-year students’ proficiency is advanced. However, both firstyear and third-year students would utilize equal number of statement of regret because they belong to Asian culture, where traditional values should be appreciated. 1.2.3.2 The use of refusal formulae by CTU English majored students will be different from those by native speakers. For example, Vietnamese students will be more careful for the social positions than the native speakers because Vietnamese students, who are Asian people, don’t want to make their higher status speaking partners lose face. 1.2.3.3 The evidence of pragmatic transfer would be found in first-year students’ refusal. They will translate from Vietnamese into English when they do not know how to express their ideas in English. 1.3. Definition of terms The terms: strategy, sociolinguistics and transfer are defined as follows. Brown and Levinson (1978) divide strategy into solidarity strategy and deference strategy. The tendency to use positive politeness forms, emphasizing closeness between a speaker and a hearer, can be seen as solidarity strategy. Deference strategy is the tendency to use negative politeness forms emphasizing the hearer’s right to freedom. This study will concentrate on the solidarity strategy. According to Lado (1957), sociolinguistics deals with the inter-relationships between language and society. Moreover, Lado claims that transfer is the influence resulting from similarities and differences between the target language and any other languages that has been previously (and perhaps imperfectly) acquired. There are two kinds of transfer: positive transfer (facilitation) and negative transfer (interference). The negative transfer will be the main focus in this study. 1.4. General organization and coverage of the study Chapter one mentions the general statement of the problem. Then it presents the objectives, research questions and hypotheses. The definitions of term are also stated in this chapter. Lastly, the general organization and coverage of the study is introduced in this session. The review of literature in chapter two discusses related studies, related literature and justification of the present study. The pragmatic component in the models of communicative competence is firstly discussed. Then, the speech act theory and the speech act of refusal are introduced. Next, the politeness theory is also stated in this session. After that, the related literature presents a cross-cultural comparison between Vietnamese people and the Western people (mainly focused on American and Australian). There are four related studies mentioned in this chapter. Lastly, the justification of the present study states the motivation of the researcher to conduct this study. Chapter three describes the research design; description of subjects, instruments and materials; research procedure and description of measures employed. Chapter four reveals the results of the study answering the three research questions. It includes the overview of the statistical procedures, description of findings pertinent to each hypothesis, objective, and question and other findings. Chapter five attempts to summarize the research problem, method, and findings. The implications are discussed in this session, too. It also presents the limitations so as to withdraw recommendations for further research. CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW The related literature, related studies and the justification of the present study will be introduced in this chapter. The definition of communicative competence, pragmatics, pragmalinguistics and sociopragmatics, and the examples of pragmalinguistics and sociolinguistics will be firstly introduced in the subtitle “the pragmatic component in the models of communicative competence”. Speech act theory, which is an important component in pragmatics, will be introduced then. The speech act of refusal will be fully discussed after the introduction of the speech act theory. Then, the principle of politeness by Leech (1983) and Brown & Levinson (1987) will be included. This session also presents the principle of politeness in Vietnamese language. In addition, the pragmatic transfer and its characteristics will be mentioned. The last part in this chapter is the justification of the present study. 2.1. Related literature 2.1.1 The pragmatic component in models of communicative competence Mckay and Hornberger (1996) state in their edited book “Sociolinguistics and Language Teaching” that communicative competence involves knowing not only the language code but also what to say to whom, and how to say it appropriately in any given situation. In other words, in order to successfully communicate, learners should properly apply the language patterns in different contexts. Thomas (1983) claims that a speaker’s “linguistic competence” would be made up of grammatical competence (knowledge of intonation, phonology, syntax, semantics, etc.) and pragmatic competence (the ability to use language effectively in order to achieve a specific purpose and to understand language in context). Similarly, pragmatics is the study of the relationships between linguistics forms and the users of those forms (Yule, 1996). This can be seen that pragmatics is the study of the speaker’s meaning. Thomas (1983) divides pragmatics into pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic component. Pragmalinguistics refers to resources for transmitting communicative acts and interpersonal meanings. Pragmatic strategies like directness and indirectness, routines and a great number of linguistic forms which can strengthen or soften communicative acts can be seen as these resources. For example, compare the following two ways of expressing regret, the brief: “I’m sorry” and the lengthy: “I’m absolutely devastated. Can you possibly forgive me?”. In both situations, the two speakers want to say sorry, but they show a very different attitude and social relationship in each of the version. Sociopragmatics is described by Leech (1983, p.10) as “the sociological interface of pragmatics”, referring to the social perceptions underlying participants’ interpretation and performance of communicative action. In other words, speech communities are different in the way they assess speaker’s and hearer’s social distance and social power, their rights and obligations, and the degree of imposition involved in particular communicative act. (Kasper,1997) 2.1.2 Speech act theory and the speech act of refusal Austin (1962) claims that there is a close link between speech acts and language functions. In other words, when we say something, we are simultaneously accomplishing a communicative action, that is, we are using words to perform actions in real world context. For example, when you say: “There is a spider in your hair”, you do not simply describe a state of affair, but you wish to achieve the goal of warning the hearer. Austin also believes that speech act is a unit of speaking performs different functions in communication. A single speech act actually contains three separate but related speech acts: locutionary acts (speaker’s actual words), illocutionary acts (speaker’s action), and perlocutionary acts. (Austin, 1962) For example: Mike said to Annie: “Give me some cash.” The locution can be inferred that Mike uttered the words Give me some cash which can be semantically paraphrase as: “Hand some money over to me” with me referring to Mike. In addition, this utterance can have an illocution force that Mike performed the act of requesting Annie to give him some cash. Moreover, Mike’s utterance could have any of the following perlocutions: ‘Mike persuaded Annie to give him the money’; ‘Annie refused to give him the money’; ‘Annie was offended’, etc. Therefore, we can define the perlocution as the hearer’s reaction. Yule (1996) claims that, of these types of speech acts, the most distinctive one is illocutionary force. In their edited book, “Sociolinguistics and Language teaching” Mckay and Hornberger (1996) mention the role of the teacher the researcher and the learner in the teaching of speech acts. The teacher - the researcher should obtain some information in the way native speakers perform certain speech acts such as refusal, requesting, and complaining. Also, the similarities and differences on how native speakers perform such speech acts and how they do, which is often influenced to some extent by the way they would perform such communicative functions in their native language, should be noticed by the learners. This suggests that the teacher-researcher should make a comparison between how native speakers perform such speech acts and how learners of foreign languages do to help learners of foreign languages successfully perform speech acts in the target language. An especially sensitive pragmatic task concerns constructing refusals. According to Beebe et al., (1990), refusals are a major cross-cultural “sticking point” for many non-native speakers. To avoid being impolite or rude in making a refusal, non-native speakers use indirect strategies; however, an indirect refusal might be misunderstood by the target community. 2.1.3 Politeness principle Leech (1983) analyzes politeness by the use of maxims. The tact maxim: minimize cost to other; maximize benefit to other. Brown and Levinson (1987) analyze politeness as showing awareness of the need to preserve face public selfimage. Positive politeness orients to preserving a person’s self-image as an accepted, valued and liked member of a social group. Negative politeness orients to a person’s self-image as a free individual who should not be imposed upon. Social status is one of the factors that determine politeness behaviors (Leech, 1983; Brown & Levinson, 1987). Holmes (1995) claims that people with high social status are more prone to receive deferential behaviors, including linguistic deference and negative politeness. Thus, those with lower status are inclined to avoid offending those with higher status and show more respect to them. 2.1.4 Politeness in Vietnamese language According to Huynh (2004), in Vietnamese, there is a variety of the personal pronouns. It can be counted that there are 60 personal pronouns in Vietnamese system of personal pronouns (Tran, 1996). Therefore, age, home, education, social status, and marital status are matters that Vietnamese people usually pay close attention to when they engage in conversations. It is not because Vietnamese people are curious as Western people sometimes feel annoyed when they are asked such personal questions. When Vietnamese people know their partner clearly, they can choose a proper personal pronoun and communicative strategy to acquire successful communication. Furthermore, Vietnamese people tend to be more indirect in communication, especially when they are about to say something threatening the saving face of their partner. According to Brown and Levinson (1987), refusal is a face-threatening act. As a result, in performance of refusal, Vietnamese people will show their indirectness in order not to make their partner disappointed. Lastly, Tran (1996) mentions a cultural distinctive feature in Vietnamese communication: Vietnamese people are both confident and shy to communicate in community. On one hand, they feel safe to communicate in their familiar speech communities. On the other hand, when the speech community is extended, they tend to be shy and deference their status in the belief of politeness. To conclude, Vietnam belongs to Asian culture, where the politeness principle in communication is highly valued. Therefore, the cultural distinctive feature of Vietnamese people can be summarized into three main points: (1) they are sensitive to personal matters in interaction; (2) they also tend to show their indirectness in situations threatened their partner’s face; and (3) they are unconfident outside their habitual speech communities. 2.1.5 Pragmatic transfer Lado (1957) states in his book “Linguistics across Cultures” that learners depend completely on their native language, that is, “the forms and meanings of the native language and culture in a second language learning situation”. In the early days, this process is called language transfer. Language transfer is the influence resulting from similarities and differences between the target language and any other language that has been previously (and perhaps imperfectly) acquired (Lado, 1957). If non-native speakers do not know how to make a refusal in the target community, it is assumed that they will depend on their native culture’s strategies and transfer will occur in refusals made by non-native English speakers (Hisako, 2000). 2.2. Related studies A number of studies have investigated speech acts. Nguyen (2006),investigated similarities and differences in refusal of requests between Australian native speakers of English and Vietnamese learners of English. She found out that Vietnamese were more sensitive to the social status of the requesters. In addition, related to differences in culture, Australians and Vietnamese also differ in the way they say “NO”. Vietnamese students used more statements of regret and more reason/excuse/explanation in their refusal than their Australian counterparts. Moreover, Hsiang (2006), who conducted a research on interlanguage speech act of apology by Chinese English Foreign Language (EFL) learners, proved that proficiency effect is found operative in EFL learners’ interlanguage apology production. The results of this study revealed a positive correlation between EFL learners’ English proficiency and their interlanguage pragmatic competence and their linguistic accuracy in apologizing. Furthermore, Beebe, Takahashi, & Uliss-Weltz (1990) used a Discourse Completion Test (DCT) in the form of a written role-play questionnaire consisting of 12 situations to compare Japanese and American refusal strategies. The evidence of pragmatic transfer was found in the order, frequency, and content of semantic formulas used by Japanese and Americans. In another study, Kyunghye (2000) studied differences between native and non-native speaker complaint strategies using questionnaires with DCT. The results apparently showed that non-native speakers were not always successful in complaint and in communication, in general. These failures of non-native speakers in complaints are primarily caused by the limitation of sociopragmatic knowledge. In summary, although “the speech act is universal” (Brown and Levinson, 1987), differences in culture will lead to differences in the choice of strategies. To the EFL learners, there is evidence that the production of speech act is affected by the level of EFL learners. Moreover, the lack of sociopragmatic knowledge causes the failures in communication. In addition, pragmatic transfer was found when investigating the refusal strategies. Furthermore, the level of proficiency also affects the pragmatic transfer. Also, when foreign language proficiency is lower, the first refusal strategy seemed to be used, and as a result, pragmatic transfer can be seen. 2.3. Justification of the present study The present study will be justified by a memory about a communication breakdown which Ms.Hollingworth, an American volunteer teacher of English Department, experienced in her listening-speaking 4 class. A student asked her for leaving class early: “I want to go home because I am busy. I have to go now.” Liz, at first, was uncomfortable because her student did not tell her the reason why s/he wanted to leave early. In reality, to this student, “because I’m busy” is a reason to go home. As a result, this student could be misunderstood by her teacher, s/he failed to communicate because native speakers often state a clear reason when they want to leave early. From her story, the researcher is strongly motivated to find out the reason why there is such a breakdown in communication. The possible causes can be: firstly, the student is not well equipped with linguistic competence (including grammatical and pragmatic competence) and sociolinguistic competence (the knowledge of inter- relationship between language and society); secondly, the student lacks the cultural values of the target culture. Kasper (1997, p.3) states, “there are a vast numbers of learners whose proficiency is advanced and yet they continue to display unsuccessful pragmatic performance”. In other words, it does not mean that advanced students are always successful to communicate with native speakers. From the findings of the related studies of the researchers above, the researcher would like to check whether the same result will occur with other subjects/ learners in another context. Therefore, the questionnaire employed in the current study is adapted from the study of Beebe et al. (1990) which discovered the evidence of the pragmatic transfer. In addition, the researcher will base on the utterances elicited from the Discourse Completion Test (DCT) to find out the differences and similarities between CTU English majored students and native speakers in term of the use of patterns of speech acts of refusal. In conclusion, pragmatic competence is a crucial factor in non-native speaker’s communicative competence. In order to successfully communicate, learners of English should develop their pragmatic ability. However, pragmatic transfer does occur if non-native speakers are not well equipped with linguistic competence as well as the knowledge of the culture of the target language. Although people use the same semantic formulae of speech acts of refusal to perform the speech act in the world, they are different in the choice of strategies and the use of these patterns due to the cultural dissimilarities. Because Vietnam is an Asian country, its cultural values are different from those of Western countries. As a result, when Vietnamese people perform the speech act of refusal, their use of patterns will be different from those of Western people. Nevertheless, to English majored students, because they interact with many values of Western culture, they may display some similarities in the way they use to refuse to an invitation/request/offer/ suggestion. Moreover, Vietnamese students are influenced by their native language, and the cultural values of Vietnamese will be reflected in their refusals. The more advanced students’ level of proficiency is, the less students are influenced by their native language. In other words, the pragmatic transfer will be found more frequently in utterances of students whose level of proficiency is elementary. CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHOD Chapter three will present the design of the research; the description of participants, instruments and materials to conduct this research. Because the utterances of the subjects must be coded to easily analyzed, the coding of semantic formulae of speech acts of refusal will be introduced later. Then, the research procedures will describe how the data were collected and analyzed. Next, the description of the instrument employed in this study will be discussed along with the rationale for using the Discourse Completion Test. Lastly, the three research questions will be restated. 3.1. Research design A Discourse Completion Test (DCT) was used to collect the data. The data were then analyzed. The description of subjects, instruments and materials are presented in 3.2. Then the process of data interpretation is discussed in details in 3.3. 3.2. Description of subjects, instruments and materials 3.2.1. Subjects As a whole, 24 subjects participated in this study. They consisted of 10 English majored students in their first year who just finished course listening-speaking 1; 10 English majored students in their third year who already finished course listeningspeaking 5 or public speaking ; and 4 female native speakers (two of them are Americans; the others are Australians). The researcher assumed that first-year students’ proficiency is higher than third-year's proficiency. 3.2.2. Instruments In order to collect data of subjects’ utterances in refusal, questionnaires were used with discourse completion task. The twelve-situation questionnaire consists of 3 suggestions , 3 offers, 3 invitations and 3 requests (adapted from Beebe, Takahashi, & Uliss-Weltz (1990)). In the questionnaire, subjects were asked to write their responses for each situation. 3.2.3. Materials The data were analyzed based on a classification of refusal provided by Beebe et al., 1990). For example, if the subject responses: "I cannot increase your pay because I think that it is suitable for you.” This will be analyzed as [negative willingness/ability] + [reason/excuse/explanation]. In the process of coding, there were some semantic formulae were omitted because they were not found in the data collection. The speech acts of refusal (SARs) were then assigned to codes to simplify the analysis process. Explanation for coding semantic formulae: Ι. Direct: Non-performative α. “No” QQIA For example: No, I think it takes time. I can remind myself. β. Negative willingness/ability (“I can’t.” “I won’t.” “I don’t think so.”) QQIB For example: I’m sorry. I can’t lend you my notes because I have to prepare for my exam. ΙΙ. Indirect A. Statement of regret (e.g., “I’m sorry…” “I feel terrible…”, “I’m afraid…”) QQIIA For example: I’m sorry that I can’t help you now. B. Wish (e.g., “I wish I could help you”) QQIIB For example: I really wish I could make it, but I really can’t change my plan. C. Excuse, reason, explanation (e.g., “My children will be home that night.” “I have a headache.”) QQIIC For example: I have already organized a gathering on my house. D. Statement of alternative (You can do X instead of Y. Why don’t you do X instead of Y? I prefer… I’d rather…) QQIID For example: Could you borrow someone’s notes? E. Promise of future acceptance (e.g., “I’ll do it next time” “I promise I’ll…” or “Next time I’ll…” –using “will” of promise or “promise”) QQIIE For example: I will give you a response later. F. Statement of principle (e.g., I’ll never do business with friends.”) QQIIF For example: I can’t give up my eating habit. G. Set condition for future or past acceptance (e.g., “If you had asked me earlier, I would have….”) QQIIG For example: If they all agree, then we can discuss it. H. Attempt to dissuade interlocutor α. Threat or statement of negative consequences to the requester (e.g., “ I won’t be any fun tonight.” to refuse an invitation) QQII Ha For example: If you don’t study grammar, you won’t speak fluently. β. Criticize the request/requester, etc. (statement of negative feeling or opinion); insult/attack (e.g., “Who do think you are?”; “That’s a terrible idea!”) QQII Hb For example: It is very terrible because I have to eat vegetables everyday. χ. Let interlocutor off the hook (e.g., “Don’t worry about it.” “That’s okay.” “You don’t have to.”) QQ II Hc For example: You needn’t pay for it. δ. Self-defense (e.g., “I’m trying my best.” “I’m doing all I can do.” “I no do nothing wrong.”) QQ II Hd For example: I used to try to do it but it hasn’t worked. I. Avoidance: Postponement / repetition (e.g., “I’ll think about it. I’m not sure. I don’t know”) QQ II J For example: We can practise later. J. Acceptance that function as a refusal QQ IIK For example: Sure, no worries (look for notes in bag)… Sorry, I can’t find them