Intercultural communication: Malay and Thai university student's refusals to requests

Abstract

Refusals are important because of their communicatively central place in everyday communication. In many cultures, how one says "no" is probably more important than the answer itself. Therefore, sending and receiving a message of "no" is a task that needs special skill. The interlocutor must know when to use the appropriate form and its function depending on the community and its cultural- linguistic values. This paper examines intercultural communication of the speech act of refusals between Malay and Thai undergraduates at Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM). One question is addressed: what are the similarities and differences between Malays and Thais in the use of refusals strategies to requests. The corpus consists of responses to a Discourse Completion Test (DCT) including three different situations. The main aim is to outline the preferred linguistic realizations or strategies used when refusing a request to someone older, someone the same age, and someone younger. The corpus is analyzed and categorized according to the refusal taxonomy by Beebe et al (1990) to determine the strategies used and the frequencies of their use. Results show variation in the frequency and the content of strategies used by the group in relation to age factor. Finally, this study supports the idea that speech acts are culturally laden and their understanding can hinder or encourage communication across cultures.