Abstract
The study examined the realization of refusal of request speech act in Persian, English, and Balouchi languages. 219 individuals participated in the study. Discourse completion task was employed to elicit the participants’ refusals. Descriptive statistics and Chi-square were used to analyze the data. The findings revealed the existence of statistically significant differences among the three groups of speakers concerning both the total frequencies and the frequencies of direct, indirect, and adjuncts to refusals strategies. Furthermore, concerning social status, no statistically significant differences were detected either for total number of strategies or for the number of strategies in main categories in each language, except for the indirect strategies among Persian speakers. In Persian language, with the increase in the interlocutors’ social status level, the increase in the number of indirect strategies was discerned. Likewise, the frequency differences of some semantic formulas were statistically significant regarding the social status in each language.
Funding statement: This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
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Conflicts of interest: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Appendices
The frequency of the refusal strategies used by the participants in the three languages with respect to the interlocutors’ relative social statues.
| Persian | English | Balouchi | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Higher | Equal | Lower | Higher | Equal | Lower | Higher | Equal | Lower | |
| I. Direct | |||||||||
| IA | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| IB1 | 29 | 56 | 39 | 11 | 28 | 30 | 70 | 81 | 78 |
| IB2 | 63 | 46 | 49 | 47 | 34 | 42 | 94 | 56 | 80 |
| Total | 92 | 102 | 88 | 58 | 62 | 72 | 164 | 137 | 158 |
| II. Indirect | |||||||||
| IIA | 120 | 67 | 35 | 106 | 93 | 78 | 64 | 31 | 12 |
| IIB | 15 | 4 | 0 | 15 | 8 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| IIC | 159 | 156 | 126 | 123 | 124 | 97 | 143 | 158 | 82 |
| IID | 13 | 14 | 24 | 12 | 16 | 27 | 3 | 8 | 20 |
| IIE | 22 | 9 | 6 | 8 | 5 | 2 | 3 | 8 | 0 |
| IIF | 14 | 2 | 4 | 13 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 3 |
| IIG | 3 | 10 | 9 | 1 | 6 | 10 | 3 | 4 | 7 |
| IIH | 3 | 9 | 14 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 5 |
| III1 | 5 | 15 | 13 | 0 | 6 | 10 | 1 | 9 | 12 |
| III2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| III3 | 0 | 23 | 36 | 3 | 18 | 13 | 1 | 13 | 32 |
| III4 | 3 | 5 | 3 | 0 | 6 | 1 | 4 | 0 | 8 |
| III5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| III6 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 14 | 0 | 0 | 4 |
| III7* | 0 | 9 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| IIJ1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| IIJ2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| IIK1a | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| IIK1b | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| IIK1c | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| IIK1d | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| IIK2a | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| IIK2b | 0 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| IIK2c | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| IIK2d | 1 | 3 | 9 | 0 | 2 | 14 | 3 | 0 | 4 |
| IIK2e | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| IIL* | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 4 |
| IIM* | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Total | 362 | 335 | 287 | 287 | 288 | 278 | 233 | 237 | 198 |
| III. Adjuncts to Refusals | |||||||||
| IIIA | 5 | 1 | 17 | 2 | 1 | 7 | 1 | 3 | 4 |
| IIIB | 0 | 0 | 5 | 1 | 0 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| IIIC | 1 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| IIID | 0 | 1 | 11 | 3 | 0 | 21 | 0 | 0 | 5 |
| IIIE* | 16 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| IIIF* | 0 | 21 | 5 | 0 | 10 | 1 | 9 | 20 | 3 |
| IIIG* | 8 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 3 |
| Total | 30 | 29 | 40 | 9 | 16 | 36 | 16 | 24 | 16 |
| Total | 484 | 466 | 415 | 354 | 366 | 386 | 413 | 398 | 372 |
The results of the chi-square applied to the data with respect to the interlocutors’ relative social statues.
| Refusal Strategies | Persian | English | Balouchi | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| χ2 | df | P | χ2 | df | P | χ2 | df | P | |
| I. Direct | |||||||||
| IB1 | 9.016 | 2 | 0.011 | 9.478 | 2 | 0.009 | 0.847 | 2 | 0.655 |
| IB2 | 3.127 | 2 | 0.209 | 2.098 | 2 | 0.350 | 9.635 | 2 | 0.008 |
| Total | 1.106 | 2 | 0.575 | 1.625 | 2 | 0.444 | 2.627 | 2 | 0.269 |
| II. Indirect | |||||||||
| IIA | 49.811 | 2 | 0.000 | 4.253 | 2 | 0.119 | 38.822 | 2 | 0.000 |
| IIB | 6.368 | 1 | 0.012 | 6.889 | 2 | 0.032 | – | – | – |
| IIC | 4.531 | 2 | 0.104 | 4.087 | 2 | 0.130 | 25.384 | 2 | 0.000 |
| IID | 4.353 | 2 | 0.113 | 6.582 | 2 | 0.037 | 14.774 | 2 | 0.001 |
| IIE | 11.370 | 2 | 0.003 | 3.600 | 2 | 0.165 | – | – | – |
| IIF | 12.400 | 2 | 0.002 | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| IIG | 3.909 | 2 | 0.142 | 7.176 | 2 | 0.028 | – | – | – |
| IIH | 7.000 | 2 | 0.030 | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| III1 | 5.091 | 2 | 0.078 | 1.000 | 1 | 0.317 | 8.818 | 2 | 0.012 |
| III2 | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| III3 | 2.864 | 1 | 0.091 | 10.294 | 2 | 0.006 | 31.870 | 2 | 0.000 |
| III6 | – | – | – | 11.267 | 1 | 0.001 | – | – | – |
| IIK2d | – | – | – | 9.000 | 1 | 0.003 | – | – | – |
| Total | 8.799 | 2 | 0.012 | 0.213 | 2 | 0.899 | 4.135 | 2 | 0.127 |
| III. Adjuncts to Refusals | |||||||||
| IIIA | 18.087 | 2 | 0.000 | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| IIID | – | – | – | 13.500 | 1 | 0.000 | – | – | – |
| IIIE* | 8.895 | 1 | 0.003 | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| IIIF* | 9.846 | 1 | 0.002 | – | – | – | 13.938 | 2 | 0.001 |
| Total | 2.242 | 2 | 0.326 | 19.311 | 2 | 0.000 | 2.286 | 2 | 0.319 |
| Total | 5.631 | 2 | 0.060 | 1.418 | 2 | 0.492 | 2.183 | 2 | 0.336 |
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