A contrastive study of apologies used as a politeness strategy of refusals in Chinese and Spanish
Abstract
A refusal is a face-threatening act that threatens the public image of both the speaker and the listener. It can disrupt the harmony of interpersonal relationships, so that various strategies are used to mitigate the negative effect of the refusal. In this paper, a comparative study between Chinese and Spanish has been carried out from a pragmatic and intercultural point of view on one of the most common strategies used for refusal: the apology. The aim is to detect the influence reflected in the formulation of refusal of socio-cultural factors. This is observed from the classification of the formulas of apology and the frequency of use. For this purpose, the classification of the expressions of apology and the frequency of use of each formula will be taken into account. The data, collected using the Discourse Completion Test (DCT), were analyzed in terms of semantic formula and categorized according to the taxonomy of refusal proposed by Beebe et al. (1990). In general, the two groups of speakers tend to opt for the same apology expressions for refusal, the difference lies in the frequency of use of each specific formula.
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