Resumen de Refusal strategies in Persian
This study investigates how Iranian speakers of Persian realize the speech act of refusals to the initiating acts of offers, suggestions, invitations and requests.
Two hundred and eight acts of refusals were naturally collected and classified according to the refusal classification scheme proposed by Beebe, Takahashi, and Uliss-Weltz. The results showed that Iranian Persian speakers employ indirect strategies and a combination of direct and indirect strategies more than direct ones in refusals, in communication with the interactants with whom they have ongoing relationship. ‘Reason’ and ‘gratitude’ were the most frequent strategies in the data. Returning the act was found to be a new strategy. Finally, the socio-cultural implications of the variety in the production of refusals are discussed.
