developing the ability to refuse: a cross-sectional study of greek fl refusals

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Developing the ability to refuse: A cross-sectional study ofGreek FL refusals

www.elsevier.com/locate/pragmaJournal of Pragmatics 61 (2014) 35--62

Spyridoula Bella *

University of Athens, 28is Oktovriou 12, Ag. Paraskevi, 15341, Greece

Received 5 July 2013; received in revised form 13 November 2013; accepted 14 November 2013

Abstract

This study investigates developmental patterns in the ability of Greek FL learners to refuse a request. Drawing data from role-plays andverbal reports, it attempts to explore the strategies that learners of three different proficiency levels (lower intermediate, intermediate andadvanced) employ when performing refusals in equal and unequal status situations. The results suggest that, although there is a great deal ofdevelopment with increasing proficiency, even the advanced learners’ performance lags far behind native speakers in several respects.Furthermore, the study investigates the impact of both grammatical development and sociocultural knowledge on the development of theselearners’ ability to perform refusals. Finally, it is suggested that the developmental stages of pragmatic competence proposed in the literaturein regard to other speech acts and especially requests (Ellis, 1992; Achiba, 2003) can also be valid for the development of refusals.© 2013 Published by Elsevier B.V.

Keywords: Pragmatic development; Refusals; Greek; Foreign language

1. Introduction

Though, as Kasper and Schmidt (1996) point out, universals of language pragmatics may facilitate the development ofinterlanguage pragmatics, the relevant literature has repeatedly demonstrated that second and, especially, foreignlanguage learners exhibit a noticeably different pragmatic system than the native speakers of the L2 target (see e.g.Bardovi-Harlig, 2001; Kasper, 1997a).

The developmental aspect of pragmatics, although markedly neglected in the 80s and the 90s (see Bardovi-Harlig,1999, 2013), has attracted considerable interest in the past decade, which has brought with it a noticeable growth of therelevant body of research.1 As Beebe and Waring (2005:67) point out, research on L2 acquisitional pragmatics hasrevolved around three main areas: describing the patterns of pragmatic development, explaining the process of pragmaticdevelopment, and exploring the role of instruction on the development of pragmatic competence. Pragmatic competenceencompasses both pragmalinguistic competence, i.e. knowledge of ‘‘. . .the particular resources which a given languageprovides for conveying particular illocutions’’ (Leech, 1983:11) and sociopragmatic competence, i.e. knowledge ofcontextual and social variables that affect the appropriateness of a pragmalinguistic choice (see Kasper and Rose, 2002;Leech, 1983:10; Uso-Juan, 2010:237).

Not surprisingly, the research on pragmatic development has mainly focused on speech acts, since they have alwaysbeen considered the cornerstone of pragmatic competence (Kasper and Dahl, 1991; Saville-Troike, 1996). It has beenrepeatedly shown that, although learners of lower and higher proficiency levels have access to the same range of

* Tel.: +30 2106541450.E-mail address: [email protected].

1 See Bardovi-Harlig (2013) for interesting suggestions on research areas that can contribute to further expansion of the field.

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S. Bella / Journal of Pragmatics 61 (2014) 35--6236

strategies in performing speech acts, learners of different proficiency levels tend to select different strategies incomparable contexts and to implement their speech acts by means of qualitatively and quantitatively different conventionsof form (Rose and Kasper, 2001).

With respect to the development of individual speech acts, requests have unquestionably received the most attention(Achiba, 2003; Barron, 2003; Bella, 2012a; Ellis, 1992; Félix-Brasdefer, 2007; Flores Salgado, 2011; Göy et al., 2012;Hassall, 2003; Hill, 1997; Otcu and Zeyrek, 2008; Scarcella, 1979; Schauer, 2004, 2009; Trosborg, 1995; Woodfield,2012). Yet, some developmental insights have been provided on a limited few other speech acts, such as suggestions(Bardovi-Harlig and Hartford, 1990, 1993), greetings (DuFon, 1999; Omar, 1991), apologies (Maeshiba et al., 1996;Flores Salgado, 2011; Rasouli Khorsidi, 2013; Chang, 2010; Trosborg, 1995) and complaints (Trosborg, 1995).

The present study focuses on refusals, which have been acknowledged as a major ‘‘sticking point’’ for languagelearners (Beebe et al., 1990:56), because they require a high level of pragmatic competence (Félix-Brasdefer, 2004:592).The speech act of refusal has been examined by a number of cross-cultural (see e.g. Félix-Brasdefer, 2008b; Kwon, 2004;Liao and Bresnahan, 1996; Nelson et al., 2002) and interlanguage pragmatics studies (see e.g. Beebe et al., 1990; Bella,2011; Chang, 2011; Gass and Houck, 1999; Félix-Brasdefer, 2003; VonCanon, 2006; Widjaja, 1997) in the past twodecades. These studies have consistently demonstrated that there are considerable differences in the sequencing,mitigation, frequency of use and content of semantic formulas, both among speakers of different languages and betweennative speakers and learners of a particular language, when performing refusals. Nevertheless, there is a limited numberof studies on the developmental aspect of refusals (Allami and Naeimi, 2011; Bardovi-Harlig and Hartford, 1993; Barron,2003; Félix-Brasdefer, 2004; Takahashi and Beebe, 1987). Moreover, most of the relevant research to date has mainlyfocused on negative pragmatic transfer.

The present study aims to add to the body of research on refusals development focusing on the pragmatic performanceof foreign language learners of Greek from different L1 backgrounds when refusing requests. Specifically, a cross-sectional design is adopted here in order to investigate developmental patterns emerging in Greek FL learners’ refusalsacross three different proficiency levels: lower intermediate, intermediate and advanced. Against this backdrop, the studyaims at adding to the set of L2s that have been studied in regard to the development of this specific speech act and to aidthe understanding of interlanguage developmental patterns, which besides helping L2 teachers ‘‘establish realisticexpectations of students’’ pragmatic progress [will] also allow them to administer stage-appropriate pedagogicalinterventions to enhance students’ pragmatic competence’’ (Beebe and Waring, 2005:67).

The paper begins with a discussion of the main theoretical concepts involved and the review of the relevant research. Itproceeds to the presentation of the method (Section 3) and the main findings of the study (Section 4). These findings arediscussed in the light of the relevant literature in Section 5. The final section presents the conclusions of the study.

2. Theoretical background

2.1. Pragmatic development: issues and concepts

Pragmatic development is the main research focus of interlanguage pragmatics as the study of second languagelearning2 and involves the ways in which ‘‘L2 learners develop the ability to understand and produce action in a targetlanguage’’ (Kasper and Rose, 2002:5).

This section aims at presenting the major issues in the research of L2 learners’ pragmatic development and shed lightto concepts relevant to the literature review and the discussion of the findings to follow.

The oldest concern of the field has been pragmatic transfer (positive or negative) which refers to ‘‘the influenceexerted by learners’ pragmatic knowledge of languages and cultures other than their L2 on their comprehension,production and learning of L2 pragmatic information’’ (Kasper, 1992:207). Although it has been well-establishedthat transfer occurs at the levels of both pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic knowledge, little is known about theconditions which favor or discourage pragmatic transfer in the interlanguage. In fact, the relevant findings have beenrather contradictory, since, while there is evidence suggesting that increasing L2 linguistic proficiency brings with it adecrease in pragmatic transfer (see e.g. Takahashi and Beebe, 1987; Hill, 1997), other evidence points to the oppositedirection, i.e. that increasing L2 proficiency may trigger an increase in the occurrence of pragmatic transfer phenomena(see e.g. Maeshiba et al., 1996).

Another major issue has been the possible existence of developmental stages in the learners’ pragmatic competence.Although it can’t be claimed that some specific order of acquisition exists for sociopragmatic elements, there is evidence

2 This contrasts with the second language use aspect of pragmatics, which focuses on the way nonnative speakers "comprehend and produceaction in the target language" (Kasper and Rose, 2002:5).

S. Bella / Journal of Pragmatics 61 (2014) 35--62 37

pointing to some developmental patterns common to language learners. For instance, in the case of the acquisition ofrequests, Ellis (1992) and Achiba (2003) have identified specific stages of development that coincide in several respects.

There are at least two issues strongly related to the developmental patterns the pragmatic aspect of interlanguageseems to follow. The first concerns the role of formulas (pragmatic routines) in pragmatic development. A pragmaticroutine is defined as ‘‘a sequence continuous or discontinuous of words or other meaning elements, which is, or appearsto be, prefabricated, that is, stored and retrieved whole from memory at the time of use, rather than being subject togeneration or analysis by the language grammar’’ (Wray, 2000:465).3 According to Bardovi-Harlig (2006:5) ‘‘the crucialissue in SLA with regard to the developmental role of formulas is their relation to grammar’’. Several researchers (see e.g.Ellis, 1992; Schmidt, 1983a,b) suggest that pragmatic competence seems to evolve through initial reliance on a fewunanalyzed routines (i.e. routines that cannot be analyzed by the learners’ grammar at this stage) that are laterdecomposed and used productively in more extended utterances. As Bardovi-Harlig (2006:6) points out, there are twoclaims in the literature regarding the precise relation of the formula to grammar in the subsequent stages of development:(a) the grammar catches up4 to the formula, and as it does, the formula becomes analyzed, i.e. the learners become ableto recognize the pieces of the formula, and (b) the formulas themselves drive the acquistion of the grammar, in the sensethat they become input to the rule formation process and grammar is learned by analogy to the formulas (Hakuta, 1974;Nattinger and DeCarrico, 1992). Yet, it has often been pointed out that, despite the importance of formulaic language forboth native speakers and learners (Wildner-Bassett, 1984), the latter have and use fewer formulas than native speakers,even at the higher levels of proficiency (Blum-Kulka and Olshtain, 1986; Edmondson and House, 1991). This lack ofadequate access to formulaic language makes learners insecure and partly explains the interlanguage phenomenon ofverbosity (or waffling), i.e. the learners’ tendency to form longer utterances and use more words than native speakers incomparable situations (Edmondson and House, 1991).

The second issue related to the developmental patterns in the learners’ pragmatic competence is the relationshipbetween grammatical and pragmatic competence. Although there is evidence to suggest that there is a close connectionbetween the two, ‘‘the exact nature of the relationship is, as yet, unknown’’ (Barron, 2003:46). The problem has often takenthe form of two different scenaria: the ‘‘pragmatics precedes grammar’’ and the ‘‘grammar precedes pragmatics’’ scenario(see Kasper and Rose, 2002). Although there is evidence to support both hypotheses,5 Kasper and Rose (2002) contendthat whereas in pre-basic varieties, i.e. in the initial stages of development pragmatics seem to precede grammar, in post-basic varieties ‘‘the order appears to be reversed-form precedes function’’ (2002:187). Furthermore, while the fact thatgrammatical competence does not imply pragmatic competence is well-documented (see e.g. Bardovi-Harlig, 2001;Barron, 2003), it is likely that grammatical competence can greatly constrain the development of pragmatic competence(Hassall, 1997:286). However, as Bardovi-Harlig (2013:78--79) insightfully puts it ‘‘studying the development of grammarand lexicon in pragmatics is not a question of determining whether pragmatics or grammar develops first, but rather ofexplaining how the emergent systems interact, and how one supports the other’’.

There are also at least two important issues related to the method of data sampling to study pragmatic development.The first, involves the measure that might be used to examine development, like the learners’ level of proficiency, theirlength of stay in the target community, or their intensity of interaction with native speakers. Although several studies haveshown that length of residence and intensity of interaction can be more decisive factors for development than proficiency(see e.g. Bella, 2011; Blum-Kulka and Olshtain, 1986; Félix-Brasdefer, 2004), it is only the latter that can be used as ameasure for foreign language learners, as the ones of the present study.

The second issue is related to the tasks used to measure development. Various methods have been employed in therelevant literature, among which authentic conversation, oral and written discourse completion tests (DCTs) and open roleplays have been the most popular. Another methodological tool, which is frequently used in the relevant research is theretrospective verbal report, which is elicited from the participants ‘‘immediately after the completion of a task while muchinformation is still available in short-term memory and can be directly reported as ‘retrieval cues’’’ (Félix-Brasdefer,2008a:197). While all methods of data collection have certain advantages and disadvantages (see e.g. Bardovi-Harlig,2013; Félix-Brasdefer, 2010; Spencer-Oatey, 2000, for overviews), supplementing the data with verbal reports (as done inthe present study) can provide researchers with valuable insights, since ‘‘one may learn what the respondents actuallyperceived about each situation [. . .] and how their perceptions influenced their responses’’ (Cohen, 2004:321).

As already mentioned, this section aimed at presenting the main concepts and issues that will come up in the analysisto follow. The next sections focus solely on refusals and the research that has been conducted in relation to theirdevelopment in second/foreign language learners’ interlanguage.

3 See Bardovi-Harlig (2006) for an extensive analysis of the role of formulas in pragmatic development.4 The emphasis in the original (Bardovi-Harlig, 2006: 6).5 See Kasper and Rose (2002) for an extensive overview.


2.2. Refusals

Refusals are highly complex speech acts that can function as responses to various initiating acts (requests, invitations,suggestions, offers) (cf. Martínez-Flor and Uso-Juan, 2011:56). They belong to the category of commissives, since thespeaker by denying to ‘‘engage in an action proposed by the interlocutor’’ (Chen et al., 1995:121), commits himself not totake some future action (Searle, 1979). Therefore, unlike acceptances or agreements, refusals are high-risk-face-threatening acts, because they contradict the interlocutor’s expectations (Allami and Naeimi, 2011:386) and threaten his/her (the interlocutor’s) positive face, indicating (potentially) that the speaker’s does not care about his/her wants andfeelings (Brown and Levinson, 1987:66). Given the complexity involved in them, refusals usually include variousstrategies to avoid offending one’s interlocutors and they ‘‘are also often played out in lengthy sequences, involving notonly negotiation of a satisfactory outcome, but face-saving maneuvers to accommodate the noncompliance nature of theact’’ (Gass and Houck, 1999:2). Different classifications of refusal strategies have been proposed (Rubin, 1983; Beebeet al., 1990; Félix-Brasdefer, 2008b; Turnbull and Saxton, 1997), among which the best known and frequently citedsystem is the one elaborated by Beebe et al. (1990). Their classification is divided into semantic formulas, either direct (e.g. No; I can’t) or indirect (strategies that can be contextually recognized as refusals). Furthermore, Beebe et al. (1990)identify various adjuncts to refusals, i.e. strategies that cannot on their own function as refusals, but contribute to refusalmitigation reinforcing ‘‘positive facework on the part of the speaker’’ (Félix-Brasdefer, 2008b:43) and can, therefore, beconsidered supporting moves to the refusal head acts.6 These main types are further divided into various substrategies(see Appendix A).

Furthermore, a refusal can be internally modified by means of various pragmalinguistic (lexical/phrasal) expressionsthat weaken or mitigate its negative effects, expressing subjectivity, tentativeness, hesitation, lack of commitment, etc.(see e.g. Félix-Brasdefer, 2008b:81--82).

As a result, refusals can be particularly challenging for language learners ‘‘who may lack the necessary linguisticproficiency, sociocultural knowledge and pragmatic ability to produce this speech act appropriately’’ (Martínez-Flor andUso-Juan, 2011:56). Not surprisingly, therefore, refusals have been found to be acquired late (Kasper and Schmidt,1996:159), since they entail the learners’ ability to negotiate the refusal by making frequent attempts at directness orindirectness and employing various degrees of politeness that are appropriate to the situation (cf. Eslami, 2010:218).Hence, the performance of a successful refusal requires the learners to reach a stage in which they are able to employ aset of strategies typically used by native speakers. This, in turn, entails recognition on the part of the learners of thelinguistic forms necessary to produce the speech act, as well as awareness of the sociocultural values that characterizethe speech community (Félix-Brasdefer, 2004:592).

2.3. Previous research on the development of refusals

One of the very few acquisitional studies on refusals has been Takahashi and Beebe’s (1987) study of thedevelopmental pragmatic competence of Japanese learners of English as compared with native Americans. The learnerswere divided into two groups: an EFL group in Japan, and an ESL group studying in the United States. Each set of learnerswas further grouped into low and high proficiency. The data were drawn from the subjects’ written refusal responses andwere analyzed qualitatively in terms of the tone and content of refusals. The main focus of the study was on transfer, whichthe researchers expected to find in both contexts (EFL and ESL) and at both proficiency levels. Takahashi & Beebehypothesized that higher levels of proficiency would result in more negative transfer, since increased fluency giveslearners ‘‘the rope to hang themselves with’’ (Takahashi and Beebe, 1987:153). The results of the study confirmed thatboth the EFL and the ESL context encouraged transfer, although more evidence of the phenomenon was attested in theEFL setting. In regard to proficiency level, on the other hand, it was found that lower-proficiency EFL learners marginallytransferred more than those in the higher-proficiency group, while the opposite pattern appeared to obtain for the ESLlearners. Based on their findings, Takahashi and Beebe argued that only the ESL learners exhibited real proficiencydifferences and noted that the ESL data ‘‘weakly confirms’’ their hypothesis, while the EFL data ‘‘even more weakly’’refutes it (1987:148).

Another study dealing with the development of refusals was Bardovi-Harlig and Hartford (1993), which has also beenone of the first longitudinal studies on pragmatic development (see also Bardovi-Harlig and Hartford, 1993). In this study,advanced adult nonnative speaker refusals were examined alongside with suggestions in an academic advising contextover the course of a semester. The ability of nonnative speakers to refuse the academic advisors’ suggestions showedconsiderable change toward the native-speaker norm in regard to employing fewer refusals and becoming more

6 For the notions of head acts and supporting moves, see Blum-Kulka et al. (1989).


successful negotiators. For instance, even after this short period of observational time, the nonnative speakers were ableto employ more frequent instances of what the researchers called ‘‘credible content’’, i.e. an acceptable reason forrejecting a course such as a time conflict, rather than reasons that were likely to provoke negative reactions from theadvisors, e.g. a lack of interest. However, less change was observed in these speakers’ ability to employ appropriateforms of the speech acts. Furthermore, they continued to use fewer mitigators than the native speakers and, unlike nativespeakers, they also used aggravators. Bardovi-Harlig and Hartford explained these results on the basis of inputavailability: learners receive positive and negative feedback from the advisor regarding the desirability and outcomeof particular speech acts, but they do not receive such feedback regarding the appropriateness of the forms of suchspeech acts.

Félix-Brasdefer (2004) examined the influence of a different factor, that of length of residence in the target community,on the ability of 24 American learners of Spanish to negotiate and mitigate refusals. His results indicated that learners withmore extended length of residence made more frequent attempts to negotiate their refusals and tended to employsyntactic and lexical mitigation with greater frequency. Furthermore, the tendency of learners with more extended lengthof residence to opt for strategies expressing indirectness and solidarity, thus approximating native Spanish norms, wasconsidered evidence in favor of length of residence as an influential factor for pragmatic development. On these grounds,Félix-Brasdefer (2004) argues that the variables of proficiency and length of residence should be consideredindependently.

Drawing on data from a free discourse completion task (FDCT), Barron (2003) designed a longitudinal study, in order toinvestigate the LS2 pragmatic development of 33 Irish learners of German. Besides refusals, she examined thedevelopment of requests and offers in these learners’ production. Baseline data were provided by a group of 27 IrishEnglish native speakers and a group of 34 German native speakers. The two native speaker groups data were sampledonce, whereas the learners’ data were sampled on three different occasions: prior to, at the middle and at the end of a 10-month stay abroad sojourn in Germany. Barron’s findings indicated that although some important developments tookplace in the learners’ pragmatic competence, not all change necessarily represented development toward the L2 norm.For instance, although an increase in the learners’ use of syntactic downgrading was attested over time, this increase wascomparatively minor and situation-dependent. Furthermore, although some development was attested in regard to theuse of lexical/phrasal downgraders in the learners’ refusals, this development clearly remained below the native speakers’norms after the learners sojourn.

In a more recent, partly cross-linguistic and partly developmental study, Allami and Naeimi (2011) analyzed thedevelopment of pragmatic competence in Iranian EFL learners’ refusals. Using data drawn by means of a discoursecompletion test (DCT) they explored the frequency, shift and content of semantic formulas with regard to the learners’proficiency level (lower-intermediate, intermediate and upper-intermediate), status of interlocutors (lower, equal andhigher) and types of eliciting acts (requests, invitations, suggestions and offers). The analysis of the results were based onthe responses of 30 Persian learners of English, 37 American native speakers of English and 31 native speakers ofPersian and revealed important differences in the frequency, shift and content of semantic formulas employed by Iranianand American subjects when responding to different status interlocutors. Furthermore, it was observed that nativespeakers of Persian ‘‘displayed a nearly high level of frequency shift in their use of several semantic formulas, whereasAmerican patterns for refusals were quite consistent regardless of status level’’ (Allami and Naeimi, 2011:385). Thedevelopmental aspect of the study focused mainly on transfer. In this respect, a positive correlation was attested betweenL2 proficiency and pragmatic transfer, in that upper-intermediate learners tended to transfer more L1 sociocultural normsto L2 refusal production and made more pragmatic errors than the lower-intermediate learners. Therefore, this study lentsupport to Takahashi and Beebe’s (1987) positive correlation hypothesis.

As already mentioned, the present study aims at revealing developmental patterns in a sample of Greek FL learnerswhen performing request refusals. The main research questions are the following:

1. W
hat are the main differences between Greek native speakers and FL learners of Greek when performing refusals? 2. W hat developmental patterns can be detected and how are they related with the learners’ grammatical and
sociocultural competence?

3. Method

3.1. Participants

A total of 80 subjects participated in the study: 20 native speakers of Greek (10 males and 10 females), all coming fromAthens (mean age: 23.6 years), and 60 non-native speakers (25 males and 35 females, mean age: 23.1) from various L1backgrounds (Ukranian (10), Bulgarian (8), Russian (10), Serbian (9), Spanish (6), Chinese (10), and Turkish (7)).


The native speakers were all students at the University of Athens. The non-native speakers were learners of Greek,who, at the time of the study, had just arrived in Athens in order to attend the six-week language courses supplied by theUniversity of Athens’ Programme of Summer Scholarships for Greek Studies. These learners were undergraduatestudents whose previous training in Greek had taken place in their countries of origin, i.e. they were learners of Greek as aforeign language. Their studies were directly or indirectly related to the Greek language and culture (classics, translation,literature etc.). The learner participants of this study were selected from classes of three different proficiency levels: lowerintermediate, intermediate and advanced (20 learners per group). These classes were especially created for the needs ofthe summer program based on the results of a placement test that all learners of the program (a total of 300) had to sit justbefore the beginning of the course. This test was designed following the guidelines of the Common European Frameworkfor the Teaching and Assessment of Languages (2001) and included grammar, reading, writing and listening components.Along these lines, the competence of lower intermediate learners (Ls1 from this point onwards) of this study correspondedroughly to the A2-B1 level, of the intermediate (Ls2) to the B2 level and of the advanced learners (Ls3) to C1 level, asdescribed in the CEF.

Before their participation all learners were asked to fill in a questionnaire regarding their age, gender, native language,language instruction and prior experience of spending time in Greece. Their answers revealed that, in their majority, theyhad received instruction focusing mainly on grammar and reading comprehension. None of them reported any kind ofspecial instruction in pragmatics.

Learners that had spent any amount of time in Greece before the research were excluded from the sample.

3.2. Instrumentation

The data for the present study were collected using open role-plays supplemented by retrospective verbal reports.Although I agree with those who argue that natural data constitute the best source for analysing interactions (see e.g.Wolfson, 1981:9, Kasper, 2000:318) there are at least two limitations to the benefits of ethnographic research on speechacts: first, contextual variables may be difficult to be controlled and, second, the occurrence of a particular speech act maynot be easily predicted (Gass and Houck, 1999:25). Furthermore, as Kasper (2000) points out, in cases that the researchfocuses on a particular pragmatic element, e.g. a particular speech act, ‘‘it may take an unreasonable amount of[authentic] data to obtain sufficient quantities of the pragmatic feature under study’’ (2000:320).

3.2.1. Role-playsAn open role play was selected to collect the production data as the closest possible alternative to natural data

(Gass and Houck, 1999; Turnbull, 2001; Boxer, 2002) that permits the researcher to overcome the aforementionedshortcomings of naturalistic data collection. Besides including interaction in a face-to-face format with another participant(Félix-Brasdefer, 2010:47), role-plays have the following advantages: (1) they enable the researcher to obtain completeconversational interactions and keep under control different variables, such as age and gender, (2) they allow theresearcher to exert some degree of control over the conversation, and (3) they reflect the awareness of what is appropriatein language use (Félix-Brasdefer, 2006:2164, based mainly on Scarcella, 1979). Furthermore, open role-plays, unlikeauthentic interactional data ‘‘permit us to design contexts and roles that are likely to elicit specific speech events andcommunicative acts’’ (Kasper, 2000:323) and ‘‘enable us to observe how context factors influence the selection andorganization of communicative acts’’ (Kasper, 2000) (cf. Martínez-Flor and Uso-Juan, 2011:52). Nevertheless, contrary towhat holds true for authentic interaction, it is the researcher’s rather than the participants’ goals that motivate the structureof the role-play (Kasper, 2000:317). In this sense, data elicited by means of role-plays ‘‘can never be the same asauthentic conversation’’ (Kasper, 2000:318). Therefore, the findings of this study should be understood in view of the factthat role-play data are brought into being for experimental purposes and, hence, they are subject to certain limitations (seeGolato, 2003).

The role-play instrument consisted of five situations: one request, one apology and three request refusal situations.The description of the situations suggested the degree of social power (�P) and social distance (�D) between theparticipants. Of these, the request and the apology situations were used as distractors. The refusal situations were theexperimental items of this study and included one refusal to a higher status person in terms of which an employee has torefuse his/her boss’ request to stay longer at work (+P,+D) and two refusals to an equal status person. In one of them, thesubject had to refuse a close friend’s request to lend him/her some money (�P,�D), while in the other the subject had torefuse a mere acquaintance’s (a neighbor’s) request to lend him/her his/her car for an hour (�P,+D,). The detailedpresentation of the three situations under examination was the following7:

7 Due to space limitations, I provide only the English translations of the situation descriptions, which were originally presented in Greek.


Situation 1(�P,�D) Money to friendA close friend of yours with whom you get together very frequently and talk on the phone almost daily has somefinancial problems. She/he asks you to lend her 150 euros which she/he will be able to return to you after 15 days. Youcan’t give it to her.Situation 2(+P,+D) Stay longer to workYou have been working at the University bookshop for three months now. Your regular schedule is Monday to Fridayfrom 9.00 a.m. to 16.00 p.m. You get along very well with your boss but you are not friends and do not socialize outsidework. It is Friday at 15.30 and your boss has just received a delivery of new books which need to be available for sale onMonday morning. He approaches you and asks you to work extra hours (until 19.00 p.m.) in order to prepare the books’inventory and display, but you can’t stay (adopted Félix-Brasdefer, 2008b:185).Situation 3(�P,+D) Borrow carA couple of months ago you moved into a new neighborhood. You have come across the couple living next door, whichis your age, a couple of times and exchanged some pleasantries, but you don’t really know them and you have neversocialized with them, therefore you are practically strangers. One morning the husband knocks on your door andexplains that his car has broken down and that he needs to take his children to school. He asks to borrow your car,which he promises to return in an hour. You can’t lend it to him.

A female postgraduate student served as the native speaker requester for all refusal situations. In order for the greatestpossible authenticity for the role-plays to be attained, one problem that had to be tackled concerned the degree to whichthe requester would insist for each request. In order to overcome this problem, a questionnaire was administered to 40native speakers of Greek, presenting the three request situations and asking them to grade them at a 5 point scale in termsof the amount of insistence they would display in each of them. The results showed that the native speakers would onlymildly insist in Situations 1 (money to friend (�P,�D)) (M = 2.6) and 3 (lend car to neighbor, �P,+D)) (M = 2.2), whereas amuch stronger tendency for insistence was attested for Situation 2 (stay late at work, +P,+D)) (M = 3.9).

Therefore, the Greek interlocutor was instructed to only mildly insist in the two equal status situations and to showgreater insistence in the formal situation.

3.2.2. Verbal reportsBesides the role-play data, retrospective verbal reports were elicited in order to corroborate the findings of the

production data and help the researcher ‘‘to better understand the rationale for the sociocultural choices that are made andfor the sociolinguistic forms that are selected in order to realize the given speech act’’ (Cohen, 1996:256).

The interviews with the participants took place immediately after the completion of the role-plays. For various practicalreasons (mainly time limitations), interviews were elicited from 12 native speakers and 34 learners (12 Ls1, 12 Ls2 and 10Ls3). The researcher focused on the three situations under examination and mainly posed fixed questions guided byEricsson and Simon’s (1993:198) four types of statements in the verbalization process: intentions, cognitions, planningand evaluation (cf. Woodfield, 2010:9). The main questions were:

1. W
hat were you paying attention to, when refusing in this situation? 2. W hat were you trying to achieve by saying what you said? 3. H ow difficult did you find it to answer? 4. W ere you satisfied with your answer?
3.3. Data analysis

All role-play interactions were transcribed and the refusals were classified according to a modified version of Beebeet al’s (1990) and Félix-Brasdefer’s (2008b) taxonomy of refusal strategies (direct refusals, indirect refusals and adjunctsto refusals) adapted to fit the present study’s data (see Appendix A for classification and examples).

A further focus of the analysis will be on lexical mitigation (lexical/phrasal downgraders) employed by the subjectsthroughout the refusal sequences. For this purpose, the present study adopts a slightly modified version of Barron’s(2003) classification to fit the Greek data (see Appendix B).

The statistical analysis of the data was carried out using version 19 of the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences.Descriptive statistics were used to compute the frequency of semantic formulas (direct, indirect and adjuncts) and lexical/phrasal downgraders for each group across the three situations. The statistical tests used to examine the data were


one-way ANOVAs. Post hoc analyses were carried out using the Scheffe test. For all analyses in the study, the alpha levelwas set at .05. Besides the researcher, the data were coded by a second coder, a colleague from the Department ofLinguistics, Faculty of English Studies. The second coder’s coding coincided with the researcher’s in 97% for refusalstrategies and 98% for lexical/phrasal downgraders. The discrepancies noted were discussed by the two coders and aconsensus was reached.

The results are analytically presented in the following section.

4. Results

This section presents the results for research question 1 concerning the differences in strategy use among the fourgroups and research question 2 concerning the developmental patterns emerging in the learners’ performance ofrefusals. The main findings are presented in regard to strategy frequencies distribution and use (direct/indirect strategies,adjuncts and lexical/phrasal downgraders) and in regard to the learners’ verbal reports.

4.1. Directness, indirectness and adjuncts

The distribution of direct strategies, indirect strategies and adjuncts among the four groups across the differentsituations is displayed in Table 1. Table 2 presents the means and standard deviations for the use of these strategies in thethree different situations.

As shown in Table 1, very few instances of direct strategies emerged in the NS participants’ data in Situation 1 (�P,�D).On the contrary, Ls1 made extensive use of direct strategies and, therefore, their difference from both NSs and the otherlearner groups was significant (F(3,76) = 25.17, p < 0.05). Ls2, learners, on the other hand, were found to lie in the middle inrespect to frequencies of direct strategies use, employing significantly less directness than Ls1 learners, but significantlymore than Ls3 learners and NSs. No significant difference was attested between NSs and the advanced learner group.

Similar results were attested for Situation 2 (+P,+D). That is, once more, Ls1 learners differed in a significant mannerfrom the NSs and the other learner groups using higher frequencies of direct strategies (F(3,76) = 14, p < 0.05), whereasLs2 learners employed significantly less directness than Ls1 and significantly more than Ls3. The latter did not differsignificantly from NSs in this respect.

A somewhat different picture emerged in the case of Situation 3 (�P,+D). As shown in Table 1, NSs used increasedfrequencies of direct strategies in this situation compared with the previous two and were not found to differ significantlyfrom the two more advanced learner groups (Ls2 and Ls3). Moreover, no significant difference was attested between Ls2and Ls3 learners. Ls1 learners, on the other hand, were found to employ significantly more directness than NSs in thissituation (F(3,76) = 5.77, p < 0.05). Yet, their differences from the other learner groups did not turn out to be significant.

Furthermore, while Ls1 learners often resorted to non-performative ‘‘no’’ in all situations, this tendency was found todecline with proficiency (see Table 1). More advanced learners preferred the negative ability strategy (δεν μπoρώ ‘I can’t),when direct, approximating more closely the native-speaker norm in this respect.

Turning now to indirect strategies, NSs used significantly more than the learner groups in both Situations 1 and 2, whileLs1 participants employed significantly less indirectness than the other learner groups (F(3,76) = 25.11, p < 0.05 forSituation 1 (money to friend) and F(3,76) = 21.97, p < 0.05 for Situation 2 (stay longer at work)).

A different picture emerged in Situation 3 (borrow car: �P,+D). Although, once more, the lower intermediate learners(Ls1) used significantly lower frequencies that both NSs and the other learner groups, Ls2 and Ls3 learnersoverperformed NSs in the use of indirect strategies in this Situation and this difference proved to be significant (F(3,76)= 14.26, p < 0.05). However, no significant difference was attested between intermediate and advanced learners whoemployed similar frequencies of indirect strategies in this situation.

An increase in the number and the variety of indirect strategies was attested as proficiency level increased. However,no significant differences were exhibited between Ls2 and Ls3 learners.

Important differences emerged in regard to the type of indirect strategies preferred by the four groups. Specifically, Ls1learners relied almost exclusively on reasons/explanations and apologies in all situations. Moreover, all learner groupsemployed apologies with significantly higher frequencies than NSs in all situations, the only exception being Situation 3(�P,+D), where no significant difference was attested between NSs and the advanced group (Ls3). Instead of apologiesNSs opted for expressions of regret (e.g. νιώθω πoλύ άσχημα ‘I feel really bad’), which were considerably less frequenteven in the more advanced learners’ data. Furthermore, one of the most striking differences displayed among the groupsinvolved the use of indefinite replies and promises to try to comply. As shown in Table 1, these strategies were employedwith impressively high frequencies by NSs in Situations 1 (�P,�D) and 2 (+P,+D), whereas they were very rare in theperformance of even the advanced learner group. It is worth noting, however, that no frequent use of these particularstrategies was attested in the NSs’ performance in the third situation.

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Table 1Distribution of refusal semantic formulas over the three situations by NSs and three proficiency levels of learners.

Strategies Situation 1 Situation 2 Situation 3

NS Ls1 Ls2 Ls3 NS Ls1 Ls2 Ls3 NS Ls1 Ls2 Ls3

n % n % n % n % n % n % n % n % n % n % n % n %

Performative statement 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 4 1.7 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0Non-performative ‘‘No’’ 0 0 11 10.4 2 1.4 0 0 0 0 12 10.7 1 0.5 0 0 2 1.5 17 19.8 5 3.4 5 3.5Negative ability 6 3.1 28 26.4 15 13.7 9 6.8 9 3.8 39 34.8 29 14.5 20 10.6 18 13.1 23 26.7 29 19.5 27 19.1

Total Direct 6 3.1 39 36.8 17 15.1 9 6.8 13 5.4 51 45.5 30 15 20 10.6 20 14.6 40 46.5 34 22.8 32 22.7

Reason/explanation 32 16.7 25 23.6 39 28.1 33 24.8 39 16.3 18 16.1 42 21 37 19.6 29 21.2 22 25.6 34 22.8 31 22.0Apology 4 2.1 23 21.7 26 18.7 14 10.5 19 7.9 32 28.6 34 17 26 13.8 4 2.9 15 17.4 27 18.1 6 4.3Expression of regret 19 9.9 0 0 5 3.6 7 5.3 16 6.7 2 1.8 5 2.5 7 3.7 11 8 2 2.3 3 2 2 1.4Alternative 10 5.2 0 0 4 2.9 8 6 19 7.9 0 0 20 10 11 5.8 13 9.5 4 4.7 10 6.7 11 7.8Indefinite reply 25 13 0 0 2 1.4 3 2.3 25 10.5 0 0 2 1 3 1.6 1 0.7 0 0 4 2.7 2 1.4Condition for past acceptance 2 1.0 0 0 1 0.7 9 6.8 11 4.6 0 0 3 1.5 18 9.5 0 0 0 0 0 0 11 7.8Condition of future acceptance 5 2.6 0 0 9 6.5 7 5.3 7 2.9 0 0 16 8 10 5.3 0 0 0 0 11 7.4 10 7.1Wish 14 7.3 0 0 0 0 8 6 4 1.7 0 0 0 0 9 4.8 5 3.6 0 0 1 0.7 8 5.7Promise to try to comply 18 9.4 0 0 2 1.4 4 3 17 7.1 0 0. 1 0.5 4 2.1 2 1.5 0 0 4 2.7 1 0.7

Total Indirect 129 67.2 58 54.7 88 63.3 93 69.9 157 65.7 52 46.4 123 61.5 125 66.1 65 47.4 42 48.8 94 63.1 82 58.2

Willingness 11 5.7 4 3.8 11 7.9 9 6.8 13 5.4 6 5.4 15 7.5 11 5.8 12 8.8 1 1.2 7 4.7 3 2.1Preparator 14 7.3 0 0.0 4 2.9 5 3.8 24 10.0 0 0 5 2.5 8 4.2 17 12.4 0 0 3 2.0 6 4.3Disarming comment 5 2.6 0 0.0 8 5.8 6 4.5 17 7.1 0 0 19 9.5 16 8.5 2 1.5 0 0 8 5.4 3 2.1Request for additional information 9 4.7 3 2.8 4 2.9 4 3 12 5 2 1.8 6 3 10 5.3 5 3.6 1 1.2 0 0 6 4.3Empathy 18 9.4 2 1.9 3 2.2 7 5.3 9 3.8 1 0.9 2 1 6 3.2 16 11.7 2 2.3 3 2 9 6.4

Total Adjuncts 57 29.7 9 8.5 30 21.6 31 23.3 69 28.9 9 8 47 23.5 51 27.0 52 38 4 4.7 21 14.1 27 19.1

Total Strategies 192 100 106 100 135 100 133 100 239 100 112 100 200 100 189 100 137 100 86 100 149 100 141 100


Table 2Means and standard deviations in the use of direct strategies, indirect strategies and adjuncts by the four groups in the three situations.

Situation 1 Situation2 Situation 3

Direct Indirect Adjuncts Direct Indirect Adjuncts Direct Indirect Adjuncts

NSs M 0.3 6.46 2.85 0.65 7.85 3.45 1.02 3.25 2.6SD 0.57 1.01 0.48 0.93 0.81 0.68 1.07 1.65 0.82

Ls1 M 1.95 2.9 0.45 2.55 2.6 0.45 2 2.1 0.2SD 0.82 1.16 0.88 0.95 1.46 0.66 0.45 1.55 0.41

Ls2 M 0.95 4.35 1.5 1.56 6.15 2.35 1.65 4.7 1.05SD 0.36 1.75 1.35 0.68 3.54 1.26 0.58 0.57 0.88

Ls3 M 0.5 4.75 1.55 0.66 7.7 2.55 1.6 4.1 1.35SD 0.96 1.11 2.25 1.08 2.51 1.09 0.82 1.29 1.08

Moreover, although, as already mentioned, the repertoire of indirect strategies increased with proficiency, with most ofthem emerging at the intermediate level and continuing to appear at the advanced level, there are at least three strategiesthat seem to be markedly related to proficiency level: condition for future acceptance, condition for past acceptance andwish. Specifically, while condition for past acceptance and wish do not appear in the learners data before the advancedlevel, condition of future acceptance emerges rather frequently at the intermediate level. Although this latter strategy alsoappears in the advanced learners’ data, its frequencies are not as high as in the Ls2 data. Furthermore, while NSs makemoderate use of these strategies in all situations, Ls2 learners made rather frequent use of the condition of futureacceptance in all situations and Ls3 a frequent use of both, especially of condition of past acceptance, in all situations.These findings will be further discussed in Section 5.

Finally, at least two qualitative differences in respect to the content and phrasing of certain indirect strategies wereobserved. Specifically, although reasons/explanations were the most frequent strategy in the data of all groups in allsituations, a marked difference involved the content of the NSs’ as compared to the learners’ explanations in Situation 2(+P,+D). First, while learners employed various reasons/explanations for not being able to stay longer at work (e. g. έχωκανoνίσει κάτι ‘I have arranged something’, ϕεύγω για ταξίδι ‘I am going on a trip’, έχω μια άλλη δoυλειά ‘I have somethingelse to do’), NSs opted almost exclusively for explanations concerning family and health problems. However, this type ofexplanation was rather infrequent in the learners’ data. Furthermore, NSs’ as well as Ls2 and Ls3 learners’ explanationswere found to be more specific and elaborate than those of the Ls1 learners in all situations. The latter group’sexplanations turned out to be terse and rather vague.

Second, NSs opted for alternatives that were mainly formed as suggestions, i.e. by means of interrogative or negative-interrogative constructions (e.g. Mήπως να τα ζητoύσες απo κάπoιoν άλλo; [Perhaps you askimperfective past subjunctive

someone else?] Could you perhaps ask someone else?’, Δεν έρχεστε μαζί μoυ τo πρωί; ‘[Why] don’t you come with me inthe morning?’). On the contrary, learners’ alternatives tended to be more specific and were very often phrased as moodderivables, i.e. as imperatives or subjunctives functioning as imperatives (e.g. Nα ζητήσεις απo μια άλλη ϕίλη σoυ ‘You[should] asksubjunctive some other friend of yours’, Pωτήστε κάπoιoν άλλo ‘Askimprerative someone else’). As will be shown inthe discussion, this finding has certain implications for both the sociopragmatic and the general interlanguagedevelopment of the learners.

In regard to adjuncts, NSs overperformed all learner groups using adjuncts significantly more frequently in allsituations. Ls1 learners, on the other hand, displayed significantly lower frequencies of adjunct use than all groups in allsituations (F(3,76) = 9.69, p < 0.05 for Situation 1 (money to friend), F(3,76) = 33.84, p < 0.05 for Situation 2 (stay longerat work) and F(3,76) = 28.08, p < 0.05 for Situation 3 (borrow car)). No significant differences were attested between Ls2and Ls3 learners in any of the situations.

Furthermore, although the learners’ repertoire of adjuncts was found to markedly expand after they reached theintermediate level, there were certain differences regarding the groups’ preference for different adjunct types. Specifically,NSs were found to employ significantly higher frequencies of the Preparator than the learners. Moreover, they made frequentuse of expressions of empathy, especially in Situations 1 (�P,�D) and 3 (�P,+D). Although expressions of empathy werefound to be more frequent as level of proficiency increased, even Ls3 learners used them much less than NSs.

Finally, there were also some differences in regard to the content and phrasing of adjuncts among the groups. The mostmarked one concerned the Disarming Comment. In 90% of the cases the NSs’ disarming comments were phrased by meansof the formula μη με παρεξηγείς (‘don’t misunderstand me’) /μη με παρεξηγείτε (‘don’t misunderstand me polite plural’).Learners, on the other hand, used non-formulaic disarming comments and very often employed comments such as μηθυμώσεις (‘don’t get angry’) /μη θυμώσετε (‘don’t get angry polite plural’), which were rather inappropriate, especially inSituations 2 (+P,+D) and 3 (�P,+D).


Another difference concerned the realization of the Willingness strategy. Specifically, learners of all levelsexpressed willingness employing the subjunctive θα ήθελα (‘I would like’ [lit. I would want]) which is formed by means ofthe future particle θα + imperfective past (e.g. θα ήθελα να βoηθήσω ‘I would like to help’) in all situations. NSs on theother hand preferred its present indicative counterpart θέλω (e.g. θέλω πoλύ να σε βoηθήσω ‘I really want to help you’)in Situations 1 (�P,�D) and 3 (�P,+D), whereas in Situation 2 (+P,+D), besides θέλω, they made frequent use of theexpression είμαι (πoλύ) πρoθυμoς/η να (‘I am very willing to’). Not a single instance of this phrasing appeared in thelearners’ data.

Some differences among the four groups were also attested in regard to the distribution of strategies across the variousepisodes.8 Specifically, Ls1 participants’ contributions were usually very short and often quite blunt in all episodes of allsituations. Ls2 learners’ data, on the other hand, displayed a rather interesting pattern. Specifically, these learners werefound to be particularly verbose in the first episode employing most of their indirect strategies and adjuncts for their initialrefusal. Nevertheless, these learners frequently turned rather terse employing the bulge of their direct strategies in thereufals following the intercolutor’s insistence, especially in Situations 1 (�P,�D) and 2 (+P,+D). Consequently, their finalcontributions often gave an impression of abruptness and bluntness. Although this claim can by no means be made for allthe Ls2 learners’ data of this study, the fact that almost 70% of their role-plays exhibited this phenomenon indicatessystematicity and calls for attention. No such phenomena were attested in the data of NSs and Ls3 learners. Ls3 learnerswere found to approximate closely the native-speaker norm in this respect and to be able to distribute their strategiesevenly in the various episodes, thus leading the interaction to a smoother closing.

The examples to follow are indicative of the four groups’ performance in each of the Situations. Examples (1)--(4) comefrom the participants’ performance in Situation 1 (�P,�D), examples 5--8 from their performance in Situation 2 (+P,+D),whereas 9--12 are indicative of the participants’ production in Situation 3 (�P,+D).

Example (1) is typical of the NSs’ tendency to use mainly indirect strategies and a much greater variety of thosestrategies as well as of adjuncts than the learners.

[1]

8 I adopand on th

9 In all

10 po, po11 re is a12 more

13 see fo

NS (Situation 1 (�P�D): money to friend)

RF9:
Πω, πω ρε παιδί μoυ, σε δύσκoλη επoχή με πετυχαίνεις. . . To θέμα είναι oτι δεν έχω πληρωθεί ακoμα και oύτεξέρω πoτε. Mακάρι να μπoρoύσα να σε βoηθήσω, αλλά δεν υπάρχει ϕράγκo αυτή την επoχή. . .ξέρεις πώςείναι. . . Oh, man [lit. po, po10 re11 my child], you have caught me in very difficult times [explanation]. The thing is[preparator],I have not been paid yet and I don’t know when I will [explanation]. I wish I could help you [wish], but I am completelybroke right now [explanation]. . .you know how it is. . .
RQ:
Nαι, μωρέ τo ξέρω είναι πoλλά λεϕτά. . .Δεν πειράζει [θα] Yes, μωρέ12 I know it’s a lot of money. It’s all right [I’ll]
RF:
[Δεν] ξέρω, δεν ξέρω, είναι δύσκoλo. . .Στενoχωριέμαι τώρα. . .κάτσε λίγo να δω τι μπoρώ να κάνω, αλλά δεν τoβλέπω. Kρίμα ρε παιδί μoυ, έχoυν δυσκoλέψει oλα τoσo πoλύ. [I don’t] know [indefinite reply], I don’t know [indefinite reply], it’s difficult [explanation]. I feel really bad now[regret]. . .let me seewhat I can do [promise to try], but I don’t really think I can make it[indefinite reply]. It’s a pity [re13 my child] [regret]
everything has become so hard.
RQ: Kαλά, δες τo. . .
OK, look into it. . .
RF: Nαι, ναι θα δω μήπω μήπως μπoρώ να εξoικoνoμήσω τίπoτα, και θα σε πάρω μέσα στην ημέρα.
Yes, yes I’ll see if I can spare something [promise to try], and I will get back to you later today.

As already mentioned, what was most striking about the NSs’ data in this situation (as well as in Situation 2), was the useof indefinite replies and promises to try to comply. It is characteristic that the requester in (1) hardly insists. In fact, hiscontribution in line 7 (Nαι, μωρέ τo ξέρω είναι πoλλά λεϕτά. Δεν πειράζει ‘Yes, ‘I know it’s a lot of money. It’s all right’’) couldbe taken as letting the interlocutor off the hook. However, this NS opts for extending the conversation using a couple ofindefinite replies and a promise to try to comply (lines 9--10). This type of response prompts the requester’s further

t here Gass and Houck’s definition, according to which an ‘episode’ is the part of an interaction "bounded on one side by an eliciting acte other side by some kind of response directed at or relevant to the opening eliciting act" (1999:57).the examples RF stands for ‘refuser’ and RQ for ‘requester’.

is an exclamation.n untranslated item denoting solidarity.is an untranslated item denoting solidarity.otnote 5.


insistence. It is worth noting that the promise to try to comply is repeated in line 12 as well as in the refuser’s finalcontribution (line 17). The repercussions of these choices for the mitigation of the refusal and the expression of politenesswill be discussed in the next section.

As already mentioned, the learners made very limited, if at all, use of these particular strategies and rarely opted for re-opening the request agenda after being let off the hook by their interlocutor.

Example (2) is typical of the terseness characterizing the learners of the lower intermediate level.

[2]
Ls1 (Lower intermediate, Situation 1 (�P�D): money to friend)
RF:
Συγγνώμη. Δεν μπoρώ να δίνω λεϕτά. Δεν έχω καθoλoυ λεϕτά τώρα. I am sorry [apology]. I can’t give money [direct refusal]. I don’t have any money right now [explanation].
RQ:
Θα στα δώσω πίσω σε λίγες μέρες. I will return it to you in a few days.
RF:
Oχι, oχι συγγνώμη πoλύ. Δεν μπoρώ. Δεν έχω. No, no, [direct refusal] I am very sorry [lit. I am sorry very much][apology]. I can’t [direct refusal].
I don’t have any[explanation]

As shown in (2), the learner resorts in direct refusals in both her contributions, while she keeps recycling explanations andapologies. Her final contribution in line 6 is rather abrupt and does not provide any opportunity for further discussion. Onthe contrary, the intermediate learner in (3) appears quite verbose in her first attempt to refuse.

[3]
Ls2 (Intermediate, Situation 1 (�P�D): money to friend)
RF:
Συγγνώμη πoλύ ϕίλη μoυ. Έχω πoλλά πρoβλήματα τώρα και δεν έχω 150 ευρώ. Παρακαλώ μη θυμώνεις είναιπoλύ δύσκoλo για μένα, θέλω πoλύ βoηθήσω, αλλά δεν δoυλεύω τώρα και δεν έχω. Aλλη ϕoρά σoυ δίνω, αλλάτώρα είναι πoλύ πρoβλημα με λεϕτά και δoυλειά. Συγγνώμη πoλύ. I am very sorry [apology], my friend. I have many problems right now and I don’t have 150 euro [explanation]. Pleasedon’t be angry [disarming comment], it is very difficult for me [explanation], I really want to help [willingness], but I don’t workright now and I don’t have any money [explanation]. Another time I will give to you [future acceptance], but now there arebig problems with money and work [explanation]. I am very sorry [apology].
RQ:
Aν στα επιστρέψω σε μία εβδoμάδα; What if I give it back to you next week?
RF:
Δεν μπoρώ και έτσι. Eίναι αδύνατoν. Συγγνώμη. I can’t this way either [direct refusal]. It’s impossible[direct refusal]. I am sorry[apology].
Besides explanations and apologies, this learner also employs certain indirect strategies and adjuncts which were ratherinfrequent or altogether absent from the Ls1 participants’ data (disarming comment, willingness, condition for futureacceptance). After the requester’s insistence, however, she turns to directness, which is accompanied by an apology(line 12). Therefore, compared to her previous contribution and to those of the native speakers this closing of theconversation sounds rather blunt, or even rude.

As already mentioned, no instances of terseness or bluntness emerged in the Ls3 participants’ data. As shown in (4),the Ls3 learner distributes his strategies evenly in the different episodes and manages to lead the conversation to asmooth closing. However, this speaker’s data displays typical differences between this groups’ participants and the NSs inthe sense that it lacks strategic choices, such as indefinite replies, promises to try to comply and various adjuncts thatwere distinctive of the native speakers’ performance in this situation.

[4]
Ls3 (Advanced, Situation 1 (�P�D): money to friend)
RF:
Ξέρεις, λυπάμαι πoλύ, αλλά δεν μπoρώ να σoυ δώσω 150 ευρώ αυτές τις μέρες. Πρέπει να πληρώνω πoλλoύςλoγαριασμoύς και δεν είμαι πoλύ πλoύσιoς. Συγγνώμη γι’ αυτo. You know, I regret this [regret], but I can’t give you 150 euro these days [direct refusal]. I must pay many bills and I amnot rich [explanation]. I am sorry [apology].
RQ:
Aχ, ήλπιζα oτι εσύ θα έχεις. Tα ήθελα μoνo για 15 μέρες. Mετά θα πληρωνoμoυν και θα σoυ τα επέστρεϕα. Oh, I was hoping you would have it. I just needed it for 15 days. After that I would be paid and I would return it toyou.
RF:
Mακάρι να μπoρoύσα να σoυ δίνω τα λεϕτά, αλλά έχω πρoβλημα. Nα ζητάς απo μια άλλη ϕίλη σoυ μήπως. I wish I could give you the money[wish], but it’s a problem[explanation]. Perhaps you should ask another friend ofyours [alternative]


RQ:
Oχι δυστυχώς, έχoυν oλoι oικoνoμικά πρoβλήματα αυτή την επoχή. No, unfortunately, everyone is in trouble with money these days.
RF:
Συγγνώμη κι εγώ έχω τo ίδιo. Eίναι δύσκoλα. Mη νoμίζεις oτι δεν θέλω να σε βoηθήσω, αλλά δεν μπoρώ. Aν θες νασκεϕτoμαστε μαζί έναν άλλo τρoπo να βρεις τα λεϕτά. I am sorry [apology], I have the same problem [explanation]. It is difficult [explanation]. Don’t think I don’t want to helpyou [willingness], but I can’t [direct refusal]. If you want, we can figure out together some other way for you to find themoney[alternative]
RQ:
Eντάξει, δεν πειράζει, θα πρoσπαθήσω να βρω κάπoιoν άλλo τρoπo. OK, it’s all right, I’ll try to find some other way.
Example (5) coming from the NSs’ data is typical of these speakers’ performance in Situation 2.

[5]
NSs (Situation 2 (+P,+D): stay longer at work)
RF:
Πρέπει oπωσδήπoτε να γίνει σήμερα; Does it have to be done today? [request for additional information]
RQ:
Nαι, δυστυχώς, θέλω oπωσδήπoτε να είναι διαθέσιμα τη Δευτέρα. Unfortunately yes, I absolutely want them to be available on Monday.
RF:
Έλεγα μήπως έρθω πρωί, πρωί τη Δευτέρα. I was thinking, maybe I could come early on Monday [alternative].
RQ:
Aυτo είναι λίγo δύσκoλo γιατί θέλω να είμαι κι εγώ και τη Δευτέρα δεν μπoρώ. This is kind of difficult because I want to be around to and I can’t make it on Monday.
RF:
Kαταλαβαίνω αλλά τo πρoβλημα είναι oτι έχω να πάω τη μητέρα μoυ στo γιατρo μετά τη δoυλειά σήμερα και δενξέρω αν μπoρώ να τo αναβάλω γιατί είναι άρρωστη εδώ και μέρες. Eίμαι πoλύ πρoθυμoς να βoηθήσω, αλλά είναιλίγo ακατάλληλη στιγμή, αν δεν τo είχα κανoνίσει αυτo δεν θα υπήρχε πρoβλημα. Eλπίζω να μη με παρεξηγήσετε. I understand[preparator] but the problem is that [preparator] I have to take my mother to the doctor after work today and Idon’t know if I can postpone it, because she’s been sick for days [explanation]. I am very willing to help [willingness] butthe timing is not very good [explanation], if I hadn’t arranged that there would be no problem [condition for past acceptance]. Ihope you won’t misunderstand me[disarming comment].
RQ:
Σίγoυρα δεν γίνεται να ϕύγεις λίγo αργoτερα; Eννoείται oτι θα πληρωθείς για τις εξτρά ώρες. Are you sure you can’t stay a little longer? It goes without saying that you will be paid for the extra time.
RF:
Φoβάμαι oτι είναι λίγo δύσκoλo, δεν ξέρω, θα κάνω μια πρoσπάθεια, μήπως είναι και αργoτερα εκεί o γιατρoςαλλά δεν ξέρω. Aϕήστε να δω τι μπoρώ να κάνω. I am afraid it’s a bit difficult [explanation], I don’t know [indefinite reply], I’ll give it a try, in case the doctor is there later[promise to try] but I don’t know [indefinite reply]. Let me see what I can do [promise to try].
RQ:
Δες τo σε παρακαλώ γιατί είναι σημαντικo. Look into it please, it’s important.
RF:
Nαι, ναι θα πρoσπαθήσω, αλλά δεν είμαι σίγoυρoς αν θα τα καταϕέρω. Yes, I will try [promise to try] but I don’t know if I’ll make it [indefinite reply].
RQ:
Kαλά, δες τo και μoυ λες σε λίγo. OK, check it out and tell me later.
Similarly to Situation 1, these NSs displayed low frequencies of directness in this context. As shown in (5), after using avariety of indirect strategies and adjuncts, the NS resorts to indefinite replies and promises to try to comply in his two finalcontributions (lines 22--23 and 29). Therefore, his refusal is actually suspended and leaves an opening for acceptance inthe near future. On the contrary, none of the learners in (6--8) leave any doubt about the finality of their refusal. Moreover,the NSs in (5) explains his refusal by means of bringing up a family/health problem (lines 13--15). As mentioned above, thistype of explanation was typical of the NSs’ performance in this situation, but rather rare in the learners’ explanations for therefusal. This finding has sociocultural repercussions that will be taken up in the Section 5.

The Ls1 learner’s performance in (6) exhibits striking similarities with this group’s performance in the previous situation,i.e. a constant reliance on directness, explanations and apologies.

[6]
Ls1 (Lower intermediate, Situation 2 (+P,+D): stay longer at work)
RF:
Έχω πρoβλημα σήμερα και δεν μπoρώ αργoτερα. Συγγνώμη. I have a problem today [explanation]. I can’t [stay] late [direct refusal]. I am sorry [apology].
RQ:
Έχεις κανoνίσει κάτι άλλo; Have you made other plans?


RF:
Δεν καταλαβαίνω. I don’t understand.
RQ:
Lέω. . .γιατί δεν μπoρείς; Πρέπει να κάνεις κάτι άλλo; I am just saying. . .why can’t you do it. Do you have to do something else?
RF:
Nαι, συγγνώμη, πρέπει άλλη δoυλειά. Δεν μπoρώ να μένω Yes, I am sorry [apology], I must do something else (lit. I must other job) [explanation]. I can’t stay[direct refusal]
RQ:
Δεν μπoρείς να αλλάξεις τη δoυλειά σoυ; Can’t you change it?
RF:
Δεν μπoρώ, πoλύ δύσκoλo. Συγγνώμη, δεν μπoρώ. I can’t [direct refusal], it is very difficult [explanation]. I am sorry [apology], I can’t [direct refusal].
Once more, this lower intermediate learner’s final contribution functions as a conversation stopper and sounds too directand rather blunt.

In contrast, the Ls2 learner in (7) uses a much greater variety of mitigating strategies to negotiate her refusal than theLs1 participant in (6), but contrary to the NSs, she employs a considerable number of direct refusals and apologies.

[7]
Ls2 (Intermediate, Situation 2 (+P,+D): stay longer at work)
RF:
Aχ, δεν μπoρώ να μένω αργά σήμερα. Συγγνώμη, πρέπει να πάω σε άλλη δoυλειά, δoυλεύω και τo βράδυ. Oh, I can’t stay late today [direct refusal]. I am sorry [apology], I must go to my other job, I also work evenings [explanation].
RQ:
Ξέρω oτι είναι δύσκoλo, αλλά δεν μπoρείς να πρoσπαθήσεις; Eίναι σημαντικo να έχoυμε τα βιβλία τη Δευτέρα. I know it’s difficult but can’t you try? It is important to have the books on Monday.
RF:
Kαταλαβαίνω, καταλαβαίνω, αλλά είναι πρoβλημα για μένα. σως να βoηθάει κάπoιoς άλλoς;´Aλλη ϕoρά, ανξέρω, θα μείνω σίγoυρα. I understand, I understand but it’s difficult [explanation]. Maybe someone else could help [alternative]. Next time, if Iknow I will stay for sure [condition for future acceptance].
RQ:
Δεν μπoρεί κανένας άλλoς, δυστυχώς, τoυς ρώτησα. I have already asked, unfortunately nobody can do it.
RF:
Συγγνώμη πoλύ, πρέπει να πάω στη δoυλειά, θα έχω πρoβλημα με την άλλη δoυλειά και δεν θέλω να χάσω.Συγγνώμη. I am very sorry[apology] I must go to work [explanation], I will have a problem with the other job and I don’t want to lose it[explanation]. I am sorry [apology].
RQ:
Aν πας λίγo αργoτερα; If you go a bit later?
RF:
Δεν γίνεται, δεν μπoρώ. Πρέπει να με καταλαβαίνετε. It can’t be done[direct refusal], I can’t[direct refusal]. You must understand me.
This learner’s choice to end the conversation with two direct refusals accompaning by the rather aggravating statementΠρέπει να με καταλαβαίνετε (‘You must understand me’) gives an impression of abruptness and intolerance similar to thatof the Ls1 learner in (6). No such effect is produced by the Ls3 speaker’s performance in (8), which is typical of his group.

[8]
Ls3 (Advanced, Situation 2: (+P,+D) stay longer at work)
RF:
Lυπάμαι πoλύ, αλλά δεν μπoρώ σήμερα. Θα ϕύγω για Σαββατoκύριακo μετά τη δoυλειά. Mπoρώ να έρθω τηνΔευτέρα πoλύ νωρίς. I am very sorry[apology], but I can’t today [direct refusal]. I am going away for the weekend after work [explanation]. I cancome very early on Monday [alternative].
RQ:
Δυστυχώς πρέπει να τo κάνoυμε σήμερα γιατί εγώ θα λείπω τη Δευτέρα. Δεν μπoρείς να ξεκινήσεις λίγo αργoτερα; Unfortunately, we have to do it today because I will not be here on Monday. Can’t you go away a bit later?
RF:
Έχω εισιτήριo. Aν ήξερα, δε θα είχα κανoνίσει, αλλά τώρα πρέπει να πάω γιατί θα χάσω τo εισιτήριo μoυ.Συγγνώμη πoυ δεν μπoρώ. Θα ήθελα να βoηθήσω, αλλά είναι δύσκoλη μέρα. Kαταλαβαίνω έχετε πρoβλημα,αλλά τι να κάνω; I have a ticket [explanation]. If I knew I wouldn’t have made plans [condition for past acceptance] but now I must go or I willlose my ticket [explanation]. I am sorry I can’t [apology]. I would like to help but it’s a difficult day. I understand you havea problem [empathy], but what can I do?
RQ:
Kαλά, θα δω τι άλλo μπoρεί να γίνει. OK, I’ll see what else could be done.


RF:
Eντάξει, ζητάω συγγνώμη, μακάρι να μπoρoύσα να βoηθήσω. OK, I apologize [apology], I wish I could help [wish].
As shown in (8), this speaker manages to negotiate his refusal quite successfully in terms of strategy choice anddistribution across the different episodes. Yet, once more, his performance lacks typical characteristics of the NSs’, suchas the use of indefinite replies and promises to try to comply. What is particularly interesting and related to interlanguagedevelopment is the appearance of the condition of future acceptance strategy in the Ls2 speaker’s data in (line 9) and thecondition of past acceptance (line 12) as well as the wish strategy (line 19) in the Ls3 learner’s data in (8). As alreadymentioned, these strategies were typical of these two groups’ performance respectively and exhibited the highestfrequencies in this formal situation. This point will be further addressed in Section 5.

As already pointed out, the NSs appeared to be more direct in Situation 3 than in the previous ones. However, theyemployed considerably more adjuncts (especially preparators and expressions of empathy) than the learner groups.Example (9), where the speaker preposes two adjuncts (empathy and preparator) and an explanation before refusingdirectly the interlocutor’s request (line 1) and another one after the refusal (request for additional information, line 2) is,therefore, typical of these speakers’ performance in this particular situation.

[9]
NS (Situation 3 (�P,+D): borrow car)
RF:
Σε καταλαβαίνω αλλά τo πρoβλημα είναι oτι τo χρειάζoμαι κι εγώ τo αυτoκίνητo γιατί ϕεύγω νωρίς τo πρωί γιαδoυλειά και δεν μπoρώ να στo δώσω. Tι ώρα θέλετε να ϕύγετε; I understand [empathy] but the problem is [preparator] I need the car because I am leaving early in the morning forwork [explanation] and I can’t give it to you [direct refusal]. At what time do you want to leave? [request for additional information]
RQ:
Tι ώρα ξεκινάς εσύ; At what time are you leaving?
RF:
Kατά τις 7 γιατί απέχει καμιά ώρα απo δω τo γραϕείo, είναι στo Φάληρo. Mήπως είναι στo δρoμo μoυ να σαςπετάξω εγώ ϕεύγoντας; At about seven because my office is an hour away, in Faliro. I could maybe drop you by if it’s on my way [alternative].
RQ:
Mπα, πάμε πρoς Kηϕισιά, [ευχαριστώ πάντως]. Nah, we are heading toward Kifisia, but thanks anyway.
RF:
[A κρίμα] [regret]. . .τίπoτα μωρέ, να’ σαι καλά! [Ah, pity] Not at all, be well!
The only indirect strategy that appears in the NS’s contribution after the interlocutor’s insistence is an alternative. What ismore, the example is indicative of the most striking finding in regard to the NSs’ performance in this situation, that is thelack of indefinite replies and promises to try to comply, which were particularly frequent in the previous two situations.

The Ls1 speaker in (10), on the other hand, exhibits the behavior, which was found to be typical of this group in theprevious two situations employing exclusively direct strategies and explanations to refuse the interlocutor’s request.

[10]
Ls1 (Lower intermediate, Situation 3 (�P,+D): borrow car)
RF:
Έχω πoλλές δoυλειές αύριo. Δεν μπoρώ να δίνω τo αυτoκίνητo μoυ. I have a lot to do tomorrow [explanation]. I can’t give up my car [direct refusal].
RQ:
Θα σoυ τo ϕέρω πoλύ γρήγoρα πίσω. I’ll bring it back really soon.
RF:
Oχι δεν μπoρώ, είναι μεγάλo πρoβλημα για μένα. No, I can’t [direct refusal], it is a big problem for me [explanation].
RQ:
Kαλά, καταλαβαίνω, θα δω τι μπoρώ να κάνω. OK, I understand, I will see what I can do.
Example (11), one the other hand, clearly reflects the verbosity attested in the Ls2 learners’ data in this situation. Oncemore, this verbosity appears mainly in the first episode (lines 1--4) and declines after the interlocutor’s insistence giving itsplace to directness and even bluntness.

[11]
Ls2 (Intermediate, Situation 3 (�P,+D): borrow car)
RF:
Δυστυχώς γείτoνά μoυ, δεν μπoρώ να δανείσω τo αυτoκίνητo. Συγγνώμη πoλύ, αλλά πρέπει τo πρωί να πάω στηδoυλειά μoυ και χρειάζoμαι αυτo. Kαι πρέπει κι εγώ να ϕέρνω τα παιδιά στo σχoλείo τoυς. Συγγνώμη. Aλλη ϕoράθα σoυ βoηθήσω. σως τώρα να παίρνεις ταξί.


Unfortunately, my neighbor, I can’t lend you my car [direct refusal]. I am very sorry [apology] but I have to go to work inthe morning and I need it [explanation]. And I must also take my kids to school[explanation]. Forgive me [apology]. Anothertime I will help you [condition for future acceptance]. Maybe now you can take a taxi [alternative].

RQ:
Έλεγα μήπως μπoρoύσες επειδή τo θέλω για πoλύ λίγo. I just thought you might be able to give it to me because I need it only for a little while.
RF:
Δεν μπoρώ, επειδή έχω δoυλειές. Δεν γίνεται. I can’t [direct refusal]. It’s a big problem because I have a lot to do [explanation]. It can’t be done [direct refusal].
RQ:
Kαλά, θα βρω έναν άλλo τρoπo. Eυχαριστώ πάντως. OK, I’ll find some other way. Thanks anyway
RF:
Παρακαλώ. You are welcome.
Although no such verbosity is attested in the Ls3 learner’s data in (12), this speaker invests considerably less in adjunctsthan the NS in (9).

[12]
Ls3 (Advanced, Situation 3 (�P,+D): borrow car)
RF:
Πρέπει να σoυ πω oτι δεν δίνω πoτέ τo αυτoκίνητo μoυ. Δεν δίνω στoν αδερϕo μoυ, πώς θα δώσω σε σένα πoυδεν ξέρω καλά; I must tell you that I never lend my car [explanation]. I don’t even give it to my brother, how am I supposed to give it toyou that I don’t know well? [explanation]
RQ:
Θα τo πρoσέξω πoλύ και θα στo ϕέρω πίσω πoλύ γρήγoρα. I’ll take good care of it and I will bring it back really soon.
RF:
Δεν γίνεται, ανησυχώ να τo δώσω. Mπoρώ να oδηγήσω εγώ, αν ϕύγoυμε στις 6 τo πρωί. It can’t be done [direct refusal], I worry too much [explanation]. I can drive if we leave at 6 in the morning [alternative].
RQ:
Aσε, στις 6 είναι πoλύ νωρίς για τα παιδιά. Eυχαριστώ πάντως. 6 is too early for the kids. Thanks anyway.
RF:
Eντάξει, δεν είναι πρoβλημα. OK, no problem.
The highlighting of the distant relationship between herself and the requester in this learner’s explanation in lines 1--2(Δεν δίνω στoν αδερϕo μoυ, πώς θα δώσω σε σένα πoυ δεν ξέρω καλά; ‘I don’t even give it to my brother, how am Isupposed to give it to you that I don’t know well?’) combined with the lack of adjuncts (and lexical downgraders), producesdifferent sociopragmatic effects than the NS’s performance in (9). This point will be further addressed in Section 5.

4.2. Lexical/phrasal downgraders

Differences were also attested between the NSs and the learners in the use of lexical/phrasal downgraders. Thedistribution of lexical/phrasal downgraders among the four groups, as well as the frequencies for each type of downgraderin each situation are displayed in Table 3. The means and standard deviations for each group in each situation arepresented in Table 4.

As shown in Table 3, NSs employed significantly higher frequencies of lexical/phrasal downgraders than all learnergroups in all situations (F(3,76) = 26.55, p < 0.05 for Situation 1 (money to friend), F(3,76) = 19.65, p < 0.05 for Situation 2(stay longer at work) and F(3,76) = 15.47, p < 0.05 for Situation 3 (borrow car)). Ls1 learners, on the other hand, exhibitedlower frequencies of lexical downgraders than the more advanced groups in all situations. Yet, this difference proved to bestatistically significant only between Ls1 and Ls3 in all three situations. Although Ls2 used more lexical downgraders thanLs1 and less than Ls3, these differences did not turn out to be significant.

Furthermore, as shown in Table 3, NSs exhibited noticeable preferences for specific downgraders especially in Situations1 (�P,�D) and 2 (+P,+D). The most marked one was their preference for solidarity markers (e.g. name + possessivepronoun) in Situation 1. Although quite a few such markers also appeared in their performance in Situation 3, noinstance of this strategy emerged in their data in Situation 2 (+P,+D). Downtoners (e.g. ίσως ‘perhaps’, etc.) andcajolers (e.g. ξέρεις ‘you know’, etc.) were the second and third most preferred strategies on the part of the NSs inSituation 1 (�P,�D).

Along similar lines, these native speakers displayed a marked preference for cajolers, downtoners and subjectivizersin Situation 2 (+P,+D). Finally, although they employed lower frequencies of lexical/phrasal downgraders in Situation 3(�P,+D) than in the other situations, they exhibited a noticeable preference for cajolers and, to a lesser extent, forsolidarity markers in this situation.


Table 4Means and standard deviations in the use of lexical/phrasal downgraders by the four groups in the three situations.

Situation 1 Situation 2 Situation 3

NSs M 2.95 3.4 2.55SD 1.05 1.35 1.23

Ls1 M 0.4 0.4 0.35SD 0.68 0.75 0.67

Ls2 M 1.1 1.2 0.95SD 0.96 1.19 0.99

Ls3 M 1.4 1.75 1.45SD 0.99 1.67 1.23

Table 3Distribution of lexical/phrasal downgraders over the three situations by NSs and three proficiency levels of learners.

Lexical/phrasaldowngraders

Situation 1 Situation 2 Situation 3

NS L1 L2 L3 NS L1 L2 L3 NS L1 L2 L3

n % n % n % n % n % n % n % n % n % n % n % n %

Understater 6 9.2 1 12.5 3 13.6 6 21.4 14 20 2 25 5 20.8 8 22.9 8 15.7 2 28.6 5 26.3 4 13.8Subjectivizer 5 7.7 2 25 2 9.1 4 14.3 15 21.4 4 50 3 12.5 10 28.6 7 13.7 1 14.3 4 21.1 7 24.1Downtoner 14 21.5 3 37.5 4 18.2 2 7.1 17 24.3 2 25 8 33.3 7 20 7 13.7 2 28.6 2 10.5 5 17.2Cajoler 12 18.5 0 0 3 13.6 5 17.9 18 25.7 0 0 2 8.3 5 14.3 15 29.4 0 0 3 15.8 8 27.6Appealer 7 10.8 0 0 5 22.7 5 17.9 6 8.6 0 0 4 16.7 5 14.3 3 5.9 0 0 1 5.3 2 6.9Solidarity

marker21 32.3 2 25 5 22.7 6 21.4 0 0 0 0 2 8.3 0 0 11 21.6 2 28.6 4 21.1 3 10.3

Totaldowngraders

65 100 8 100 22 100 28 100 70 100 8 100 24 100 35 100 51 100 7 100 19 100 29 100

As shown in Table 3, Ls1 learners not only employed very few lexical downgraders in all situations, but also, at least twotypes of downgraders, the appealer and the cajoler, did not emerge in their data. These downgraders made their firstappearance in the Ls2 learners’ data. All types of downgraders employed by NSs appeared in the data of Ls2 and Ls3 learners.However, unlike NSs, these learners showed no particular preferences for specific downgraders in specific situations.

4.3. Verbal report results

The retrospective reports of the participants were analyzed according to the subjects’ responses to the interviewquestions with respect to the following parameters: (a) the learners’ focus of attention during the refusal interaction(cognition), (b) the goals that the learners’ tried to accomplish by means of their performance (intentions), (c) the learners’perceptions in regard to the degree of difficulty they faced and the appropriateness of their own answers (evaluation).

4.3.1. Cognition: learners’ focus of attentionThe basic prompt for the elicitation of the cognitive information that learners attended to during the interaction was the

question ‘‘What were you paying attention to when you refused in this situation?’’Many Ls1 learners (75%) noted that they were struggling to find the right grammar and vocabulary for their responses

to all situations. The following comments coming from this group’s data are characteristic:

(1)

14 D

Ls1#3 (Sit. 1: money to friend, �P,�D)14

There were many things I wanted to say but I didn’t know the words. I really needed a dictionary!

(2)
Ls1#6 (Sit. 3: borrow car, �P,+D)
ue to space limitations, I provide only the English translations of the participants’ answers, which were originally stated in Greek.


It just made me realize how much grammar I have to learn. I couldn’t form long sentences. I tried to say things correctly, butI think it was impossible.

These concerns seemed to decrease with increasing proficiency. Fewer intermediate learners (33.3%) claimed tofocus on grammar during the interaction, while no problems with grammar and vocabulary were mentioned by advancedlearners (Ls3).

Nevertheless, all learner groups appeared concerned with matters of politeness in all situations. This concern wasmost outstanding in the case of Situation 2 (+P,+D). The following comments are indicative:

(3)
Ls1#5 (Sit. 2: stay longer at work, +P,+D)
I tried to be more polite in this situation. It’s the boss I am talking to, my work depends on my relationship with her. I triedhard to provide a proper explanation for refusing, but my Greek is too poor, so I probably messed up.

(4)
I think this was the most tricky. And I did my best to explain, why I couldn’t stay, so the boss would not think I was rude. Ialso used the polite plural all the time.

What was characteristic about the advanced group’s reports, on the other hand, was the frequent expression (70%) ofexplicit concerns about the sociocultural parameters of the situations and the speech act of refusal itself. Examples of theircomments are:

(5)
Ls3#2 (all situations)
This made me think of how difficult it is to say ‘no’ in another language. [. . .] I mean, this is three different situations, so itcould be three different kinds of ‘no’. I am afraid if it really happened to me, if it was not just an experiment, I would just say‘yes’ to save myself the trouble. There are little details, I am sure, I have no idea about. This is a problem.

(6)
In all situations I knew what the problem was: I had to refuse, but I should sound polite in different ways. I am not sure Imanaged to do that. I am more satisfied with my answer in 2, but I am not sure about 1. I did what I thought best, I explainedand I made suggestions about how she could find the money, but I don’t know if I did what Greeks would do. As far as 3 isconcerned. . .well, this I am almost sure I messed up. You have to know the culture better to understand these relationships.

4.3.2. Intentions: learners’ goalsIn exploring the learners’ intentions the main prompt was the question ‘‘What were you trying to achieve by saying what

you said?’’All Ls1 learners agreed that their major aim was refusing without offending their interlocutors. Although this was most

prominent (91.6%) is Situation 2 (+P, +D), similar concerns were expressed about Situation 1 (�P,�D), especially by Ls2(58.3%) and Ls3 learners (50%).

(7)
Ls2#1 (Sit. 1: money to friend, �P,�D)
Well, I tried to explain why I had to say ‘no’ and I apologized profusely to her because I did not want to hurt her feelings. Sheis my friend, I don’t want her to think I don’t care.

(8)
I really tried to work out another solution. And I tried to show her I care for her problems, that I really wanted to help.All groups of learners claimed that they tried to keep a friendly relationship with their neighbor in Situation 3 (�P,+D),

despite refusing to comply to the request. Examples of their responses are the following:

(9)
Ls1#4 (Sit. 3: borrow car, �P, +D)
I apologized a lot, although I didn’t do anything wrong. I tried to show I was sorry that I couldn’t help.

(10)


This is someone that I am meeting every day probably. I thought that she was asking too much, but I tried to say ‘no’ asmildly as possible.

(11)

15 Se


I think this is absurd (the request) coming from someone you do not know well. I really didn’t know what to do, but I realizethat you have to be in good terms with your neighbor. So I tried to explain why I had to refuse and make anothersuggestion.

4.3.3. Evaluation: degree of difficulty and appropriatenessThe questions employed as prompts to elicit the learners’ perceptions on the difficulty of the task at hand and the

appropriateness of their answers were: ‘‘How difficult did you find it to answer?’’ and ‘‘Are you satisfied with your answers?’’.Many lower intermediate learners (Ls1) reported that all three situations presented great difficulties for them (75%).

They emphasized that they did not possess the ‘language’ necessary to give proper answers.15 The following example oftheir responses are indicative:

(12)
What I really wanted was to say ‘yes’ and get it over with! It was very difficult, I didn’t know what to say and I didn’t knowhow to go on.

(13)
I had a lot of trouble with this exercise. I kept saying ‘I am sorry’, but I am sure that is not what you do in Greek. That is notwhat we do in my language (Turkish)! We say many different things. But I don’t know how to do it in Greek.

However, only two intermediate speakers (Ls2) noticed that they had trouble with the second episode in Situation 2.Characteristically Ls2#7 commented:

(14)
I was very polite at first and I think that was OK, but then she asked again and I did not really know what to say. After that Idid not do so well, I think I sounded rude. . .I’m not sure.

Ls2 learners, on the other hand, claimed that they were rather pleased with their answers in Situation 2 (75%). Ls2#5,for instance, mentioned that:

(15)
I think I did well. It’s supposed to be my boss, so I had to be extra polite, use the polite plural and everything. I thinkapologizing and saying that next time I will do as required was necessary.

In their majority (83.3%), however, Ls2 learners reported that they were not satisfied with their answers in Situation 1.The following comment is indicative:

(16)
That was not good enough, I’m sure. I felt I did not know how to do it and I sounded very rude in the end. I don’t know howyou speak to a friend in Greek, I have no experience at all. I think the grammar was OK but sounding really concerned isdifferent, isn’t it?

Finally, these learners (66.6%) emphasized that they did not know how to handle Situation 3, which, in their words,‘‘was the most difficult of all’’ (Ls2#4).

Ls3 learners’ reports presented important similarities with those of the intermediate learners (Ls2). These learners alsostated that Situation 3 was the most troublesome for them to tackle, as indicated by the following comment.

(17)
e Bella (2012a:1938) for a similar comment of lower intermediate learners in regard to the production of requests.


This one was different. You can’t know for sure. I mean you are friendly with a friend and very polite with your boss, butwhat you do with a stranger, a neighbor you hardly know, I have no idea. I felt that at times I did not know what I was doing, Ihad no control over my own words.

Yet, like Ls2 learners, these speakers appeared particularly uncertain about their performance in Situation 1 (80%).It is worth noting at this point that the native speakers in their majority stated that they found it particularly difficult to

refuse in situations 1 and 2. The following response is indicative:

(18)

16 C

NS#3 (Sit. 1: money to friend, �P,�D/Sit. 2: stay longer at work, +P,+D)

Refusing in both these (1 and 2) was very difficult for me, but for different reasons. In this one (sit. 2) you have to say ‘no’ toyour boss. This is hard, I mean you depend on your boss to keep your job. If you can’t do it, he will find someone else whocan. I almost said ‘yes’ but you had told us not to. [. . .]This one (sit. 1) was different. It’s a friend in need. How can yourefuse? You have to say that you will try, at least.

On the contrary, no such problems were reported by NSs in regard to Situation 3. For instance, NS#8 reported that:

NS#8 (Sit. 3: borrow car, �P,+D)

It was kind of easy for me to refuse in 3. It was not like in 1 and 2 with the friend and the boss. Of course, you do want to bein good terms with your neighbors, but it’s not like they were your friends. You just have to be polite and sound a bitregretful and that’s that.

To sum up, the following general conclusions can be drawn from the participants’ verbal reports:

1. L
ower intermediate learners focused on both grammar and politeness, when refusing, whereas politeness and statusdifferences were intermediate and advanced learners’ major concerns. All groups seemed to give priority to providingproper explanations, apologizing and offering alternatives.
2. A
ll learner groups showed sociopragmatic awareness, but concerns about mapping sociopragmatic meaning to formseemed to increased with increasing proficiency.16
3. A
ll refusal situations presented equal difficulties for the lower intermediate learners. They attributed these difficultiesmainly to lack of adequate grammatical competence.
4. In
termediate and upper intermediate learner faced particular difficulties with Situation 3 (�P,+D). 5. N Ss found it easier to explicitly refuse to a mere acquaintance than to intimates or persons of higher status.
These conclusions will be taken into consideration in the discussion to follow.

5. Discussion

This section discusses the results of the study according to the research questions posited in Section 2 and involvedthe differences observed between NSs and learners in strategy selection and use and the potential role of grammaticaland sociocultural knowledge on the developmental patterns identified here. The discussion involves group-level analysesand takes into consideration the participants’ verbal reports.

5.1. Use and development of strategies

5.1.1. Directness, indirectness and adjunctsAs was shown in Section 4, NSs made very limited use of directness when refusing a request, especially in Situations 1

(�P,+D) and 2 (+P,+D). Nevertheless, an increase in the frequency of direct strategies was observed in Situation 3(�P,+D). As verified by their verbal reports, these NSs tended to be more direct when refusing a mere acquaintance’srequest. Lower intermediate learners (Ls1), on the other hand, were shown to rely heavily on directness in all Situations.This finding is consistent with previous research on the development of speech acts, especially requests, according towhich, the preference for direct strategies appears to be typical of the lower proficiency learners’ performance (Bella,2012a; Félix-Brasdefer, 2007; Hassall, 2003; Hill, 1997; Rose, 2002; Takahashi and Beebe, 1987). Furthermore,according to the aforementioned researchers the tendency toward directness declines with proficiency. This was, in fact,the case with the learners of this study: Directness appeared to decrease with proficiency, especially, in two of the

f. Bella (2012:1939) for a similar finding.


situations under examination (situations 1 (�P,+D) and 2 (+P,+D), with advanced learners approximating closely to thenative-speaker norm in this respect.

The decline of direct strategies with proficiency observed in the data, as well as the learners’ verbal reports, especiallythose of the Ls1 group, who stated that they considered their responses in all situations inadequate and even rude,provide evidence that directness on the part of lower proficiency learners is hardly a strategic choice. Rather, it appearsthat these learners resort to formulaic direct strategies, in order to achieve their interactional goal with clarity, since they donot possess adequate pragmalinguistic means to do it in an appropriate native-like fashion. Therefore, the findings of thestudy provide support for Takahashi & Beebe’ 1987 claim that ‘‘higher frequency of direct expressions among lowerproficiency learners [. . .] is most probably a developmental stage where simpler and also more direct expressions arebeing used’’ (1987:150). Furthermore, it lends support to Félix-Brasdefer’s (2007:274) contention that learners ‘‘have onlylimited competence of situational variation in the initial stages of FL development’’. Yet, this limited competence appearsto be strongly related with the limited linguistic and pragmalinguistic means early learners have at their disposal. Thisobservation is reinforced by the Ls1 learners verbal reports.

It has to be noted, however, that no significant difference emerged between Ls2 and Ls3 learners in Situation 3 (�P,+D),since the latter employed increased frequencies of directness compared to the previous two situations. Taking intoconsideration that NSs also employed increased levels of directness in this situation, it could be argued that increaseddirectness on the part of advanced learners was a deliberate strategic choice. Yet, this is probably not the case, since, asindicated by their verbal reports, these learners did not really know how to handle this situation appropriately. Therefore, it issuggested that the increased directness attested in their performance must probably be attributed to lack of socioculturalknowledge, which caused their interlanguage to ‘‘backslide’’, exhibiting phenomena typical of previous interlanguagestages. It appears, therefore, that the decrease of directness with proficiency is subject to situational constraints.

Another finding of this study concerned the increase in the frequency of indirect strategies and the expansion of therepertoire of these strategies that proficiency brought with it. Specifically, it was shown that intermediate and advancedlearners employed significantly more indirect strategies than Ls1 learners in all situations. Yet, no significant increase offrequency for indirect strategies was attested between Ls2 and Ls3. Moreover, both these groups were found to still lag farbehind NSs in this respect in two of the situations (Situations 1 (�P,�D) and 2 (+P,+D)). However, some developmentwas attested with respect to the type of strategies at the advanced level, since at least two of them (Condition for PastAcceptance and Wish) made their first appearance in the Ls3 learners’ data. This can be related to the current state of thelearners’ interlanguage and the teaching instruction they have been exposed to. Specifically, the use of the condition forpast acceptance in Greek requires the acquisition of the counterfactual conditional, a rather complex grammaticalstructure formed by the particle αν (‘if’) + imperfective past in the if-clause and the future particle θα + imperfective past/past perfect in the main clause (e.g. Aν τo ήξερα, θα τo κανoνιζα αλλιώς ‘If I knew, I would have made otherarrangements’). Moreover, the wish strategy is closely connected to the acquisition of the past imperfective form of thesubjunctive. Both these structures appear in the teaching syllabi and the textbooks for the upper-intermediate andadvanced levels of Greek. Therefore, their emergence in the Ls3 learners’ data is consistent with these learners’ currentproficiency level and can be taken as an indication of syntactic development that reinforces pragmalinguisticdevelopment. Along similar lines, the condition for future acceptance which is particularly frequent in the Ls2 learners’ datapresupposes the acquisition of the future tense and the factual conditional, typically taught at the intermediate levels.Therefore, its overwhelming appearance in the Ls2 learners’ data can be justified by the learners’ eagerness to applynewly acquired grammatical knowledge in order to serve sociopragmatic goals.

As already mentioned, one of the most striking findings in regard to the different groups’ use of indirect strategies involvedthe impressive frequency of indefinite replies and promises to try to comply in the native speakers’ refusals in Situations 1(�P,�D) and 2 (+P,+D). This finding is indicative of a tendency on the part of Greek speakers to avoid being definite whenrefusing a friend’s or a superior’s request. Indefinite replies and promises to try to comply were usually found to co-occur in theNSs’ contributions and were strategically employed to promote the negotiation of the refusal. Specifically, an indefinite replydeprives the refusal of any finality and provides ground for the interlocutor to further negotiate his/her request. Furthermore, itmakes the interlocutor feel that his/her request is not declined lightheartedly, but is taken under serious consideration.Therefore, the indefinite reply achieves a solidarity effect which is further reinforced by a promise to try to comply. The lattercan be considered a realization of Brown and Levinson’s offer/promise strategy, which is intended to ‘‘demonstrate S’s goodintentions in satisfying H’s positive-face wants’’ (Brown and Levinson, 1987:125). Hence, both these strategies have apoliteness effect which is compatible with the Greek society’s well-documented positive politeness orientation (see e.g.Antonopoulou and Sifianou, 2003; Bella, 2009, 2011, 2012a,b; Economidou-Kogetsidis, 2008; Makri-Tsilipakou, 2001;Pavlidou, 1994; Sifianou, 1992). The above claims are further reinforced be the NSs’ verbal reports, according to which theyfound it particularly difficult to refuse in Situations 1 (�P,�D) and 2 (+P,+D).

The fact that both these strategies are practically absent from the learners’ data reflects lack of sociocultural knowledgeand sociopragmatic development with respect to refusing a request in solidarity and status unequal situations in Greek.This lack of knowledge could be attributed to these speakers’ foreign language learner status. That is, as foreign language


learners, the participants of this study do not have adequate opportunities for social contact with native speakers and are,therefore, exposed to very limited sociopragmatic input.

Lack of adequate sociopragmatic input may also be the cause for the difference noted between NSs and learners in thecontent of reasons/explanations in Situation 2 (+P,+D). As already mentioned, in this situation, NSs resorted mainly inexplanations related to family and health. The fact that this type of explanations also appears in Greek requests andapologies (Bella and Sifianou, 2012; Bella, 2013) toward superiors, indicates that this is an established norm in the Greeksociety related strongly to its sociocultural values. Whereas, as shown by both the role play data and the learners’ verbalreports, providing ‘‘proper’’ explanations was of primary importance for learners, it is difficult for those that have not spent timein the Greek community to be aware of such norms and incorporate them appropriately to their sociopragmatic repertoire.

As was pointed out in Section 4, a further difference between the NSs and the learner groups involved the use ofapologies and expressions of regret. Specifically, NSs were found to disprefer apologies and to opt instead forexpressions of regret in order to mitigate the threatening effects of their refusals, especially in the two informal situations(1 (�P,�D) and 3 (�P,+D)). Although the use of apologies seemed to decline as proficiency increased, no markedincrease in the frequencies of expressions of regret was noted in these advanced learners’ data. It appears then that Ls1and Ls2 learners resort to formulaic use of apologies in order to express their dismay for the offensive aspects of theirrefusals, whereas Ls3 learners, having more pragmalinguistic means at their disposal, manage to make limited use of thisparticular strategy. However, the lack of exposure to authentic sociopragmatic input prevents them from acquiring theability to appropriately employ expressions of regret, which are typically used by the NSs in order to express ‘‘theirpsychological suffering because of their involvement in the offensive act’’ (Symeon, 2000:73) and to convince theaddressee of their good intentions and feelings, thus serving the purposes of the Greek positive politeness orientation.

Additionally, a notable difference was observed between NSs and the two more advanced learner groups in respect tothe syntactic formation and content of alternatives. As was shown in Section 4, unlike Ls1, whose use of alternatives wasvery limited, both Ls2 and Ls3 learners employed this strategy rather frequently. However, their alternatives differed fromthose of the NSs in that they were phrased mainly by means of imperatives or subjunctives functioning as imperatives.NSs’ alternatives on the other hand were mainly formed as interrogatives and, especially in Situations 1 (�P,�D) and 3(�P,+D), as negative-interrogatives. This comes hardly as a surprise, given the Greek speakers’ well-documentedtendency to phrase directives, in general, and suggestions, in particular, by means of negative-interrogative constructions(Bella, 2012a,b; Kallia, 2005). Nevertheless, it has been shown that both second and foreign language learners of Greekhave trouble with noticing and using this particular construction to mitigate their speech acts (Bella, 2012a,b). This may bedue both to these learners’ limited sociopragmatic knowledge and their general linguistic development. Specifically,negative interrogative constructions in Greek have a rather unusual syntactic structure formed by means of the negativeparticle δεν + present indicative (e.g. Δεν ζητάς απo κάπoιoν άλλoν; ‘[Why] don’t you ask someone else?). Furthermore,even the plain interrogative constructions used by the native speakers of this study present important lexical and syntacticdifficulties, since they are usually formed by the adverb μήπως (‘perhaps’) which functions as a downtoner + imperfectpast subjunctive (e.g. μήπως να σας πήγαινα εγώ; ‘perhaps I drive[imperfect past subjunctive] you?’). Therefore, the appropriateuse of alternatives by the learners implies not only knowledge of their pragmatic use, but also high levels of syntacticcompetence that even the advanced learners of this study do not seem to have reached. It is possible then, thatalternatives are a type of pragmatic strategy the appropriate use of which is, at least partially, restricted by these learners’grammatical competence.

A final remark in regard to indirect strategies, concerns the differences observed between NSs and the two moreadvanced learner groups (Ls2 and Ls3) in Situation 3 (�P,+D). As pointed out in Section 4, NSs employed less indirectstrategies in this particular situation than in the previous ones (Situations 1 (�P,�D) and 2 (+P,+D)). This is probablyconsistent with the belief expressed in their verbal reports that refusing to a mere acquaintance can afford more directnessand less mitigation. Ls2 and Ls3 learners, on the other hand, employed frequencies of strategies similar to the ones theydisplayed in their data in the other two situations. This indicates lack of sociocultural awareness of the native-like manner ofrefusing in such a situation. It seems that the insecurity expressed in their verbal reports in regard to the proper handling of thisrefusal situation led them to a contradictory behavior, i.e. to an increase of directness (see above) and, at the same time, to a‘‘play-it-safe’’ strategy in terms of which they opted for providing as much mitigation as possible in the form of indirectstrategies.

Turning now to the groups’ use of adjuncts, it was found that learners expanded their repertoire of these strategies fromthe intermediate level onwards, since both Ls2 and Ls3 learners employed significantly more adjuncts than their Ls1counterparts in all situations. However, no significant signs of development were attested from the intermediate to theadvanced level. Furthermore, even the advanced learners were found to lag far behind native speakers in respect to theuse of these strategies. It has to be pointed out that all the adjuncts identified in the present study’s native speaker’ data(expressions of willingness, expression of empathy, preparators, disarming comments, requests for additionalinformation) serve the purposes of positive politeness, in that they may be used to save the refuser’s positive face, toenhance the requester’s positive face, or to perform both these functions at the same time. Therefore, their rather


infrequent occurrence in the learners’ data deprives their refusals of the solidarity effect that is distinct in the nativespeakers’ data.

Furthermore, as mentioned in Section 4, important differences were attested among NSs on the one hand, andlearners on the other with respect to their preferred adjunct types. Specifically, NSs were found to strongly favorpreparators and expressions of empathy, which were rather infrequent in the learners’ data. It appears then that even theadvanced learners of this study are far from reaching native-like use of these strategies in mitigating their refusals.

Another difference involved the content and phrasing of disarming comments and expressions of willingness employedby the groups. NSs’ disarming comments were in their majority expressed formulaically, i.e. by means of the formula μη μεπαρεξηγείς (‘don’t misunderstand me’). Learners, on the other hand, used non-formulaic disarming comments and very oftenemployed comments such as μη θυμώσεις (‘don’t get angry’), which were rather inappropriate, especially in Situations 2(+P,+D) and 3 (�P,+D). It seems that this is a formula that the learners of the study have not managed to acquire. Finally, thelearners’ preference for expressions of willingness by means of the structure θα ήθελα (‘I would [want] like’) was markedlydifferent from those of the NSs, in that the latter preferred the present indicative θέλω (‘I want’). It is suggested here that theselearners tend to overgeneralize the formulaic request expression θα ήθελα, which is marked for tentativeness, due to the useof the past tense, and which has been found to be acquired rather early (Bella, 2012a). NSs, on the other hand, probably careto emphasize the certainty of their willingness to comply to their interlocutor’s request. To this end, they opt for the presentindicative θέλω. Therefore, the learners’ preference for θα ήθελα does not have the strong effect desired by NSs whenrefusing and request and could possibly lead them to some sort of pragmatic failure.

A final point regarding the use, distribution and development of refusal semantic formulas in this study, involves theoverwhelming use of indirect strategies and adjuncts by the majority of Ls2 learners in the first episode in all situations.Specifically, it was noted that these intermediate learners tended to be very verbose, employing a great number of strategiesin the first episode of the interaction, whereas they often turned terse and even blunt after the interlocutor’s insistence. It isworth noting, that a similar finding is reported in Bella (2011) in regard to second language learners’17 invitation refusals. AsKasper (1997b:350) contends, although the co-occurrence of verbosity and bluntness may appear contradictory, it ispossible for these phenomena to co-exist and derive from the same interlanguage properties, i.e. lack of adequate oradequately automatized pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic knowledge (cf. Bella, 2011:1734). The verbosity displayed atthe first episode of the Ls2 learners’ interactions, is a well-established feature of intermediate learners’ production (Blum-Kulka and Olshtain, 1986; Faerch and Kasper, 1989; Edmondson and House, 1991) and it is suggested here that its functionin this context is twofold: first, to fulfill the well-documented learners’ need to provide more information explicitly and thus addtransparency to their illocutionary goal (Blum-Kulka and Olshtain, 1986:177; Kasper, 1997a:30), since as outsiders to thetarget-community they tend to take less for granted. Second, it reflects these learners’ effort to attain the maximal politenesseffect.

Similarly to Bella (2011:1734), it is suggested here that, although the Ls2 learners do have several pragmalinguisticmeans at their disposal, they do not appear completely capable of employing them strategically in order to successfullymeet the sociocultural demands of the interaction. That is, the insecurity imposed by their linguistic and processingcapacity limitations leads them to employing as many mitigation means as possible in their initial refusal in order to be bothclear and polite. Yet, the interlocutor’s insistence finds them unprepared and prompts them to let illocutionarytransparency prevail over politeness. This behavior can be considered an instance of ‘‘modality reduction’’, i.e. a learners’communication strategy that directs them to omit some aspect of their communicative goal in order to accommodate it totheir processing capacity (Kasper, 1997b:350).

5.1.2. Lexical/phrasal downgradersLexical/phrasal downgraders were found to exhibit striking differences in frequency of use between the native

speakers and the three learner groups. Yet, there was some evidence of development, since advanced learners (Ls3)employed significantly more lexical downgraders than lower intermediate learners (Ls1) in all situations and Ls2 learnerswere found to lie in the middle displaying higher frequencies than Ls1, but lower than Ls3 learners. Against this backdrop,it could be claimed that proficiency correlates positively with lexical/phrasal downgrader use. However, even theadvanced learners of this study, were found to lag far behind native speakers in this respect.

This finding corroborates previous research results according to which learners face important difficulties in acquiring andemploying lexical/phrasal downgraders in order to mitigate their speech acts (22003; Bella, 2011, 2012a,b; Economidou-Kogetsidis, 2009; Faerch and Kasper, 1989; Trosborg, 1995). These difficulties have been mainly attributed to the increasedcomplexity that these elements tend to add to the pragmalinguistic structure used to realize a particular speech act (Trosborg,1995:428--429), which, in turn, leads to increased processing effort for its production (Hassall, 2001:271). This can be argued

17 This finding concerned second language learners of Greek with extended length of residence in the target community, but limitedopportunities for social contact with native speakers.


to be particularly valid for refusals, which are in themselves very complex and usually realized in multiple turns. As Barron(2003:234) argues, in realizing refusals, learners tend to focus on employing the basic strategies, while ‘‘the use of lexical andphrasal downgraders appears to fade in importance as they [the learners] employ a strategy of least effort’’.

Furthermore, unlike the native speakers of this study who showed preference for particular downgraders in eachspecific situation, none of the learner groups’ performance pointed to any particular situational variation in this respect. Forinstance, while NSs exhibited a marked preference for solidarity markers and cajolers, which are typical common groundseeking devices, in both equal status situations, and especially in Situation 1, no noticeable preferences for particulardowngraders depending on the situation, were attested in the learner groups’ data. Therefore, it cannot safely be claimedthat the increase of lexical downgraders attested here from the lower intermediate to the advanced level is reflective ofpragmalinguistic and, what is more, sociopragmatic development and not dependent on lexical acquisition. Against thisbackdrop, we have to agree with Maeshiba et al. (1996:160) who interpreting a similar result (by Trosborg 1987) arguedthat it is difficult to say whether such increase in lexical downgrader use ‘‘truly reflects a development of pragmalinguisticcompetence or merely an extension of the learners’ lexical repertoire’’.

Nevertheless, irrespective of its source, the limited and hardly strategic use of these mitigating devices attested in thepresent study’s learners performance deprives these learners of an important means of mitigating the face-threateningeffects of their refusals, not least because lexical/phrasal downgraders are considered typical indicators of positivepoliteness, as they tend to stress in-group membership, affect and involvement (Blum-Kulka, 2005 [1992]:267;Economidou-Kogetsidis, 2008:114).

5.2. Developmental patterns, grammatical competence and sociocultural knowledge

The findings of this study point to certain developmental patterns in the learners’ performance of refusals. Specifically,the lower intermediate learners (Ls1) typically exhibited a tendency toward unanalyzed formulas like direct refusals andapologies. Furthermore, although, according to their verbal reports, these learners were aware of the differences in regardto the sociocultural parameters of each situation, their performance did not appear to attend to specific relational goals andwas found to serve clarity in the cost of politeness. Ls2 and Ls3 learners’ performance on the other hand, exhibited a shiftto indirectness, emergence of new pragmalinguistic forms, increased use of mitigation and more complex syntax.Although, the developmental differences attested between the more advanced learner groups (intermediate andadvanced), were not significant in regard to all the strategies examined here, the decrease of direct strategies and theincrease of lexical/phrasal downgraders displayed from the intermediate to the advanced level point toward development.Moreover, the advanced learners (Ls3) appeared to be able to manage the conversation more efficiently, distributing theirstrategies evenly in the various episodes and thus managing to avoid phenomena of bluntness or abruptness, like theones attested in the two lower-level groups’ performance.

Against this backdrop, it could be claimed that the developmental stages proposed by Ellis (1992) and Achiba (2003)for the development of requests could be invoked to some extent for the patterns emerging here in regard to refusals.Specifically, it could be argued that the performance of the learner sample examined in this study ranges from a ‘‘basic/formulaic stage’’ characterized by formulaic use of strategies, rather simple grammar and a marked tendency towardclarity, to an ‘‘unpacking stage’’ typified by a marked shift toward indirectness and incorporation of formulas into productiveuse, up to a ‘‘pragmatic expansion stage’’ characterized by more complex syntax, increased mitigation and addition ofnew forms to the learners pragmalinguistic repertoire, as well as better control on the various pragmalinguistic means (seeAchiba, 2003; Ellis, 1992; Kasper and Rose, 2002).

Furthermore, the results of this study offer some insights on how certain pragmalinguistic features are related to theparticular grammatical knowledge implicated in their use (see Bardovi-Harlig, 1999). It turns out, that although in the initialstages learners indeed seem to rely on the pragmatic mode (Kasper and Rose, 2002:174), since they have not yet acquiredthe grammatical resources available to more proficient learners and native speakers, increased proficiency licenses moresophisticated use of pragmatic means. The use of condition of past acceptance and wish exclusively by the advancedlearners of this study support this claim. Moreover, it appears that even for advanced learners, lack of adequate grammarposes some restrictions on appropriate sociopragmatic performance, as indicated by the discrepancies noted betweenlearners and native speakers in the syntactic formulation of alternatives and the use of lexical/phrasal downgraders.18

Finally, it was shown here that even advanced FL learners lack adequate sociocultural knowledge that would allowthem to express their refusals in a more appropriate and native-like manner. The learners’ lack of awareness with respectto the importance of the use of indefinite replies and promises to try to comply in Greek refusals toward intimate and higherstatus interlocutors are indicative of this shortage in sociopragmatic means. A similar claim can be made in regard to thelearners’ observed preference for apologies instead of expressions of regret, which were typical of the native speakers’

18 I adopt Bardovi-Harlig’s (1999:686) definition of "grammar" to include the lexicon of the developing language.


refusals, as well as the differences observed between the learners’ and native speakers’ content of explanations in therefusals involved in Situation 2 (+P,+D). Moreover, the lack of appropriate formulas to express disarming commentsobserved in the learners’ sociopragmatic repertoire as well as the markedly limited use of lexical/phrasal downgraders arealso indicative of inadequate sociopragmatic knowledge. Last but not least, the learners’ expressed difficulty to handleSituation 3, and the marked discrepancies noted between their performance and that of the native speakers in this contextprovides additional evidence of the importance of the knowledge of sociocultural norms for pragmatic development.

It seems then, that, even the advanced learners of this study, have a long way to go before they achieve a native-likeperformance of refusals and reach what Achiba (2003) would call a ‘‘fine-tuning stage’’. Hence, although the results of thisstudy lend some support to Bialystok’s (1993) two-dimensional model, according to which, in the adult acquisition ofpragmatic competence the major task is to achieve control over pre-existing pragmalinguistic and sociopragmaticknowledge, whereas the acquisition of new sociopragmatic representations is considered ‘‘a relatively small problem’’(Bialystok, 1993:54), the extent to which this problem is really ‘‘small’’ in the case of FL learners developing the ability torefuse still remains to be seen. That is, additional research is needed, in order to determine the extent to which FL learnershave to acquire new pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic representations that will allow them to negotiate their refusals ina successful, native-like manner.

This final remark is related to the limitations of the present study, the most important of which concerns the limitednumber of participants and situations under investigation, as well as the ‘‘semi-authentic’’ nature of role play data. It is,therefore, imperative, that further cross-sectional and longitudinal research is conducted in larger learner populations,more situations and target-languages and -if possible- on the basis of authentic data, for safer conclusions to be reachedin regard to the nature of the development of the second/foreign language learners’ ability to refuse.

6. Conclusions

This study aimed to reveal developmental patterns in refusals produced by FL learners of Greek across three differentproficiency levels: lower intermediate, intermediate and advanced. It was shown that a great deal of development takes placefrom the lower intermediate to the advanced level, since, unlike lower intermediate learners, advanced learners were found toapproximate more closely to the native-speaker norm in terms of strategy selection and mitigation. Moreover, somedevelopment was also attested between intermediate and advanced levels, with the latter employing a wider range ofsemantic formulas and being able to negotiate their refusal more successfully, avoiding ‘bluntness’ phenomena that wereattested in the two less advanced learner groups’ data. Yet, even these advanced learners were found to lag far behind nativespeakers in several respects due to inadequate sociocultural knowledge. For instance it was shown that even advancedlearners were unable to employ strategies like indefinite replies and promises to try to comply in a strategic native-likemanner, in order to mitigate their refusals and to employ adequate and appropriate lexical/phrasal downgraders.

Furthermore, this study has indicated that although ‘‘high levels of grammatical competence do not guarantee concomitanthigh levels of pragmatic competence’’ (Bardovi-Harlig, 1999:686), in the case of refusals pragmatic competence is often ‘‘builton a platform of grammatical competence’’ (Bardovi-Harlig, 1999:686). More specifically, it was shown that the developmentof grammatical competence licenses the use of more and more variable pragmalinguistic means, whereas, at the same time,lack of acquisition of specific grammatical structures can hinder successful pragmatic performance.

All the above point to the need of pedagogical intervention the effectiveness of which has already been documented inthe case of refusals (see e.g. Bacelar da Silva, 2003; Kondo, 2008). It is suggested here that a teaching approachinvolving activities aimed at raising learners’ pragmatic awareness and offering opportunities for communicative practice(cf. Eslami, 2010), as well as activities encouraging the noticing of form-function pairings in refusal strategies, would allowFL learners to make informed pragmatic choices and facilitate their ability to refuse appropriately and successfully.

Appendix A

Classification of refusal strategies (adapted from Beebe et al., 1990)

a.
Direct 1. Performative statement (e.g. θα πρέπει να αρνηθώ ‘I will have to refuse’) 2. Non-performative ‘‘no’’ (e.g. oχι, απoκλείεται ‘No, it’s out of the question’) 3. Negative ability (e.g. δεν μπoρώ ‘I can’t’)
b.
Indirect 1. Reason/explanation (e.g. δεν έχω καθoλoυ λεϕτά ‘I have no money at all’) 2. Expression of regret (e.g. στενoχωριέμαι πoλύ, αλλά. . .‘I feel really bad, but. . .’)


3.
Apology (e.g. συγγνώμη ‘I am sorry’) 4. Alternative (e.g. να τo κάνω καλύτερα τη Δευτέρα; ‘shall I better do it on Monday?’) 5. Indefinite Reply (e.g. δεν ξέρω αν θα τα καταϕέρω ‘I don’t know if I’ll make it’) 6. Condition for future acceptance (e.g. άλλη ϕoρά θα μείνω περισσoτερo ‘next time I’ll stay longer’) 7. Condition for past acceptance (e.g. αν τo ήξερα νωρίτερα, θα τo είχα κανoνίσει αλλιώς ‘If I knew earlier, I would have
made other arrangements’)
8. Wish (e.g. μακάρι να μπoρoύσα ‘I wish I could’) 9. Promise to try to comply (e.g. θα πρoσπαθήσω να βρω μια λύση ‘I will try to find a solution’)
c.
Adjuncts to refusals 1. Willingness (e.g. θέλω πoλύ να σε βoηθήσω ‘I really want to help you’) 2. Disarming comment (e.g. μη με παρεξηγείς ‘don’t misunderstand me’) 3. Request for additional information (e.g. τα χρειάζεσαι τώρα αμέσως; ‘do you need it right now?’) 4. Preparator (e.g. τo πρoβλημα είναι oτι. . . ‘the problem is that. . .’) 5. Empathy (e.g. σας καταλαβαίνω, αλλά. . . ‘I understand, but..)
Appendix B

Lexical/phrasal downgraders (adapted from Barron, 2003)

� U
nderstaters (e.g. liγo ‘a little’, kapos ‘a bit’) � S ubjectivizers (e.g. fovame ‘I am afraid’, nomizo ‘I think’, fantazome ‘I guess’) � D owntoners (isos ‘perhaps’, mipos ‘maybe’, aplos ‘just’) � C ajolers (kseris ‘you know’, katalavenis ‘you understand/you see’) � A ppealers (entaksi? ‘all right?’ etsi? ‘okay?’) � S olidarity markers (e.g. diminutives, first name + possessive pronoun, re, more)
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