English is the one of the most widely used language in the globalization era. Successful communication through an English requires not only achieving linguistic knowledge, but also acquiring appropriate pragmatic and sociolinguistic ability which enab... English is the one of the most widely used language in the globalization era. Successful communication through an English requires not only achieving linguistic knowledge, but also acquiring appropriate pragmatic and sociolinguistic ability which enables to speak language situationally appropriate. Therefore, learning proper speech acts is also emphasized for Korean EFL learners. In particular, speech acts of refusal require a high level of pragmatic competence because it is complicated than other speech acts and it usually involves face-threatening acts on the part of speakers. For these reasons, it is significant for Korean EFL learners to use appropriate refusal strategies depending on a situation. The purpose of this study is to investigate on the Korean EFL learners’ speech acts of refusal by using the computer based oral discourse completion task. Also, the present study is to examine whether social variables such as social power and social distance affect the refusal strategies of Korean EFL learners, native English speakers and native Korean speakers. The participants of this study were thirty Korean EFL learners, five native speakers of English and five native speakers of Korean. The thirty Korean EFL learners were divided into two group, by fifteen high proficiency group and fifteen low proficiency group. The research tool employed in this study was a computer based oral discourse completion task (ODCT). 20 situation was provided to participants which was combination of social power and social distance for research. The situation in this questions were manipulated by social power and social distance factors, dividing the question types into five categories: (P/, D/), (P/, D-), (P=, D=), (P-, D/) and (P-, D-). This task was provided in computer program in two version: (a) English version for Korean EFL learner group and Native speakers of English group; (b) Korean version for Native speakers of Korean group. For both versions, all the participants were asked to refuse for the situations and their answers were recorded and transcribed. The analysis of result data were conducted in reference to the prior studies done by Takahashi and Beebe(1987) and Beebe et al.(1990). The current findings demonstrated that there were similarities and differences in their refusal strategies between four groups. First, in the refusal strategy frequency, among the groups, the Korean EFL high proficiency group used the refusal strategies most frequently as well as using the most diverse strategies, followed by the Korean EFL low proficiency group. Also it showed that Korean EFL learners group used more frequent refusal strategies than native speakers of English group due to verbosity phenomenon that is typically found in nonnative speakers. Second, all the groups predominantly employed indirect strategies. Especially native speakers of Korean group used indirect strategies most frequently followed by native speakers of English group. On the other hands, for the frequency of direct strategies, among the groups, native speakers of English group employed more often than Korean EFL learners and native speakers of Korean group. As for the use of adjunct strategies, Korean EFL high proficiency group favored expression of gratitude as the most frequent strategy and they used more frequent adjunct expression than any other groups. Third, aside from expression of reason, excuse, and explanation, which were strategies used most frequently for every situation by every group, in the P/, D- situation, expression of regret was more frequently utilized than in other situations. The Korean EFL low proficiency group especially relied on this strategy. Also in the P=, D= situation, non-performative direct strategy was used more frequently than in the situation of interlocutors’ social status was high. This demonstrate that the interlocutors’ social status, especially power variables, affected the refusal strategies for all groups. Fourth, in P-, D/ situation, most favored five strategies were same as P/, D/ situation. However, noticeable thing was that expression of attempt to dissuade interlocutor strategy was the used most frequently which shows that situational factors affect the speakers’ use of strategies. Finally, in the last situation which was P-, D-, except for Korean EFL low proficiency group, direct refusal strategy was used most frequently among the all situations. Particularly, native speakers of Korean group’s usage of direct strategy was noticeably increased compare to other situations and also frequency of using direct strategy in Korean EFL groups were increased as interlocutors’ social power is getting lowered. These findings could support that sociocultural values and norms embedded in Korean culture were represented in speech act realization of Korean EFL learners in some way. On the basis of these findings, a few educational implications can be drawn to teaching refusal strategies for Korean EFL learners. First, in teaching English speech of acts of refusal, teacher should teach explicitly to help learners to comprehend various refusal expression. Second, English teacher should teach the learners authentic refusal strategies which is prevalently used by native English speakers. Lastly, English learners and English teacher should have awareness of cultural differences that involves in conducting a refusal strategies. ，免费韩语论文，韩语论文 |
