Interlanguage refusals : a cross-cultural study of Japanese-English / Susan M. Gass and Noël Houck.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gass, Susan M.

Contributor:

Houck, Nöel, 1942-

Series:

Studies on language acquisition ; 15.

Studies on language acquisition ; 15

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

English language--Study and teaching--Japanese speakers.

English language.

English language--Grammar, Comparative--Japanese.

Japanese language--Grammar, Comparative--English.

Japanese language.

Interlanguage (Language learning).

Intercultural communication.

Speech acts (Linguistics).

Physical Description:

x, 264 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Berlin ; New York : Mouton de Gruyter, 1999.

Summary:

Face-threatening speech acts such as refusals present particular problems for all human beings. These problems are exacerbated when individuals are not familiar with the culture in which these speech acts must be performed and do not have the communicative or linguistic facility to fully express their meanings. This book takes an in-depth look at the speech act of refusals as performed in English by native speakers of Japanese.

Contents:

1. The study of refusals 1

2. Refusals 2

3. Possible refusal trajectories 3

4. Categorizing refusal responses 7

4.1. Identifying refusal features 7

4.2. Classification systems 10

5. Studies of refusals 15

2. Issues of methodology 21

2. Data collection 23

2.1. Discourse completion tests 26

2.2. Role play 28

2.3. Other methodology comparisons 30

3. Video data 34

4. Data-base 34

5. Analysis of interactional aspects

Effect of open role play 36

5.1. Quantitative analysis 37

5.2. Qualitative analysis: Classifying the data 38

6. Analysis of nonverbal aspects

Effect of video 43

6.1. Nonverbal messages 44

6.2. Physical context 46

6.3. Directionality and intensity of attention 47

6.4. Affect 49

6.5. Disadvantages 50

3. Episodes 55

2. The episode 56

3. A complete refusal sequence 59

4. Analysis 66

4.1. Quantitative analysis 67

4.2. Qualitative analysis 68

5. Interpretation 78

4. Non-native management of back channels in English refusals 81

2. Back channels 82

3. Head movement 86

4. Japanese and English nonverbal indicators 91

5. Issues of methodology 93

6. Analysis 93

6.1. Ability 94

6.2. Distribution: High frequency contexts 97

6.3. Distribution: A low frequency context 98

5. Nonverbal behavior in non-native English refusals 107

2. Nonverbal behavior 108

2.1. Strategic uses of nonverbal behavior 109

2.2. Cross-cultural differences in nonverbal behavior 110

3. The data 112

4. Comparison of non-native speakers' nonverbal behavior 118

4.1. Rie's nonverbal behavior 119

4.2. Ryo's nonverbal behavior 120

4.3. Mie's nonverbal behavior 121

5. Comparison of nonverbal activity of the three non-native speakers 128

6. Pragmatic communication strategies 131

1.1. Communication strategies 132

1.2. Pragmatic communication strategies 135

3. General results 139

3.1. Question one: Outcomes 139

3.2. Question two: Refusal orientation 140

3.3. Question three: Strategies 143

4. Japanese pragmatic communication strategies 143

4.1. Bluntness 144

4.2. Indications of linguistic or sociocultural inadequacy 146

4.3. Use of the L1 149

4.4. Sequential shifts in goal, semantic formula, or content 150

4.5. Nonverbal expressions of affect 154

7. Searching for common ground 157

1. Conversational expectations 157

2. Refusal structure 163

3. Getting the interaction back "on track" 163

3.1. Requests for reasons 165

3.2. Unacceptable moves 166

3.3. Establishing propositions "in play" 167

8. Language use and language learning 173

2. Second language acquisition, negotiation of meaning and negative evidence 174

2.1. Interaction hypothesis 176

2.2. Language knowledge 180

2.3. Specific kinds of evidence 183

2.4. Availability of evidence 186

3. Attention and noticing 188

4. Interlanguage pragmatics 196

4.1. The development of pragmatic knowledge 196

4.2. Negotiation of meaning 200.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [227]-245) and indexes.

ISBN:

3110163861

311016387X

OCLC:

40954204