Refusals

Refusal can be a difficult speech act to perform. As a disprefered response, it is complicated in form and it usually involves various strategies to avoid offending one’s interlocutor. For second language learners with linguistic limitations, performing refusals successfully may require a higher level of pragmatic competence than other target language speech acts. Thus there is a need for pragmatic instruction in order to help learners interpret and realise this speech act successfully. Based on previous research on the speech act of refusal and studies in instructional pragmatics, this chapter proposes a teaching approach that includes both awareness raising and production activities. The instructional strategies involve learners in translation, data collection, data analysis, reflection, and role-play activities.