The interlanguage studies of the speech act of refusals have been conducted in a variety of cultures and languages while little attention has been paid to interlanguage refusals made by Chinese EFL learners in Taiwan. The present study investigated the perception and performance of the speech act of refusals made by Chinese EFL learners at high (EFL-Hs) and low (EFL-Ls) proficiency levels compared with two baseline groups, Chinese L1 (CL1s) and American English L1 (EL1s). Data used for analysis in the study consisted of 3,543 expressions of refusal elicited from Discourse Completion Tasks (DCTs) performed by 180 college students (60 Chinese EFL learners, 60 Chinese native speakers and 60 English native speakers in North America). Based on Beebe et al.¡¦s coding system (1990), the refusal strategies were examined as direct refusals, indirect refusals, and adjuncts to refusals. Results revealed that when refusing, face is the major concern for speakers of the two cultures. However, cross-cultural differences were observed. Chinese L1 participants, under the influence of collectivistic culture value, distinguished ingroups and outgroups clearly. On the other hand, in English L1 group, equality is emphasized under the effect of individualistic cultural value. As to the performance of refusals, though both Chinese and English native speakers showed a preference for indirect refusals than direct refusals and the same range of refusal strategies were available for the four groups, the differences were observed in preference and frequency of use the refusal strategies, and also the content of the actual realization. Moreover, different ways of refusal modification were also favored by Chinese and English native speakers. Furthermore, results revealed a positive correlation between EFL learners¡¦ English proficiency and their interlanguage pragmatic competence. However, there was still a high degree of interlanguage variation in the use of refusal strategies among the EFL groups. It is suggested that in order to perform speech acts appropriately in different cultures, both speakers¡¦ perception and production should be emphasized in the future interlanguage researches, which would supply evidence of cross-cultural differences in social values and other motivating factors that could help interpret the EFL learners¡¦ realization of speech acts and gain a better understanding of interlanguage speech act of refusals.

This study investigates refusals of requests and offers utilised by speakers of Iraqi Arabic and British English, as well as by Iraqi learners of English. It aims to identify the strategies of refusal employed by these three groups of speakers, as well as any differences between them. 60 subjects participated in this study. 20 Iraqi Arabic Speakers (IAs), 20 Iraqi Learners of English (ILEs), and 20 British English Speakers (BEs). The elicitation method adopted for the data collection consisted of a discourse completion test (DCT) and a series of open-ended role plays. In both cases, the scenarios employed varied systematically along the following parameters: social status, social distance, rank of imposition and gender. The data obtained by both methods were categorised into a number of strategies. An attempt was made to provide a comprehensive description of the nature of refusal strategies used by the subjects. The strategies identified were categorised following the Beebe et al (1990) scheme of refusals. In addition, they were classified according to the (im)politeness superstrategies posited by Brown and Levinson (1987) and Culpeper (1996). The results indicate that the choice of refusal strategies reflects characteristics of Iraqi versus British English culture. These results are as follows: 1. Although both groups of subjects displayed sensitivity to the social factors referred to above, the relative influence of each factor differed from one group to another. Thus, Iraqi Arabic Speakers (IAs) and Iraqi Learners of English (ILEs) varied their refusal strategies mainly according to status and distance, while British English Speakers (BEs) did so mainly according to status and gender. Besides, the responses of the three groups were influenced by the degree of imposition.2. The application of refusals employed by the three groups differed according to the eliciting method, namely, the DCT and the Role-Play. Consequently, various refusal strategies collected via the Role Play did not appear in the data collected by the DCT and vice versa. 3. Certain strategies employed by Iraqi speakers of Arabic were nonexistent in the data of British English speakers and vice versa. 4. The study of the interlanguage of Iraqi learners of English as a foreign language also confirmed the hypothesis that there is evidence for pragmatic transfer in the order, the frequency and the content of semantic formulae used.

Pragmatics in Arabic needs to be studied for two main reasons: first, the large cultural difference between American and Middle Eastern society; and second, the recent surge in demand for Arabic speakers in the US. Especially in regard to refusals, what is acceptable in America is rarely acceptable in Arabic speaking countries. There are very few occasions when refusal of an offering of food or other hospitalities is acceptable. Arab culture requires one to provide family members with anything they need, including money. If that is not possible it is required to find the means for what they need. American culture permits one to deny help in certain circumstances, but Arab culture does not. The inability of the US to meet its demand for Arabic speakers demonstrates the importance of research in Arabic pragmatics. Whenever the Middle East is at the forefront of world-wide media, the demand for Arabic instruction in the US increases. Since September 11th, the Middle East has been in the forefront of the news, causing an unprecedented rise in need for Arabic programs. Study abroad programs have the ability to help universities prepare their students both linguistically and culturally. This study examines Brigham Young University's Fall 2004 Egypt study abroad program and how its students were able to improve their knowledge of Arabic pragmatics.

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Previous research has shown some significant differences in the way speech acts are made and responded to in different cultures and languages. This study investigates two speech acts in particular, compliments and refusals, in two specific cultures, England and Poland. The project investigates the role of emotions in communication and social interaction with reference to these speech acts, which are particularly interesting due to their opposite emotional valence: compliments are perceived as positive and refusals are negative. English and Polish compliments and refusals are investigated as the two cultures are often perceived as proximate, which suggests that the observed differences will be particularly interesting as they have the potential to shed light on important and yet intractable distinguishing features of the two cultures. The research has two lines of investigation: theoretical and empirical. The theoretical aspect of research aims to bring together insights on the role of emotions in communication and a cognitive perspective on communication to explain the functions of compliments and refusals in social interaction and the relation between the cognitive and affective aspects of the production and reception of these speech acts. The empirical part of the research is based on an original study that presents new insights into complimenting and refusing behaviour in English and Polish culture. The comparison of English and Polish findings reveals many similarities in complimenting behaviour and some striking differences in refusing behaviour (most notably, Polish speakers tend to be less congruent than English speakers when making refusals and their refusals tend to be more detailed and more elaborate). The pragmatic analysis of the data has some interesting implications for the classification of compliment responses, suggesting that the classification should be based on appreciation, rather than on acceptance or rejection.

This thesis investigates the legal validity of living wills (advance directives) in South Africa. The study explores the current status of living wills in South Africa and contains recommendations on how legal enforceability of living wills can be improved in the South African context. The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996, the common law and the National Health Act, 61 of 2003, serve as basic points of departure for this investigation. Shortcomings in the current South African legislation and proposed draft legislation including the Law Commission’s Draft Bill on End of Life Decisions, 1998, and The National Health Amendment Bill, 2019, as well as shortcomings in the common law, the field of medical ethics and medical practice are indicated and recommendations for an improved framework are made. For purposes of a legal comparative methodology, the legal frameworks of living wills in the Netherlands, England and Canada are investigated. Specific circumstances which could potentially hamper the legal enforcement of living wills are discussed, including: emergency situations, do-not-resuscitate orders, permanent vegetative states, dementia, cessation of artificial hydration and feeding, pregnancy, euthanasia, assisted suicide, palliative care, pain relief and organ donation. It is argued that a living will could be an important tool in enhancing the doctor-patient relationship, not only to the benefit of the autonomous patient whose dignity and other fundamental human rights should be protected, but also to the benefit of the doctor as the medical care provider. / Thesis (LLD)--University of Pretoria, 2019. / Public Law / LLD / Unrestricted

本研究主要探討台灣學生英語的拒絕語言行為(refusal speech act)與美國學生之異同，並探討社會地位高低及啟始行為(initiating acts)兩個變數對語言行為之影響。此外在拒絕時,所使用的句法修飾(syntactic mitigation)及詞彙修飾(lexical mitigation)之類型與頻率,其所用的句型是否與美國學生不同, 以進一步探究學習者母語對其中介語(interlanguage)是否有負面移轉作用。 本研究採用質性及量化研究方法，研究對象為40位以中文為母語的大學學生, 40位英語為母語的美國大學學生,及40位學習英語為外語的大學學生, 各組男女各半。研究工具為言談填充測驗(Discourse Completion Test), 包含12個不同情境(4個請求, 4個建議, 4個邀請),藉此問卷收集受試者語言行為之表現。 本研究的主要發現如下：間接拒絕策略是最常被三組學生使用的拒絕行為。其次,社會地位高低及啟始行為(initiating acts)兩個變數下對三組學生語言行為有不同影響, 而以後者影響尤鉅。除此之外, 台灣學生的英語中介語的語用能力,不僅反映在句法修飾及詞彙修飾兩方面, 同時在直接拒絕行為也與美國大學學生有顯著差異。本文進一步發現學習者母語對拒絕行為之影響, 拒絕之語序及直接與間接拒絕策略的負面移轉作用。本論文並提出教學上之應用建議，讓學生英語學習更有成效。 / Refusals can be regarded as a pragmatic universal, but refusal performance varies with cultures and is constrained by factors like status and initiating acts. However, the relative weight of these factors placed on each type of refusal strategy varies from culture to culture, or even within the same speech community due to intra-lingual variations (Blum-Kulka, 1987). In order to find out the complexity of cross-cultural differences in the realization of this face-threatening act, we investigated refusal speech acts performed by native speakers of Mandarin Chinese, EFL learners and native speakers of American English with the variation of social status and initiating acts. In addition, we compared EFL learners and Americans on linguistic structures including common directive forms, syntactic and lexical refusal mitigation as well as types of errors in the interlanguage of refusals. We also observed evidence of negative pragmatic transfer in EFL learners’ performance in three main categories of refusal strategies and refusal sequences, and tried to explain the causes of the transfer. Three groups of subjects participated in this study: 40 native speakers of American English (NE), 40 native speakers of Mandarin Chinese (NC), 40 Chinese EFL low-intermediate proficiency learners. They were asked to react by writing in the format of discourse completion task (DCT), which consisted of scripted dialogues with the manipulation of the interlocutors’ social status and initiating acts. The results were coded based on the taxonomy developed by Beebe, Takahashi and Uliss-Weltz (1990), and were analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively. Results showed that indirect refusals were the most frequently used main strategy type in the three groups examined. The effect of social status and initiating acts affected the three groups’ performance to a different degree; initiating acts seemed to be a more decisive force in influencing groups’ refusal behaviors. In terms of refusal mitigation, we have found that significantly more syntactic mitigation like interrogatives, conditionals, conditional clause, etc. were employed by Americans to soften the force of refusals. However, similar to the findings in Chen (2006), EFL learners mainly limited their use of modality in their refusals on types of deontic and epistemic modalities whereas Americans were more flexible in using different kinds with the variation of context. Generally, EFL learners’ refusal performance exhibited deviations from native speakers’ norms. Therefore pedagogical implications were suggested which included that teachers should build up EFL learners’ linguistic knowledge, teacher-fronted talk can be supplemented by additional activities that broaden the range of speech acts and provide a broader opportunities for learners. Also, instructors should provide contextual information regarding the similarities and/or differences between L1 and the target language under the influence of social status. Types of initiating act should be included in EFL teaching so that students’ awareness of these social constraints could be activated and they can integrate such information to facilitate their interlanguage system.

This study investigates the refusal realizations of native speakers of American English (AE), Turkish (TUR) and Turkish learners of English with advanced level of proficiency (TRE). It aims to uncover the refusal strategies of young AE, TUR and TRE in conversations between equals and also to uncover if the learners display pragmatic transfer in their refusal strategies. In addition to this, the extent to which the social variables of level of closeness and refusal eliciting acts affect the refusal productions of each group is pursued. The thesis also aimed to provide an explanation for the rapport management orientations of the three examined groups when refusing equal-status interlocutors. To this end, the data are collected from three different groups using a Discourse Completion Test (DCT), which is developed out of the situations in a TV Serial. The analysis of data is done manually and each refusal is coded. CLAN CHILDES is utilized in order to see the typical combinations of refusal semantic formulae used by three groups. Later, PASW is used to run descriptive statistics and calculate the frequency and percentages of refusal strategies/semantic formulae. The results of the study show that refusals and rapport management orientations while refusing status equal interlocutors are culture and situation specific and they differ both cross-culturally and intra-culturally. Research findings also reveal that TRE often produce pragmatically appropriate refusals because refusal strategies they use correspond to those of AE. However, there are some cases in which the evidence of pragmatic transfer are observed with respect to the frequency of certain semantic formula usages.

當談到外語教學時，教材具有相當重要性。其中，教科書更被視為重要的一環，是教師教學的主要資源，也是學生學習的重要指引。因此，教科書評鑑自然地受到重視。透過教科書評鑑，教師能對於教科書有適當認知並妥善利用教科書，另一方面，教科書評鑑能作為編撰者和出版商檢討與改進的參考。然而，文獻有許多有關教科書評鑑的研究，卻很少是從語言行為方面檢視臺灣高中生所使用的英文教科書。 本研究之主要目的為分析讚美、拒絕、請求三種語言行為如何呈現在三民、龍騰、遠東三套不同版本高中英文課本內的對話教材中。首先，統計三種語言行為在三套教科書內的對話中出現的頻率。接著，檢視這三種語言行為在三套教科書呈現的方式並判斷他們是否主要以美國觀點呈現。最後，探索三套教科書和教師手冊是否有提供相關語言行為的跨文化解釋。 研究結果顯示，三套教科書皆呈現三種語言行為，但是各版本著墨不一。另外，三種語言行為在三套教科書呈現的方式並不是完全採用美國觀點。更重要的是，三套教科書和教師手冊中幾乎沒有提供跨文化解釋。 本研究的發現能提供給對語言行為教學有興趣的老師和研究人員參考。研究結果希望激勵教科書編撰者、出版商以及教師重視語言行為教學，並期盼能協助教科書編撰者在未來補強三套教科書中對話教材不足之處。 / When it comes to foreign language teaching, teaching materials, without doubt, have been of vital importance. Textbooks, for teachers, serve as the major teaching resources. They are identified as important guidelines for students as well. Therefore, textbook evaluation has naturally received attention. Through textbook evaluation, for one thing, teachers can gain a proper understanding of textbooks, then making good use of them. For another thing, it enables textbook editors and publishers to examine and improve on textbooks. Although there have been many studies regarding textbook evaluation, few of them have been done on speech act behavior in senior high school English textbooks in Taiwan. The main goal of the current study is to analyze how the three speech acts, compliments, refusals, and requests, are presented in the conversation sections of the three series of the senior high school English textbooks, published by San Min, Lung Teng, and Far East. First of all, the frequency of compliments, refusals, and requests in the three series of the textbooks was examined. The next part was to look at how the three speech acts were presented in these textbooks and whether they showed American preference. Lastly, cross-cultural comparisons and contrasts in the textbooks and their corresponding teachers’ manuals were scrutinized. The results revealed that the three series of the textbooks examined presented the three speech acts in different proportion. Additionally, they were not completely presented in American ways. More importantly, there were few cross-cultural explanations found in the textbooks and their corresponding teachers’ manuals. The findings of the present study can work as reference for teachers and researchers interested in the teaching and learning of speech act behavior. They may motivate textbook editors and writers as well as teachers to place great emphasis on how to teach speech acts well. Last but not least, textbook compilers can compensate for the limitations of the conversation sections of senior high school textbooks in Taiwan in future materials development.

The teaching of pragmatics is often neglected in foreign language classes despite the wellknown importance of pragmatic competence. No matter how well a learner masters thetarget language, errors of a pragmatic nature may lead to major communicative failure orturbulence. Both studies in language teaching and current language educational laws inSweden (following the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages) pointtowards the necessity for the learner to be pragmatically proficient. Following these lines,textbooks are expected to mirror curricula and educational laws. The present study aimsto address this very issue and investigates the pragmatic content of ELT books in Swedenwith a specific focus on lower and upper secondary school (year 6, 9 and last year ofupper secondary school). The study has as its primary data set three ELT books from thesame publisher and extensively used in Swedish schools, namely Good Stuff Gold A,Good Stuff Gold D, and Blueprint C 2.0. The presence of pragmatic content isinvestigated through the method of content analysis of the textbooks focusing on threespeech acts - greetings, requests, and refusals. The first part of the study is complementedby semi-structured interviews complemented with two teachers of English in Sweden.The findings point to considerable differences in the representation of the three speechacts in the books, with regression from lower to higher levels, and the interviews with theteachers reveal that teachers' complementary activities often compensate for the lack ofpragmatic content in the books. The findings from the present study reveal shortcomingsof the selected textbooks omitting important information, something that might hinderstudents from developing communicative competence. The findings of the present studyhave the potential to inform the practices of teaching professionals in their efforts to teachpragmatic competence.