Mitigation in Turning down Business Proposals across Cultures: The Case for Pragmatic Competence Instruction

Antoon Gewijde Herwig De Rycker

Abstract


Writing ‘bad news’ messages in English constitute a skill critical to interpersonal effectiveness in today’s global marketplace. This study investigates the rejection (or refusal) strategies that native and non-native speakers use naturally, i.e. without the help of explicit pragmatic competence instruction. The data consist of the letters of rejection written by higher education students in response to a business proposal. These letters were analyzed in terms of four dimensions: meaning components, organizational approach and indirectness (using a framework derived from Félix-Brasdefer 2006) and the speech acts of apologizing and thanking (Wannaruk 2008). Results show that the student rejections display more variation, and even randomness, than predicted by the literature. Additionally, national culture and language appear to be much less of an explanatory factor than the students’ shared subcultural identity and exposure to similar models of communication. Overall, the data allow us to conclude that not only non-native but also native student writers would benefit from pedagogical interventions  aimed at raising genre awareness and improving their intercultural pragmatic competence.

 

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17576/3L-2014-2001-07


Full Text:

PDF

References


Al-Eryani, A. A. (2007). Refusal strategies by Yemeni EFL learners. Asian EFL Journal, 9(2), 19–34.

Aliakbari, M., & Changizi, M. (2012). On the realization of refusal strategies by Persian and Kurdish speakers. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 36(5), 659-668.

Al-Shboul, Y., Marlyna Maros, M., & M. Subakir Mohd Yasin (2012). An intercultural study of refusal strategies in English between Jordanian EFL and Malay ESL postgraduate students. 3L: The Southeast Asian Journal of English Language Studies, 18(3), 29–39.

Al-Zumor, A. W. Q. G. (2011). Apologies in Arabic and English: An inter-language and cross-cultural study. Journal of King Saudi University – Languages and Translation, 23, 19–28.

Atkinson, D. (2004). Contrasting rhetoric/contrasting cultures: Why contrastive rhetoric needs a better conceptualization of culture. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 3(4), 277–289.

Beebe, L., Takahashi, T., & Uliss-Weltz, R. (1999). Pragmatic transfer in ESL refusals. In Scarcella, R., Andersen, E.S., & Krashen, S. (Eds.), Developing communicative competence in second language (pp. 55–73). New York: Newbury House.

Bell, N. (2011). Humor scholarship and TESOL: Applying findings and establishing a research agenda. TESOL Quarterly, 45(1), 134–159.

Biesenbach-Lucas, S. (2007). Students writing emails to faculty: An examination of e-politeness among native and non-native speakers of English. Language Learning & Technology, 11(2), 59–81.

Bovee, L., & Thill, J. (2008). Business communication today (9th Ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Brandt, D. (2005). Writing for a living: Literacy and the knowledge economy. Written Communication, 22(2), 166–197.

Brent, D. (1985). Indirect structure and reader response. Journal of Business Communication, 22(2), 5–8.

Brown, P., & Levinson, S. (1987) Politeness: Some universals in language usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

DeCapua, A., & Findlay Dunham, J. (2007). The pragmatics of advice giving: Cross-cultural perspectives. Intercultural Pragmatics, 4(3), 319–342.

De Rycker, T. (2006). The impact of international business games on improving cultural awareness and writing proficiency: An evaluation of the “Course in International Business Writing” (1994–2004). Scripta Manent, 2(2), 3–13.

El-Okda, M. (2011). Developing pragmatic competence: Challenges and solutions. The Asian EFL Journal Quarterly, 13(2), 169–198.

Eun, J., & Tadayoushi, K. (2006). Effects of L2 instruction on interlanguage pragmatic development: A meta-analysis. In J. Norris & L. Ortega (Eds.), Synthesizing research on language learning and teaching (pp. 165–112). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Félix-Brasdefer, J. C. (2006). Linguistic politeness in Mexico: Refusal strategies among male speakers of Mexican Spanish. Journal of Pragmatics, 38, 2158–2187.

Ferris, D. (2004). The “grammar correction” debate in L2 writing: Where are we, and where do go from here? (and what do we do in the meantime …?). Journal of Second Language Writing, 13, 49–62.

Goffman, E. (1967). Interaction ritual. Garden City, NY: Doubleday

Guffey, M., & Loewy, D. (2013). Essentials of business communication (9th Ed.). Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning.

Hinkel, E. (1994). Pragmatics of interaction: Expressing thanks in a second language. Applied Language Learning, 5(1), 73–92.

Hofstede, G. (1999). Cultures and organizations: Intercultural cooperation and its importance for survival. Glasgow, UK: HarperCollins.

Hollett, V. (2007). Learning to speak ‘merican. The Newsletter of the Business English Special Interest Group, 67, 8–10.

Hyland, K. (2002). Teaching and researching writing. Harlow, England: Pearson Education.

Jautz, S. (2013). Thanking formulae in English: Explorations across varieties and genres. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Kasper, G., & Dahl, M. (1991). Research methods in interlanguage pragmatics. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 13, 215–247.

Kia, E., & Salehi, M. (2013). The effect of explicit and implicit instruction of English thanking and complimenting formulas on developing pragmatic competence of Iranian EFL upper-intermediate level learners. Journal of Basic and Applied Scientific Research, 3(8), 202–215.

Limaye, M. (1994). Buffers in bad news messages and recipient perceptions. Journal of Business Communication, 31(3), 173–193.

Jinghui Liu, J. (2009). Intercultural rhetorical pattern differences in English argumentative writing. Journal of English as an International Language, 4, 93–109.

Lempert, M. (2012). Indirectness. In C. Bratt Paulston, S., F. Kiesling, & E. S. Rangel (Eds.), The handbook of intercultural discourse and communication (pp. 180–204). Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons.

Locker, K. (1999). Factors in reader responses to negative letters: Experimental evidence for changing what we teach. Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 13(1), 5–48.

Maros, M. (2006). Apologies in English by adult Malay speakers: Patterns and competence. The International Journal of Language, Society and Culture, 19, 1–14.

Martínez-Flor, A., & Usó-Juan, E. (2011). Research methodologies in pragmatics: Eliciting refusals to requests. Estudios de Lingüística Inglesa Aplicada 1, 47–87.

Mey, J. (Ed.) (2009). Concise encyclopedia of pragmatics. Oxford: Elsevier.

Nelson, G., Al Batal, M., & El Bakary, W. (2002). Directness vs. indirectness: Egyptian Arabic and US English

communication style. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 26, 39–57.

Nguyen, T. (2013). Instructional effects on the acquisition of modifiers in constructive criticism by EFL learners. Language Awareness, 22(1), 76–94.

Okamura, A., & Shaw, Ph. (2000). Lexical phrases, culture, and subculture in transactional letter writing. English for Specific Purposes, 19, 1–15.

Rose, K. (2005). On the effects of instruction in second language pragmatics. System, 33(3), 385–399.

Ryan, S. (2010). Let’s get them out of the country! Reflecting on the value of international immersion experiences for MPA students. Journal of Public Affairs Education, 16(2), 307–312.

Salerno, D. (1985). An interpersonal approach to writing negative messages. JAC, 6(6), 1–12.

Sattar, H. Q. A., Sah, S. C., & Suleiman, R. R. R. (2011). Refusal strategies in English by Malay university students. GEMA: Journal of Language Studies, 11(3), 69–81.

Tanck, S. (2002) Speech acts sets of refusal and complaint: A comparison of native and non-native English speakers’ production. Paper presented at the TESL 523 Second Language Acquisition Conference.

Tardy, C. (2009). Building genre knowledge. West Lafayette, IN: Parlor Press.

Taylor, S. (2004). Model business letters, e-mails, & other business documents (6th ed.). London: Financial Times Management.

Taylor, S. (2005). Communication for business: A practical approach (4th ed.). London: Financial Times Management.

Ting-Toomey, S. (2005). The matrix of face: An updated face-negotiation theory. In W. B. Gudykunst (Ed.), Theorizing about intercultural communication (pp. 71–92). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Trompenaars, A., & Hampden-Turner, C. (1998). Riding the waves of culture: Understanding cultural diversity in global business (2nd ed.). New York: McGraw Hill.

Vásquez, C., & Fioramonte, A. (2011). Integrating pragmatics into the MA-TESL program: Perspectives from former students. TESL-JE, 15(2), n.p.

Vergaro, C. (2004). Discourse strategies of Italian and English sales promotion letters. English for Specific Purposes, 23, 181–207.

Wannaruk, A. (2008). Pragmatic transfer in Thai EFL refusals. RELC Journal, 39(3), 318–337.

Zhang, Z. (2013). Business English students learning to write for international business: What do international business practitioners have to say about their texts? English for Specific Purposes, 32(3), 144–156.


Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


 

 

 

eISSN : 2550-2247

ISSN : 0128-5157