Abstract:
There are cultural differences between Ghana and Britain. Researchers like; Dzameshi
(2001), Scollon (2000), Anderson (2009), Keleve (1995) and others argue that Ghana
is a country with a collectivistic culture and Britain an individualistic culture.
Therefore, cultural differences between Ghanaians and the British may be reflected in
speech acts; (suggestion, request, invitations and offers) that elicited refusal responses.
The study aimed to shed light on; how British and uneducated Ga differ from one
another in their direct and indirect incomparable social situations; which sociolinguistic
transfers affected educated Ga refusal responses; which politeness strategy did the
British and uneducated Ga use and which factors influenced the choice of semantic
formulae used by the British and the uneducated Ga. The present study employed
ethnographic research methodology and complemented it with the Discourse
Completion Test (DCT). One hundred and twenty-five respondents (125) participated
in the study; fifty educated Ga respondents, twenty-five British respondents, twenty five uneducated Ga respondents, fifteen Ga respondents in the focus group discussion
and ten British respondents in the focus group discussion. The findings indicated that
both British and uneducated Ga used less direct refusals, although different cultural
values influenced their decisions. Educated Ga imported the norms of speaking in
English and Ga into their responses, and this resulted in the negative pragmatic transfer
and backward pragmatic transfer. Both Ga and British perceived the face threats
inherent in the initiative act to refuse, but the British did not attend to ‘face’ in certain
situations, but the uneducated Ga attended to ‘face’ in all the situations. The semantic
formulae of the respondents were influenced by context internal and context external
factors. The findings concluded that different understanding of social situations and
cultural dimensions by British and uneducated Ga led to the cross-cultural variation in
direct and indirectness strategies. It was evident that cross-cultural differences were not
the only cause of communication conflict, but that pragmatic transfers could lead to
miscommunication (educated Ga responses). Brown and Lenvinson’s (1987) claim
that language is universal was made evident when both uneducated Ga and British used
negative politeness strategy to mitigate the illocutionary force of their refusal
responses. However, Wierzbicka (1991) counterclaim was revealed when the British
attended to ‘face’ through direct ‘on record’ strategies and the uneducated Ga did theirs
through indirect ‘on record’ strategies. Finally, context external factors and context
internal factors led to cross-situational variations of the choice of semantic formulae
used by uneducated Ga and British. The study recommends that refusal responses
should be used appropriately for discourse suitability.
Description:
A thesis in the Department of Applied Linguistics,
Faculty of Foreign Languages, submitted to the School of
Graduate Studies, in partial fulfilment for the
requirements of the award of the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
(Applied Linguistics)
in the University of Education, Winneba