An Investigation of Refusal Strategies as Used by Bahdini Kurdish and Syriac Aramaic Speakers - Pragmatic Speech Act Study

Oct 15, 2026

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The study investigates refusal strategies used by native Kurdish and Syriac Aramaic speakers when responding to offers and requests among equal-status interlocutors, emphasizing pragmatic competence and face-saving in speech acts. Using a modified Written Discourse Completion Test with six situations, 40 pre-graduate participants provided written refusals. Analysis described semantic formula frequency based on Beebe et al. (1990). Results show Syriac speakers favor indirect and adjunct strategies, Kurdish speakers favor direct and indirect more than adjunct, and gender significantly influences strategy choice and quantity.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryLiterature

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Pages13

Reading Time20 min

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Introduction

Speech Act of Refusal

Advances in Language and Literary Studies ISSN: 2203-4714 [www.alls.aiac.org.au](www.alls.aiac.org.au) | An Investigation of Refusal Strategies as Used by Bahdini Kurdish and Syriac Aramaic Speakers
Dilgash M.Shareef*, Marina Isteefan Qyrio, Chiman Nadheer Ali University of Zakho, Zakho, Duhok, Kurdistan, Iraq
Corresponding Author: Dilgash M.Shareef, E-mail: [dilgash.shareef@uoz.edu.krd](dilgash.shareef@uoz.edu.krd) | | | --- | --- | | ARTICLE INFO | ABSTRACT
For the purpose of achieving a successful communication, issues such as the appropriateness of speech acts and face saving become essential. Therefore, it is very important to achieve a high level of pragmatic competence in speech acts. Bearing this in mind, this study was conducted to investigate the preferred refusal strategies Kurdish and Syriac native speakers use when faced with offers and requests from equal status interlocutors. The current study has used a modified Written Discourse Completion Test (WDCT) consisting of six situations (three of which elicit refusals to offerings and the other three to requests). Forty subjects participated in this study: 20 native speakers ofthe Kurdish language (10 male and 10 female students) and 20 native speakers of Syriac language (10 male and 10 female students). All participants are currently pre-graduate students attending Zakho University. The participants were asked to provide written data that express their refusals to these situations. The data collected have then been analyzed descriptively according to frequency and number of occurrences of semantic formulas used by Beebe et al (1990). The results showed that a) the Syriac Native Participants (SNP)s frequently preferred indirect and adjunct strategies for refusals rather than direct ones, b) the Kurdish Native Participants (KNP)s often preferred direct and indirect strategies more than adjunct ones, c) the results also revealed that gender has a great influence on the use of refusal strategies in various ways. Finally, this study concludes that both KNPs and SNPs tended to use more strategies when refusing requests than offers whereas gender has shown to play a significant role in the choice and number of the refusal strategies used by both groups of participants. | | Article history
Received: December 11, 2017
Accepted: January 24, 2018
Published: February 28, 2018
Volume: 9 Issue: 1
Advance access: January 2018 | | | Conflicts of interest: None
Funding: None | | | Key words:
Refusal,
Kurmanji Kurdish,
Sryriac Aramaic. Speech Acts, Requests,
Semantic Formulas,
Discourse Completion Task (DCT) | | INTRODUCTION Different definitions have been given to the term of speech act. Searl (1969) defines the term as a minimal unit of discourse whereas Cohen (1995) defines it as a basic and functional unit of communication. Tanck (2003) found out that speakers tend to use various speech acts to achieve their communicative goals, including Searle’s seminal broad categories that consist of: directives (e.g. requests, commands), commissives (e.g. promises, threats), representatives (e.g. assertions, claims), declaratives (e.g. declaring war), and expressives (e.g. apologies, thanks) . The focus of this study, the speech act of refusal, belongs to the category of expressives. Speech act strategies in different languages and across a number of languages and cultures have been intensively investigated over the last thirty years. Increased attention, however, has been particularly given to the speech act of refusal as it is one of the most commonly-used speech actin everyday communication. Refusal has been investigated in various languages as Arabic (Abdul Sattar, Che Lah, & Raja Suleiman, 2010; Al-Eryani, 2007; Al-Issa, 1998, 2003; Al-Kahtani, 2005; Al-Shalawi, 1997; Morkus, 2009; Nelson, Carson, Al Batal, & El Bakary, 2002), Persian (Allami & Naeimi, 2011; Sadeghi & Savojbolaghchilar, 2011) . These studies were all aimed to

FAQs

What problem does the study address regarding communication?

It examines how speakers use refusal speech-act strategies to maintain appropriate speech and protect face, which are crucial for successful communication.

How was the study conducted?

A modified Written Discourse Completion Test with six offer/request situations was used, and 40 pre-graduate participants provided written refusals.

What did the study find about differences between Kurdish and Syriac speakers and the role of gender?

Syriac participants more often preferred indirect and adjunct refusals, while Kurdish participants preferred direct and indirect strategies over adjunct ones; gender also significantly affected the choice and number of refusal strategies.

Oct 15, 2026

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