Politeness negotiation in English refusals: Evidence from Javanese EFL learners and Native Speakers of English

Abstract

This study examines how politeness is negotiated in English refusal speech acts produced by Javanese Learners of English (JLEs) and Native Speakers of English (NSEs) across situations characterized by variations in power relations and social distance. Data were collected through a set of written discourse completion tasks (WDCTs) consisting of nine scenarios representing interpersonal, academic, and professional contexts. The study employs a comparative qualitative design, with refusal strategies identified using an established taxonomy and systematically coded using Atlas.ti. The results show that refusal is consistently realized as a sequence of pragmatic moves rather than a single illocutionary act. Among JLEs, the most frequent pattern is layered mitigation, characterized by the combination of apology, appreciation, and indirectness prior to the main refusal. This pattern becomes more prominent in situations involving greater interlocutor power and greater social distance. In contrast, NSEs tend to employ concise mitigation combined with clearer expression intent, often limiting negotiation and reducing ambiguity. Indirectness in JLEs frequently functions to maintain relational harmony and prolong interactional openness, whereas in NSEs, it operates within a more bounded and situationally oriented framework. The study also revealed that direct refusal emerges selectively in equal-power relationships, with differing orientations toward politeness marking between the two groups. Theoretically, this study contributes to the literature on interlanguage pragmatics by positioning politeness in refusal as a dynamic negotiation process shaped by the interaction of cultural orientation, social variables, and sequential organization of speech. These findings highlight the need to conceptualize refusal not as a fixed strategy type but as a context-sensitive pragmatic practice.