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Mitigation in turning down business proposals across cultures: the case for pragmatic competence instruction

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 ins...

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Main Author: Antoon, Gewijde Herwig De Rycker
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Pusat Pengajian Bahasa dan Linguistik, FSSK, UKM 2014
Online Access:http://journalarticle.ukm.my/7068/1/4112-14273-1-PB.pdf
http://journalarticle.ukm.my/7068/
http://ejournals.ukm.my/3l/index
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spelling my-ukm.journal.70682016-12-14T06:43:01Z http://journalarticle.ukm.my/7068/ Mitigation in turning down business proposals across cultures: the case for pragmatic competence instruction Antoon, Gewijde Herwig De Rycker 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. Pusat Pengajian Bahasa dan Linguistik, FSSK, UKM 2014 Article PeerReviewed application/pdf en http://journalarticle.ukm.my/7068/1/4112-14273-1-PB.pdf Antoon, Gewijde Herwig De Rycker (2014) Mitigation in turning down business proposals across cultures: the case for pragmatic competence instruction. 3L; Language,Linguistics and Literature,The Southeast Asian Journal of English Language Studies., 20 (1). pp. 87-100. ISSN 0128-5157 http://ejournals.ukm.my/3l/index
institution Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
building Perpustakaan Tun Sri Lanang Library
collection Institutional Repository
continent Asia
country Malaysia
content_provider Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
content_source UKM Journal Article Repository
url_provider http://journalarticle.ukm.my/
language English
description 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.
format Article
author Antoon, Gewijde Herwig De Rycker
spellingShingle Antoon, Gewijde Herwig De Rycker
Mitigation in turning down business proposals across cultures: the case for pragmatic competence instruction
author_facet Antoon, Gewijde Herwig De Rycker
author_sort Antoon, Gewijde Herwig De Rycker
title Mitigation in turning down business proposals across cultures: the case for pragmatic competence instruction
title_short Mitigation in turning down business proposals across cultures: the case for pragmatic competence instruction
title_full Mitigation in turning down business proposals across cultures: the case for pragmatic competence instruction
title_fullStr Mitigation in turning down business proposals across cultures: the case for pragmatic competence instruction
title_full_unstemmed Mitigation in turning down business proposals across cultures: the case for pragmatic competence instruction
title_sort mitigation in turning down business proposals across cultures: the case for pragmatic competence instruction
publisher Pusat Pengajian Bahasa dan Linguistik, FSSK, UKM
publishDate 2014
url http://journalarticle.ukm.my/7068/1/4112-14273-1-PB.pdf
http://journalarticle.ukm.my/7068/
http://ejournals.ukm.my/3l/index
_version_ 1643736994266742784
score 13.211869

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